Setting salaries for your jewelry stores staff is a tricky thing to do. Most jewelry storeowner’s goal is to attract talented individuals and to pay them fairly. On the other hand, you never want to pay more than the job is worth to you. That’s just good business. The bottom line is a salary is like any other business expense—it’s an investment and you should get a return.

So, How do you pay your sales associates? Do you find hourly with commission to be the standard? Does your staff pay their way…their sales cover their salary? Are sales associates happy with their pay? Is it the pay or the love for their job that makes them stay?

From the numerous articles posted by jewelry trade magazines, most sales associates believe salaries to be low and sometimes even unfair. JCK’s article titled JCK’s Annual Salary Survey Industry Pay Jumped in 2006 states that median salaries in the jewelry industry are still relatively low compared with similar jobs in other industries. You can read some of JCK’s articles on salaries here and here. 

So, I decided to do some of my own “field research,” I asked five or six jewelry storeowners. I couldn’t believe how much the pay scales varied. I started to analyze salaries based on simple economics.

1. Salaries varied based upon city and even state. Salaries in NY, CA, IL, and FL were more because cost of living is more.
2. All around salaries were dependent on how much revenue the sales associates brought in. If the sales they generated covered their salary?
3. A number of salaries (either hourly or annually) are given a boost with commission, annual bonuses, and/or bonuses based on monthly store goals, etc.
4. For the most part salaries also varied depending on the annual revenue of the store, which relates back to the individual revenue each sales associate brings in.