The 4Cs are not the only things that make a piece of diamond jewelry a sales winner. In an ongoing series, Rapaport Diamond Report explores the “3Ws” — what’s selling, what’s not and why — by going straight to the people who really know — jewelry retailers. Each month, we ask a sampling of retailers to comment on the important issues that are facing the industry today. Here is what they had to say when asked in early April: Do you plan to attend the Las Vegas shows this year and if so, what are you looking for?
JUSTIN MAY, GENERAL MANAGER
BREMER JEWELRY
PEORIA, ILLINOIS
“Yes, we are going. We plan on being out there the whole time. We really go to the shows more to take advantage of shopping with new vendors. We try to set most or all of our appointments for our existing vendors before the show.
“We are planning to buy and right now we’re focused quite a bit on bridal. We’re actually looking into wedding bands right now; we’re trying to expand a little bit in that department. And this year, we’ve seen a pretty nice turn in colored stone business, which had been a bit sluggish the past four-plus years. We had a lot of requests for that at Christmas last year. So we’re going to focus on trying to beef that up a little.”
BARRY KESSLER, OWNER
KESSLER JEWELERS
BURBANK CALIFORNIA
“I’m still up in the air about Vegas this year. If I do go, it might be to work on my technical stuff. Last year, I saw a desktop system called Digital Goldsmith, where you could design rings. They’ve teamed up with Stullar and come up with what I think is a fantastic tool for jewelers to use. That kind of thing is what I’d be looking into. I’ve got lots of merchandise. To go and expand and buy more would be counterproductive for me.”
BRITTANY ADAIR, CO-OWNER
ROMANCE DIAMOND COMPANY JEWELERS
FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS
“I am planning to go to the Vegas shows and also the InStore show in Chicago. I presently don’t have a very large budget for Vegas because I’m still sitting on quite a bit of inventory left over from ’09. But I did not go to Basel this year and I am planning on meeting with my watch vendors at Vegas. And I am going to make appointments with probably five or ten new vendors that I would like to eventually do business with. I just don’t think I’m going to be adding anything new this year. We have a lot of fashion presently in the store and probably not enough bridal, but bridal is always so expensive, it’s hard to stock.”
MARK HAYDEN, OWNER
HAYDEN JEWELERS
LIVERPOOL, NEW YORK
“I’m planning to go and I’m planning to buy. I’m looking for new vendors — probably in the bridal area. I’m looking for higher-end vendors…something definitely different, not the same thing everybody is selling.”
DAVID LONG, PRESIDENT
LONG JEWELERS
VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA
“We didn’t go the past two years but we are going to Vegas this year. I have no idea what I’ll be doing there; some stock balancing with some of the companies — Tacori, Simon G., Ritani — with whom we have relationships that we’ve built over the years. We’re going to be shifting gears more toward bridal. We’re big in bridal. And we’ll be looking for some new ideas, new vendors, as well. But we’re not going to be spending a whole lot. We’re being very careful.”
JIM WATTERS, PRESIDENT
BRUCE WATTERS INC
ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
“We are not going. We stay really busy and I can’t close down for a week to go to the show. We have a nice inventory and a history of a lot of good people we do business with. And we have all sorts of new people who come in to see us, and we discover some new things that way, too.”
GRETCHEN BRAUNSCHWEIGER, CO-OWNER
BRAUNSCHWEIGER JEWELERS
MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY
“We don’t go to the Vegas shows…never have. We have access to so many vendors that are either in this area or come to this area on a regular basis that there really hasn’t been a need.”
SANDE CULHANE, DIAMOND BUYER
CECIL’S FINE JEWELRY
LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS
“We are attending the Vegas shows. It’s a good opportunity for us to see vendors that we use who don’t necessarily come to do site visits. We do a lot of fill-in of inventory and we do the bulk of our holiday-season orders. The only thing we don’t do at that show is loose goods.
“And we’re always looking for new vendors — things change and something that was dynamite for us a year or two ago may not necessarily play any more. We’re always changing stuff up. I think that’s why when other stores were experiencing the lowest traffic counts they had ever had, we were hiring. Fortunately, we’re very busy. We try to be a store that is not stuffy; we try to be very friendly to everybody and to everybody’s budget. We have items in the store for $60 and a thousand times that.”
ED MENK, OWNER
E.L. MENK JEWELERS
BRAINERD, MINNESOTA“I’m not going to Vegas, I’m going to the Smart Show, the InStore show. Basically, I’ll be doing a little bit of buying for replacement, a little bit of buying for new ideas and checking out new vendors to see what’s available and what the trends are and finding things that suit our long-term needs. We might pick up a few unique things for the holidays but nothing too much. We do not balloon our inventory for the holidays; we do a static inventory.”
Article from the Rapaport Magazine - May 2010. To subscribe click here.