Ruth Batson

Our Industry Needs a New Generation of Jewelers
November 10, 2006

I’d like to first say welcome and hello to all of you and also congratulate the JCK team on their innovation and courage in building this forum for our industry! The American Gem Society is a 73-year young organization dedicated to building “deserved” trust in our industry.We do this by setting very high standards for our members. On average, our retail members have been in business over 55 years and 94% are multi-generational family owned operations. We serve the bread and butter of the jewelry industry – the independent.

In the September 06 issue of JCK magazine, State of the Industry Report, it was reported that other retail categories are sophisticated and fun to shop, and jewelry stores are not. In fact, our industry scored a “C” overall by consumers for their jewelry shopping experience. And, recently, additional statistics have been released about independents that indicate that the net number of independent jewelry stores that are disappearing per year has accelerated and is now about 600 per year. “OUCH!”

Tom Peters, noted business guru, makes the following observation about independents in the Report, “First of all, an exceptionally high share of profitable independent jewelry stores is owned by older people. I’ve never seen any industry with the age distribution of jewelry stores. It’s absolutely astonishing how many are 80-year old family businesses with 57-year-old men in charge.” In my opinion, Tom has hit on a huge challenge for our industry. We are not recruiting enough young people into retail jewelry careers. We need more younger generation jewelers with a passion to stay in the family business, people who can bring the need for change and innovation to our industry. As custodians of our industry, this should be a concern to all of us, because it may be that it’s not just the jewelry shopping experience that has ceased to be fun…

Posted by Ruth Batson on November 10, 2006 | Comments (3)