Do shoppers enjoy coming to your store?

Last week, I attended the Rapaport Diamond Conference, which concluded with an interesting discussion on the Kimberley Process.

While my original article focused on that--journalists are suckers for a good debate--I felt I'd be remiss not to mention another topic that caught my attention during this all-day extravaganza: Other retailers leave jewelry stores in the dust when it comes to providing a relaxing and enjoyable shopping experience for consumers.

This is especially detrimental in an industry that's asking consumers to drop at least hundreds--more normally thousands--of dollars per purchase.

And while I hate to beat a dead horse, as this is a topic this magazine has covered time and again, it's probably worth mentioning at least one more time.

Just ask Chris and C.K.

--Chris Ellis, president of Consensus Advisors, talked about how jewelry stores are unnecessarily filled to the brim with product.

Ellis is definitely a man who understands where jewelry stores go awry. His Boston-based investment banking and financial advisory firm has been front and center for some of the industry’s most high-profile meltdowns in recent years, including L.I.D. Ltd. and Friedman’s Jewelers.

What he said, essentially, is that retailers need to quit worrying about filling every square inch of their showrooms with display cases--which are then, of course, packed with goods they don't actually own and have no motivation to sell--and put something different in their store, like a bar or children's play area.

Don't think anybody will sit at the bar and it'll be a waste of your time and money?

Talk to Cathy Calhoun at Calhoun Jewelers in Pennsylvania or Jeff Weiss at Glennpeter Jewelers in upstate New York.

Cathy Calhoun told me she's been getting tons of calls about how she set up her bar (pictured here), whether or ot people use it, etc., since the article on her space ran in our September issue.

(Sorry I can't provide you with a link; that story's not up on our site yet, but the Glennpeter story was an online exclusive you can check out here.) 

--C.K. Venkatraman, of Indian retailer Tanishq, questioned whether or not jewelry stores both in India and the United States were doing enough to keep up with the increasingly interactive