RAPAPORT... One of the keys to bringing in estate jewelry customers, states Kimberley Thompson, estate buyer, J.B. Hudson Jewelers, Minneapolis, Minnesota, is to help them see estate jewelry as “portable, collectible, beautiful, detailed, luscious pieces of art that you can put on your body.”
Thompson does two hour-and-a-half training sessions twice a year with her staff. Even if history isn’t their thing, if they can put it in context, they can sell it, she says, comparing the seminars to the product training done by high-end watch companies.
You need to connect the jewelry with the client, says Thompson. “You’re offering something that can’t be shopped. You’re offering something that has messages. You’re offering something that has history. And you’re offering it to a client for purchasing, unlike a museum where they look at it through an inch of glass.”
Sharing this passion can make all the difference, agrees Janet Levy, principal, J. & S.S. DeYoung, Inc., New York City. “Someone has to personally love it, that’s what really puts it over.” The enthusiasm and interest of individuals in the product will contribute to selling success.
Putting it in Perspective“It’s such a challenging, intellectually interesting adventure,” says Jim Rosenheim, chief executive officer (CEO), Tiny Jewel Box, Washington, D.C. “Think about the jewelry not as an item but as an accessory that was worn at a particular point in time. The most important thing to me about vintage jewelry is the context within which the piece of jewelry occurs.”
“It’s teaching employees what a good piece feels like,” says Thompson. “I tell people, ‘Shut your eyes, feel the back of it, how the back is finished and ajoured and thrummed. Feel how all the mechanisms move beautifully, feel how there’s no pronginess, feel the three-dimensionalism — it’s not a flat, static piece.’ When they start doing that and running some of those beautiful old chains and bracelets through their fingers and they can feel that detail — suddenly, they get it.”
For the same reason, you need to make your display case client-accessible, Thompson says. “I put my white goods together because I like that look, I like that pop of intense white. I also group the gold jewelry by category and by age. But if I have a collection of very pretty turquoise enameling and it encompasses Victorian pieces and an Art Nouveau piece and a couple of great pieces from the sixties, I’m going to put them together just for the impact.”
The important thing, Thompson says, is “to get in there, love up your jewelry, move it around and you will be surprised what helps sell the jewelry. It’s the story you tell in the case. I have clients touch, feel, experience all of that. I explain to them how hard it is to do, how hard it was to make that piece that they are holding in their hands. And that it was done with tools from a hundred years ago.”
Getting StartedOne way to start an estate department, advises Stuart Singer, Stephen Singer, Inc., estate jewelry dealer in New York City, is to buy gold over the counter. “In this market, anybody can say ‘We buy gold.’ They can build that up to jewelry and diamonds. It’s amazing how much more you learn when you actually put your money on the table.”
Let your market know that this is something you do, counsels Eric Bitz, vice president, David & Company, a retailer/Swan & Company, a wholesaler in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. “Create awareness that you are buying jewelry and what it is that you want to buy. Once the market knows, the pieces will find their way to you. The more you deal with people, the better the feel you get for it, creating more opportunity for your business.”
“Everyone has to look at who their client is and what price range they are in and what they like and buy based on that,” says Benjamin Macklowe of the Macklowe Gallery, New York City. “It’s an extension of whatever business you’re already in. It can’t be completely separate. It has to reflect your values, your customer base and your sense of taste. I think a mistake a lot of people make when they try to develop an estate section is they don’t really know what they like and they just buy scattershot. I think it’s much more important to have it focused on things that you think are really beautiful, whatever price range they’re in.”
And most importantly, continues Macklowe, “don’t buy by name alone. I’d much rather buy an exquisitely made piece of unsigned jewelry than a Cartier love bracelet. As a retailer, there’s much more room to differentiate yourself by having things that nobody else has that shows that you understand what makes a piece of jewelry better.”
Levy agrees. This business, she says, involves “a little more labor-intensive learning. But it gives jewelers a chance to really put their own mark on something. If you’re a jeweler and you just carry the same lines as the jeweler in the next town and the next town, and everybody’s carrying the same jewelry, what makes you different? What would make a customer come into your store versus someone else’s store?” Estate jewelry, she notes, offers something “unique.”
“You have to pick things up and handle them and look at them,” says Rosenheim. “The best instruments that you have in evaluating things are your eyes. You have to develop a good acuity, to be able to look at something and understand what it is and, relative to the quality scale for that item, decide whether it is a fabulous piece, mediocre or a poor piece, not just that it’s old.”
“ The estate market mixes history and beauty and personal stories into a wonderful soup that new jewelry doesn’t have,” sums up Thompson. “It’s a great passion.”
Article from the Rapaport Magazine - August 2009. To subscribe click here.