Column: The Disconnect Between Customer and Jeweler
Consumers today think they are giving small retail jewelers business when they ask them to size the ring they got on the Internet. But this isn’t type of business jewelers want to be doing, retailer Jim Alperin writes.
It’s 4:15 p.m. on the last day before a long weekend and you’ve closed your store at 4 so that you and your employees can get a jump on the holiday. Retailer Jim Alperin owns James Alperin Jewelers in Pepper Pike, Ohio.
You’ve posted a sign on the door that reads, “We will close at four p.m. today. Have a wonderful holiday.”
You’re busy empting the showcases and stacking trays in the safe when suddenly, someone is pulling on the locked door.
You have pangs of guilt for having closed early but yet, what the heck is someone doing shopping at a jewelry store at 4:15 today? The thought that maybe he wants to get engaged tonight momentarily pops into your head.
So, you cautiously approach the door; he might be there to rob you so you don’t want to get too close. You call out in a loud voice, “I’m sorry we’re closed but how may I help you?” The man looks at you in disgust, thinking you are lower than dirt for being closed when he wants to come into your store. That look alone has almost ruined your holiday weekend; you try so hard every day to please everyone who comes into your store, and now someone seems to hate you.
The customer turns and starts to walk away, angry with you and your store, surely he’ll never shop with you again. You approach the door as he walks toward his car, you tap the door loudly so he can hear you and you yell, “What is it that I may help you with?” You are trying desperately to save your lost reputation and make that last sale before the long weekend.
He raises his left arm in a jesture that by now we all recognize and know the meaning of--“I need a battery for my watch.” Shattered, disgusted and angry you now yell back through the glass, “Sorry we’re closed,” and turn back into your store to finish pulling the cases.
The problem is that the “customer” thinks he is doing business with you when he brings his watch in for a battery and feels slighted when you can’t take care of his need immediately. We live in a technological world where instant is the norm. If one’s computer takes an extra minute to perform a function, we’re on the edge
of our chairs and moving the mouse around trying to speed up the thing.
Meanwhile, the retailer thinks he is doing a service for the customer and doesn’t think the watch battery is business at all. Selling a diamond pendant or earrings, ah, now that’s business.
There is a “disconnect” between the person coming to your store and you, the retailer.
Every retailer knows stories about jewelry stores that have gone out of business and people coming to their going-out-of-business sale and saying, “I’m going to miss you. You were the only jeweler I ever went to.” Yet the jeweler can’t remember one thing that they ever bought from the store other than watch batteries.
The gap, this disconnect, between the service customer and the retail jeweler is large and growing.
In today’s Internet and big-box discount store world, the small retail jeweler has a reputation for giving good service. When people buy elsewhere, they know where to come to shorten the band on their new watch or size the ring they got on the Internet.
Years ago, that service would have developed a relationship and engendered a sense of loyalty on the customer’s part.
Today, it doesn’t, and service alone does not generate enough volume to pay the rent, employees, insurance and utilities for a modern retail establishment.
The retail disconnect is there and it’s our job to bridge it if we are to continue to grow and prosper.
Retailer Jim Alperin owns James Alperin Jewelers in Pepper Pike, Ohio. He can be reached atalpjewel@aol.com.
James Alperinwas the owner and operator of James Alperin Jewelers in Pepper Pike, Ohio for more than 30 years. He is now retired.
