Signet Jewelers, Zales, Costco, Sam’s Club, Target and Wal-Mart are a huge force in the jewelry industry. This is not only because their stores are staples in most malls and towns across the U.S., but also because they attract a wide range of jewelry buyers. After all, it is not just the low-end consumers who buy jewelry at these stores. Even affluents, who are more price conscious than ever, regularly shop at these retailers. The American Affluence Research Center’s “22nd Fall Affluent Market Tracking Study,” which was released in October 2012, defines affluents as those with an annual average household income over $285,000. The retailers of choice for affluent shoppers included Costco, the top choice of 68 percent of those surveyed, and Target, which came in at 63 percent. Yet even for the affluent shoppers who aren’t price conscious, these retailers offer a wide variety of luxury jewelry items in price points as high as $100,000. Many of them come with the same perks found at luxury jewelry stores, including lab certifications, financing arrangements and jewelry insurance policies. These major retailers also have a huge online consumer audience — in the holiday shopping months of November 2012 and December 2012, for example, digital metric firm comScore ranked Walmart.com the 19th-most-visited website with 52.2 million unique visitors and Target.com as the 28th-most-visited website with 37.4 million unique visitors. Zales’ website saw a 32 percent increase year on year to 2.3 million unique visitors during that same period, slightly ahead of the website for Kay Jewelers, a part of the Signet family, which saw a 43 percent increase to 2.2 million unique visitors. Aside from Zales and Signet Jewelers, jewelry sales on average account for less than 10 percent of most of these retailers’ annual sales. But given the number and variety of jewelry items they offer, their reach across the U.S. and their purchasing clout, along with their strengths in service, affordability and digital retail, these retailers are not to be underestimated in the jewelry and diamond market. Their growth during the recent fiscal year positions them to expand their jewelry business in an effort to become the consumer’s jeweler-of-choice in each location in which they operate.
Article from the Rapaport Magazine - June 2013. To subscribe click here.