As the weather warmed, retailers across the country said their numbers were flat or slightly up from last year’s. In the current retail economy, that’s as good as the news generally gets, as online competition continues to put pressure on brick-and-mortars to narrow margins and step up advertising strategies.
Many store owners are also considering skipping the annual Las Vegas shows, opting instead to stay home or attend smaller, more manageable events.
The New York view
In New York, Alexandra Cervellero, co-owner of Gray & Davis, said she was feeling positive about her business and its prospects. “We always believe we will have a stronger year than the year before. There has been continued interest in antiques and their stories. There’s something special and novel about a piece that has been around for more than 100 years.”
Cervellero said the rising costs of rent for brick-and-mortar stores in New York was a challenge, but that keeping up with online demands was also keeping her on her toes.
“My advice is to draw boundaries,” she said. “The internet communities will always ask for more. It’s okay only to answer the questions you feel comfortable with, and in a timeline that works for you. Clients who are really interested never mind waiting a day for an answer.”
And as for the rent: “Sign a long lease,” she advised. “As long as you can get.”
New York shoppers are currently interested in “the yoga-pant trend,” according to Cervellero: “Everything has to be able to be worn with yoga pants. Yellow-gold bangles, diamond studs, short tiny necklaces. Pieces that feel easygoing are more interesting. Jewelry is moving from a formal to a casual context overall.”
Elsewhere in America
Retailers in other parts of the country were also feeling positive about year-to-date sales figures. In Marietta, Ohio, Larry Hall, co-owner of Baker & Baker Jewelers, said the bridal and custom segments were doing especially well for him, and that as of mid-April, his business for 2019 was within 3% to 5% of the results for the same period last year.
“From an independent standpoint, that’s very good,” he said. “We seem to be perking right along, but we have peaks and valleys like anyone. Thank God, we’re not in a high-rent district where you have to do many thousands of dollars a day.”
Richard Lee Mathis, owner of Symmetry Jewelers in New Orleans, Louisiana, was also up year on year. “So far, every month has been up [from 2018],” he said. “March was a little down, because we lost almost the whole first week of the month to Mardi Gras, but we more than made up for it.”
Mathis was optimistic about the future. “The rest of this year will be better than last year,” he predicted. “And we were up last year.”
The Vegas shows
While Cervellero couldn’t guarantee she would be at JCK or any of the Las Vegas fairs, she did say she planned to attend the Original Miami Beach Antique Show. “It’s our favorite show,” she said.
Hall and his staff don’t attend the Las Vegas shows at all anymore. “It’s a little bit too big for us,” he explained. “I went a few years ago, and I was sort of overwhelmed. [JCK] is made for mega-jewelers and chain stores. Not for us.”
The majority of brands he encountered there were asking for too much of a buy-in for his store to accommodate, he said.
JCK is still important to Mathis’s business, so he plans to send two of his employees to the show this year.
“At the show last year, we picked up a couple of artists who have done really well,” he noted. “It’s good to see stuff in person. But the JCK show in Vegas has almost as many exhibitors as people going to the show, and it’s too big.”
Mathis himself doesn’t enjoy going anymore. “I used to enjoy it, even just to people-watch and see people I only see once a year,” he remarked. “But now I stay at home and let other people go. They come back and show me all the new artists they’ve found.”
Article from the Rapaport Magazine - May 2019. To subscribe click here.