The good old days, gone by quickly

We’re living in a time not unlike the Industrial Revolution, with the speed of change making many long-standing professions obsolete. Jewelers have to adapt or they’ll be done, retailer and columnist Jim Alperin writes.

Michelle Graff michelle.graff@nationaljeweler.com

Retailer Jim Alperin owns James Alperin Jewelers in Pepper Pike, Ohio. He can be reached at alpjewel@aol.com.

If you’ve had the pleasure of being in the jewelry business as long as I have, since the mid-1970s, you probably remember “the good old days,” the days about which you now get to bore your children and grandchildren, telling them stories of life before the Internet and big-box retailers.

Those were the days when people shopped at the jewelry store for jewelry, the local drug store for medicines and sundries, book stores for books, stationary stores for paper, optical stores for glasses, etc. Those were the days when your neighbor owned the store down the street and you supported their business and they knew you by name when you walked in the door.

Wait, let me bore you further; I don’t have any children or grandchildren to annoy with my stories.

There was a day when people trusted their jeweler like they trusted their doctor. Your parents shopped at a certain jewelry store and, when it came time for you to buy that all-important engagement ring, mom or dad took you by the hand to meet their jeweler and help you spend your money on a beautiful diamond ring. Those were the days before diamonds were commoditized into categories that now make shopping for a diamond not that much different than shopping for a Ford.

But, that’s enough indulgence in memories. The past is gone and it’s a new world with mega-stores, multi-thousand-location store chains and the Internet selling the product that once defined our industry. The world as it is today is here to stay, at least until the next great change.

We are living during the technology revolution, what will be looked at in history as one of the seismic shifts in the world of business.

Looking back in time, we can see that life really hadn’t changed much for people for thousands of years before the discovery of electricity. If you had been born in the year 400 or the year 1400, you cooked on a wood fire, heated your home with wood, went outside to use the bathroom and took a bath once or twice a year. The Industrial Revolution marked a point in history when electricity gave us light, gas heated our homes and gave us the ability to put the horse in the barn and drive a car. It put the ice man out of business and did

Banner will be right here …

the same to the guy who ran the livery stable.

People who had good jobs, the only jobs they had known for a lifetime, suddenly found themselves out of work, not because they did a poor job but because with little warning, their jobs were no longer needed by a society that had changed, seemingly overnight. A thousand years of shoeing horses and within a short period of time, everyone wanted to drive a car.

One day, people will look back on our time as one of the great revolutions of society. It is a time when what had been a fine way to make a living for hundreds of years suddenly became obsolete because of the technology revolution. The local shop owner, the small wholesale business, businesses that have taken care of families for generations are beginning to disappear.

Not sure that it’s happening? Ask your children if they want your parents fine china, silver flatware or crystal stemware. Oh yes, the next generation still fights over grandma’s treasures but today it isn’t “I want Grandma’s china.” It’s “I don’t want it, you take it,” “No way, I don’t want it, you take it.” What about your mother’s yellow gold peridot and diamond brooch? Try giving that to the kids!

Adjusting to the new reality in which we live is going to be painful to many of us in the jewelry industry. Some will survive and flourish as they learn to integrate the technology age into their businesses. Others, well, others will suffer the fate of the farrier who couldn’t or wouldn’t learn how to change tires and pump gas. If you want your business to remain for the next generation to take over and grow, change is the watchword of the future.

Remember, there was a day when the local jeweler sold toasters and shavers--change isn’t new for our industry, it’s just happening much faster than in the past.

The “good old days” are nothing more than the past; they’re fun to remember but it’s time to come into the modern day and accept the challenges of the new reality of our industry.

Retailer Jim Alperin owns James Alperin Jewelers in Pepper Pike, Ohio. He can be reached at alpjewel@aol.com.

Michelle Graffis the editor-in-chief at National Jeweler, directing the publication’s coverage both online and in print.