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How Are You Promoting Holiday Sales?
By Phyllis Schiller
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: “What special events and promotions, special merchandise are you planning to help drive holiday sales?”
“It’s been a roller-coaster of a year. I feel very positive for the moment. Right now, I’m running ahead for the year, so I’m very blessed for that. Unique, high-fashion items, even expensive items, are still selling if they’re very unusual. And of course, bridal is always good.
“I will have a couple of trunk shows and a rather large Christmas party. We send out formal, hand-addressed invitations to a couple thousand people. And then about a week before, we actually call every one of them and invite them personally. I’ve done that for many, many years and I do very well at that but it’s a lot of work. All year long, we do wish lists that can be emailed with examples of pieces.
“In terms of merchandise, I’ve put more color back into my cases because I saw a trend going that way again. Lately, I’ve sold fancy color diamonds — natural pinks, natural blues; yellows have quieted down. I’m still selling diamond slices — all of a sudden there’s new interest in them. Diamond bangles are back again; I sold six recently. What I look for is something unusual, not just the traditional piece of jewelry that can be found everywhere.”
“I’m hoping to do a diamond stud promotion. And I’ll be doing Facebook, emailing, social media, my website. Whether I do a postal service mailing is to be determined. The past few have not been worth their weight in stamps. Wish lists are ongoing year-round. We will have a Ladies Night. And we hope to repeat our Scotch and the Rocks promotion, where customers can have a taste of fine scotch and snacks and view diamonds.”
“Last year, we did really well with diamond earring jackets to enhance studs, so we have an earring jacket promotion for 2016. We just took on a designer called Shy Creation. They work with single-cut diamonds but they’re set very well and they have really big looks for a lower price point. We do a lot of bridal, so we’re always keeping loose diamonds in stock. We also have the newer kind of illusion setting for tennis bracelets that is amazing. It looks like you have three times the size of your diamonds. So it’s a good price point.
“We’ll do a Ladies Night in mid-November and we’re also considering doing a VIP night centered around a campaign for our local Ravens quarterback. We are going to do some really competitive gift counting in our holiday mailer — such as $500 off $2,000 or more. It usually winds up being about 20 percent off. We’ll be promoting our events on social media. We also have an extensive amount of jewelry on our website, so we’re also highlighting those pieces of jewelry, too.”
“In early November, I’ll be taking a trip to Antwerp. I presell the diamonds before I go and work on a slightly lower margin because I don’t have to carry them in inventory. I get a feel for what the client wants in terms of shape, color, carat and so on and basically guarantee to meet or beat what we discuss as costs.
“We have our Gem Round Table in mid-November, where 12 to 20 customers can view gems brought in by one of our dealers. We serve wine and champagne. The stones are passed around and people can put ‘dibbs’on the ones they like and at the end of the evening they have the opportunity to purchase them. I’ve had people come back with pretty large custom orders for the stones, $4,000 or $5,000 rings. While we mostly do emails, we are sending out a holiday mailer with $50 to $100 gift cards to our top clients. No strings attached — it’s an outright gift.”
“We have events and showings. We’ll do ads in newspapers, local magazines and send out postcards. We have Wednesday events, Thursday events and Saturday events. Gold jewelry is big, the small, layered necklaces, thing like that. Hopefully, we’ll sell a lot of diamonds.”
“We’re doing some bridal events during the holiday and there will be some sales. And we are sending out postcards with snap-outs that have dollar values on them to entice customers to come in and shop. They were pretty successful in 2015. We’re always doing something on social media, every couple of days. One of the collections we carry, Shy Creation, has been hot. It’s very trendy price-point fashion jewelry.”Article from the Rapaport Magazine - November 2016. To subscribe click here.
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