Changing times, and the growing wealth gap

of customers coming through your door to sell as much product as jewelers used to sell in the glory days of the industry, shortly after World War II and beyond.

The Internet has given the public free information and it has become expected that today’s brick-and-mortar merchants will disseminate information for free as well. So, when a customer comes into a store they want to know all the details of where something has been made, what the materials used are and does it come longer, shorter, wider or thinner? The amount of time that it takes to sell a piece of costume jewelry or silver jewelry is often longer than it is to sell a piece of fine jewelry. It just doesn’t pay. We now spend thirty minutes or more selling a $50 item, assuming the sale is made, in an industry with expenses that require us to sell much more expensive items to survive. 

Would your attorney sit with you in his expensive office for 30 minutes and then say, “You owe me $50?” It would be more like $300. Yes, of course there is the possibility that the customer will come back because you gave them good service and they may make a purchase from you in the future, but how often has that happened? How many times have you shortened a watchband on a new watch purchased on the Internet only to have that customer come back two weeks later with another watch from the Internet asking you to shorten that one as well? After all, you did such a good job on the first one and you didn’t charge too much.

Jewelers need to sell fine jewelry to survive and I’m afraid those days are waning. We went into this industry because those before us made a good living selling a product unlike any other, one that we love. The feel, the look, the finish, the color, the luxury of real jewelry is like no other. 

Are you looking for the answer on this page? I wish I had it. Art work and exceptional jewels are selling at record prices at auction to the wealthy but most of us don’t have the financial ability to stock 20 diamonds at $1 million each. That’s why we lean on our suppliers but, even if we could afford that inventory, there are few stores outside of major world cities that have the clientele for those kinds of goods. So there we remain caught between the rich and the poor and inventorying more fashion jewelry and silver.

Stay tuned, let’s see where this ride is taking us.