I have customers coming in all the time or emailing me from my ebay store(I had one just this morning) asking me what are you willing take for this piece. I am sure you can do better than that. What is the botom line? This drives me crazy. I do not have a lot of sales, my prices in my store and online are what sale prices would be all year. During the holidays, I will have a sale, and that is usually it and I only offer maybe 10-20% off at most. When customers ask me I tell them, that I don't run sales because my prices are already where they need to be all year round. They question me all the time, why do you do that? How can you compete with the Jared's and Kays and so on, when they have sales literally every month and for every holiday? I tell them, I am competing with them, but I don't have to have a sale all the time to do it. I tell them, my prices and styles are very competitive and the reason I do not have sales is because I don't want you to think of my store, the same way you think of all of them and that usually gets them thinking. I sell very lean as it is and probably 90% of my customers ask me about sales and try to negotiate on pricing and that drives me crazy. YES WE ARE RUINING OUR OWN IMAGES! Common sense is how can a store run a 50-75% off sale? Common sense answer, they mark their prices up to still get what they want and make it seem like a deal. I like the way I do business and I usually close on average 98.5% of my sales, and the ones who leave usually come back after shopping those "sales" and that makes my selling around 100%. I tell my customers to go and compare prices and pieces and quality. I even tell them what the color and clarity and grade of the diamonds and gemstones are so they know what they are comparing. I have nothing to hide and I want them to know and know what to ask and I and more importantly, the customer wins in the end!

I completely agree with Dana Jewellers and with Shanu. Even in Scottsdale, AZ - EVERYTHING that Dana Marie Jewellers says is true. Sadly, it seems our clients here won't buy unless they feel they are 'driving a bargain' and I believe it is because they keep seeing the sales at all times of the year.
I also understand that it is a competitive business, and that 'sales' are a necessary part of it, but somehow the consumer needs to understand that the big chains buy in bulk and therefore are able to reduce their starting prices, where as we small independents are stuck - because of this I tend to specialise in coloured stones and unique jewellery from around the world, but when my customer sees a beautiful blue ceylon sapphire, they immediately think of "their friend in the sapphire business" or a.n.other and feel that my prices are overly inflated. But what can we do about it? IF I am lucky enough for an 'educated buyer' to come in, then its an easy sell, as they are familiar with quality and price, but the average member of the public is just bombarded with the wrong idea. YES, WE ARE RUINING OUR OWN IMAGES.

people in the jewelry business have been ruining their image for a very long time. we are poor marketers of our product lines, with a few exceptions such as yurmam. we have few identifiable brands like leather goods have. most can spot a louis vutton, prada, coach, dooney & burke, etc bag and immediately know the brand, the expense and the quality. because of that immediate recognition and cache that accompanies it, affluent women have no problem spending upwards of $1000 on a handbag. do you hear them question the markup in that category? maybe, but certainly not like they do in jewelry. those companies have taken a long term approach, and invested considerable time and money in developing the brand recognition. in our industry, we are dealing with virtually all private label product that is unrecognizable by the most of the public, again with few exceptions.
since the aforementioned leather goods companies have developed their brand, they certainly dont want to damage it by offering promotional sales. they also understand that once the customer gets conditioned to frequent sales, it does not take long until they are not buying unless there is a sale...General Motors has yet to learn this lesson.
we as an industry should learn from what other consumer product industries have done to increase their profit margins over the years. afterall, we are competing for the same discretionary income dollars. has anyone noticed that $250 jeans have been a mainstream fashion for several years now? we need to recondition your customers by differentiating from all the low end promotional sale retailers, offering quality product at a competitive price, and offering Great Service. Sounds pretty simple, yet not many actually do it.

Old discussion....new day. Independant jewelers have been complaining for years about the 50% off sales etc. usually promoted by chain and big box retailers. Our industry has done nothing to curtail this practice. So as a small independant I have to keep re-inventing myself to compete on this very uneven playing field. ....and so it goes

In response to: The Huge Mark-Up on Jewelry!

Pat: I am a new retailer and I find this information very useful. I do agree with all the comments made, and I must say I do get a little nervous about the business because of this. How can the "little man" survive with this type of sales/marketing being advertised so often. Of couse people are going to think our jewelry has a hugh mark up, people are not crazy. I hope jewelry industry understands the damage it has done. Thank you

EDUCATION of customers seems to work best for me. As an independent jeweler, I have taken the time to make my EDGE one of educating my customers to make smart choices. They appreciate that and price is never an issue. They know that I offer a fair price...not the cheapest price in town, but certainly not what the larger chain stores are charging, even at sale prices. They also know that apples must be compared with apples. I do agree that, as an industry, we have hurt ourselves; but I believe we have done so by making price the focus of attention rather than telling the customer the story behind the jewelry they love to wear.

Your neighbor has a good point and the industry is digging its own
grave. Jewelry these days is being sold/advertised as fruits in a fruit
market. I consider those types of advertising scams: Retail price
$10,000, Our price $1,000, you save $9,000!. Rarely I see any Internet
website that does not have such kind of huge discounts. This site fameo.co.uk
although not having much of to choose from,
offer one price (maybe they will follow the trend of giving discounts I
don't know). Bottom line, in my opinion, jewelry should be sold with no
discounts and at fair prices. I don't think Cartier, Van Cleef, Chopard
et al will give such discounts to their jewelry. Unfortunately this is
happening because there is too much junk jewelry out there and the
competition is so high that consumers are confused with prices. I once saw a
retailer/wholesaler advertising a bunch of jewelry in a bowl with a fork
and knife and banner saying: it is so cheap, have it with catchup. You
figure out the rest....

As was said, old story, new day. We wrote about this over 10 years ago in JCK. Very little was done then. JVC, state attorney's, even local "consumer advocates" have done little to nothing to help correct the problem. The consumer will believe what they want to believe, unless, we are able to educate them in a way that they will believe. Small, independents will even believe that the majors and department stores have put the same price on the jewelry as they have and will sell "50% to 70% off." Sure, Penney's and Kohl's have been slapped with fines but you still see the phony discounts continue. The deception will continue until the penalties are severe and the lies are exposed to the masses. I had one customer buy a diamond from Service Merchandise as they were going out of business and tried to tell me the diamond was worth $5000. When I held her diamond next to my $4500 diamond, she stated, "I guess I didn't get a $5000 diamond."

We separate ourselves with exceptional service, higher quality jewelry, fair pricing and are able to show our customers the differences of our jewelry compared with some of what's out there. Most are appreciative and will buy. Some will only want the low price and will accept the lower quality, even though, they won't admit to the fact that the quality is lower. Our local farm market has a sign that states, "We don't mind if someone sells their produce for a lower price. The really know what it's worth." The quality and service driven stores will succeed. We need to decide what each of us will do.

I have been in the business since 1973 so it has been a few years I go to Las
Vegas show every year enjoy it very much Take in as many seminars as I can and I am quite baffled by our industry I have a small business with 4 goldsmiths and we do alot of custom work. My question IS ...I have friends who are business owners in the Draperies & Blinds. At least twice a year they go on a wonderful Vacation paid for by the Mfg. re Suppliers. Last year my friend brought me along to the Atlantis in the Bahamas all expense trip. Very Posh and expensive!! All paid for.. They are leaving for Venice June 1st for 2 weeks all expense paid for 2 people. My other very good friend owns an autobody shop, again goes on these fabulous trips all expenses paid.car parts.. draperies and blinds... .Regardless of our volume no one in our province in Canada has ever said to me OH by the way we have an all expense trip paid for us to Venice or Europe or Bahamas.. When we go we are on our own..And people say jewellers make great money...Where??

you ask.."are jewellers ruining their own image"....NO.....people calling themselves jewellers are ruining the image of jewellers.......people like you that by no stretch of the imagination are a jeweller...people like you that are incompetent in making quotes for custom pieces in your shop that will turn around to the jeweller and screw down the price on his hard work in order to cover a loss.....how are jewellers ruining their own image?...when they are working hard to make ends meet in an industry where people like you insist on giving away a product for much less than its worth....stop calling yourself a jeweller....you're not a jeweller....go back and tell your friend that these chain stores that she refers to as jewellers are not jewellers....then introduce her to a real jeweller, the guy that studied and worked hard for most his life striving to be the best possible jeweller he could be....Only to be refered to as a crook by some people because assholes like you are running around calling themselves jewellers.

Nectie...You put it a little harsh but I do agree that there is a difference between a jeweller and a jewelry store owner/manager that is not actually the person carving, casting, setting, etc. The store owner and actual jeweller if not the same person should have a better relationship than it seems you have had in the past. I am sorry, please seek some professional help for your anger.

Now back to the question of huge markup. The problem is not huge sales or big discounts. The problem in the jewelry business that needs fixing is a little thing called appraisals. We justify the high prices with appraisals which allows high enough markup to show large discounts. Until we fix our appraisal process so its no longer a joke every customer that pays $1500 for a ring appraised at $10500 is going to think something is fishy and dishonest.

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I am in a small town. I have a jewelery store less than 5 miles from me. They are constantly running 50-75 off sales. When the owner needs cash he runs a sale. It never ends. Its a vicous cycle that will and can never stop because the need for cash flow is always there. Poor planning and expensive personal life has lead to this. Stores like that ruin it for all of us. But yet we all do nothing to stop it. We are all ruining our own reputations each time we cut our prices drastically!!!! We show the public that they are right about the "mark up" on jewelery. This is a very tough business to be in these days. I am a firm believer most of us will recover from it, but we will lose in the meantime is going to be the real story. Good luck to everyone and hang on.

We are jewelers based in Alaska who cater to cruise ship clientele. It is almost impossible to sell anything out here unless it is "discounted" because that has become the industry norm. A few good points made above reagrding brands like Louis Vuitton holding on to their top dollar price and not discounting do make sense. But they are a branded item, and so people are paying for the "prestige factor". The higher price fixing is intentionally done by these brand name companies to limit the number of people who can actually buy the product. If everyone could afford one and carried a genuine LV bag, there would be no prestige in owning one.
At the end of the day a jeweler's reputation will carry them forward. These chain stores are just mass retailers. They couldn't care if they were selling underwear or jewelry. It's a commodity to them. We are a family business and pride is taken in every transaction. After sales service is as important as the sale itself. That will take a company to a higher level, both in business and with customer relations, which will ultimately lead to word of mouth recommendations.

I really love how arrogant people are when it comes to jewelery thinking everything is so marked up. Maybe select stores may be so and will/have ruined it for the rest of us. People have offended me at my store plenty of times saying "Im not going to pay that much! thats marked up way too high" etc and even after I explaine the rarity of a diamond and rarity of E VS quality and up they still dont understand. You need to ask yourself this, when you go to the grocery store and buy milk and a loaf of bread, you think their pricing that at what they bought it for? NO that wouldnt be cost effective. This is how bussiness's stay afloat that sell any goods to consumers. Mark up, key mark up. You never buy anything at cost unless your buying straight from the producer which only sell to merchants/retailers. People need to understand mark up is a necessary evil in today's world and has been thriving since before they even knew it. My apologies if this comes out harsh, but some people need to learn an opinion before they make one.

If you want to save on jewelry then check our www.directbuylosangeles.com. DirectBuy has a huge assortment but they do not cary every brand. The selection they do have is great and you can save quite a bit of money.

I've read your comments but my question still is unanswered "

The way around discounting competitors is to not play their game. Build truly personal relationships with clients who value your professionalism and service, believe me there are plenty out there. You can grant them a price accommodation now and then but do it because they are loyal not because you're afraid of your competitor. Price wars are losers for small independents. If too many of your clientele are 'price only' shoppers you need to find and develop a different clientele. Keep your operating costs such that you do not feel self-pressured to make every sale on disadvantageous terms. You'll sleep better too.

GREAT DEAL". The feeling that they got something for less, they "won". Both the men and women loved the entire experiance. And isn't that what we sell. Oh yeah, and tiny rocks.
NOTE:
On vacation I walked into a store and asked the price of a 1ct.H,SI2 dia. The salesman said "$15,000.00 but we are having a sale today everything in the store is 50%-65% off." I laughed and left.
Somewhere, I guess is a happy medium.
;

This portion was deleted from my submission above.
For 75 years our store allowed for a 20%-25% discount. The customers loved it and KNEW they left with a bargain. Our new owner reduced the retail prices and reduced the mark. Our old customers do not leave with the same feeling of accomplishment and joy at 10% off. The experiance has been deflated along with the price. They Liked Feeling they got a GREAT DEAL!

December 2007 I purchased a .75 carat pendant with appraised value of $4,900.
Yesterday, three jewelers offered to buy it back: price: $700 - $1,000
And you believe there is no mark-up? Only way to get the price is insurance fraud which I would never do. This is an obscene mark-up.

jacklyn, right now it seems everybody is selling their jewelery to raise cash. That depresses prices for things bought over the counter, its simply supply and demand. I can't speak for how well you bought the stone or how fair those offers were but market timing has a big influence. Sell your diamond when the public is again buying diamonds in a big way, not when you have to compete with the public selling off. Those jewelers likely as not would have to sit on the stone for quite a while, tieing up their working capital at a time when cashflow becomes more important.

Funny, Shanu thought our price book was overpriced and didn't buy it, but was offended when a neighbor commented that jewelry is over priced.

Price is perception, isn't it?
David Geller
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I ended up telling her about the new store and of course the conversation led to a bunch of questions about diamonds—the one conversation I can go on and on about like many other jewelers. Anyways, while laughing, joking, and talking about the jewelry industry the one thing that came out of her mouth without any hesitation was, “Jewelry and diamonds are so over-priced.”
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I like my new neighbor a lot, but I happened to be very offended by her statement and the fact that we are becoming friends, fortunately, made it easier for me to ask why she felt that way.
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Why do consumers think jewelry stores have such huge profit margins? My neighbor said, “First off Shanu, watch the TV, listen to the radio ads, pay attention to billboards, at least one jewelry store, (including independents) at all times is offering some sort of sale. That’s because, I’m assuming the prices are already marked-up so high that you all can offer these discounts all the time…which you all do.”

We are a new independant and are struggling.Our only competiton for 5 counties around is Wally world and a pawn shop. We have tried all kinds of advert. and though we only markup 3 key at most, people still baulk at the price. Education is what we are counting on. Still barely making it. Thank God for repair and dead batteries!Any advice?