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Cover
Retail Rap
By Phyllis Schiller
| | Sara Weinstock |
The 4Cs are not the only things that make a piece of diamond jewelry a sales winner. In an ongoing series, Rapaport Magazine 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: “How did this year’s holiday sales compare to 2013? Have you started seeing shoppers?”
“2013 was great, but this year was over the top — we’re up 25 percent for the whole year. What I attribute this to is not carrying designer lines, making our own jewelry, going direct to Bangkok and Chanthaburi, Thailand, and buying my own gemstones and doing everything in house. And we ended up with a 10 percent increase over last year in December alone.
“People were spending money on quality pieces. We’ve always done our engagement rings and things like that this time of year, but what a lot of people were spending decent money on was really high-end color, sapphire and even tourmaline. Maybe it’s the story behind it, that I go there and buy the stones direct from the cutters. And the prices are also much better than buying the designer lines. Our margins were up 15 percent over when I used to carry designer lines.”
“Last year was a particularly good year because there were several out-of-the-ordinary sales, so it was a little bit skewed in terms of the average year. If you take those out of the equation, I think we’re going to have what I would have considered an average season this year — nothing stellar but nothing disappointing either. The volume of people through was probably larger but the price points were a little bit lower. We sold a lot of Frédéric Duclos and Colore/SG. We sold several nice engagement rings during the course of the month, but nothing out of the ordinary. I think we are trending up in engagement rings, it’s just dialing in exactly to where we need to be inventory-wise to have the merchandise on hand or readily available.”
“We had a great holiday season; we were ahead of last year. We found people were trying to stretch their dollar by buying smaller gifts. We sold a lot of morganite jewelry this year. In terms of diamonds, small trapeze necklaces and figure eight necklaces sold. It wasn’t a big stud season, it was mainly under 1-carat total weight. And then we sold a ton of diamond jackets for earrings, a lot of stud enhancements.
“We have a really large estate department and that brought a lot of people in this year. Art Deco seemed to be what people gravitated to; it seems to have more of that timeless look that is popular right now.”
“We had a fabulous year, one for the record book. What causes us to be successful year in and year out is the loyalty of our community. There wasn’t one particular thing but we stepped up our marketing this year and it worked: We used a local radio celebrity Hallerin Hilton Hill. We also targeted the university, advertising in their football programs and on the kiss cam at basketball games. Yellow gold was popular this year.”
“We were pretty even with 2013. What sold were the basics — studs, more classic pieces. And we did a lot more color this year, more so than ever before, as far as sapphires, rubies, emeralds; mostly designer pieces like Tacori, Precision Set. Our diamond sales in terms of carat weight were probably up but as far as volume goes, they were a little bit down. But color was up, so no complaints.”
“We are about 8 percent over last holiday season. Custom orders were very strong. Pandora brought a lot of new clients. More people were buying lower-priced items — there was a slight increase in that category.
“We had a pretty strong December in diamond sales. I see more of that continuing into 2015. And more custom orders. It’s usually remounting sentimental diamonds or gold, family heirlooms. Clients really love that. It’s a pretty strong category for us.”
“The traffic was comparable to 2013. We didn’t sell as much of the bigger, bigger items but we sold a lot more in the $5,000 to $6,000 range. We also did a lot of bridal, which was different for December — bigger stones and a lot of the designers like Tacori and Verragio, as opposed to generic. We custom made a lot of the engagement rings, as well. We sold a lot more yellow gold this year. Sapphires were hot; we sold a lot of blue sapphires.”
“We are 11 percent ahead of 2013, which was a good year, so I’m very excited. My male customers, who come in at the last hour and usually spend $5,000 or $6,000, this year were spending $1,000 or $2,000. So I had to do a lot more sales to create the volume. And then we had some really big sales that put the numbers through the roof. It was either lower end or very high end, not as much in the middle of the road.
“I had a lot to sell in my estate jewelry this year. And then some over-the-top designer pieces sold. Way over the top, for instance a 300-carat-weight diamond necklace with natural colored diamond briolettes. And we sold a good many of my own diamond label, larger, ideal cut diamonds, 2 carats to 4 carats. A lot of my older customers stepped up to give their wives a bigger diamond.”Article from the Rapaport Magazine - January 2015. To subscribe click here.
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