Fewer Reps on the Road

A friend of mine this weekend reported he has spent the past two weeks on the road representing his bridal line and has not run into one other rep in a jewelry store. Unusual.

In speaking with several jewelers across the country I am mildly shocked at how many have not seen their ‘regular’ reps for months. Considering the state of our industry it is not too difficult to understand why reps haven’t been on the road as much. They want to make sure they are spending their money wisely on travel (and it usually is "their money") and wanting to ensure a return on their investment in the form of an order, or orders.

I am more amazed however, to learn how many companies (vendors/manufacturers) have let their sales reps go, shrunk their sales forces, or done away with road reps altogether. Time and again I am hearing how jewelers are being notified of these kinds of changes:

• By letter.
• By the jeweler placing a phone call to the company looking for the rep.
• By a jeweler phoning the rep.
• By happenstance through another rep or company.

I don’t know if there is a better or right way for a company to advise a jeweler he or she no longer has in-store, in-field support from a rep, but it seems impersonal and even bad customer service to not place a phone call or somehow get in a conversation with a customer over something like that.

There are many other reps getting commissions reduced, draws cut, and territory expansion or shrinkage depending on a vendor’s particular set of circumstances. It is easy to understand the short-term thinking of some vendors as they struggle to survive, but it is difficult to understand how they will manage to grow their businesses without the kind of field support a rep can give them and their customers have come to rely upon.

My friend has had two very good weeks on the road, opening up a couple of new new stores with his collection and shoring up inventories with existing customers. He thinks the fact there are so few reps out there traveling and working will be to his (and others who are out there) advantage. His experience has been that many jewelers are more eager to sit down, listen, consider, and even buy than they have been in a long time. 

That is good news.

The feeling among some independent jewelers I have spoken with, confirmed in others through my friend, is that the economic downturn we have all been discussing and experiencing has not been as doom and gloom and hard on their retail business as long feared. They had been seeing a slower pace to business but not a complete fall off and the pace has begun to pick up through the spring months.

That is also good news.

Those who are out there working, doing their part, making things happen, will undoubtedly be the benefactors of business this summer and fall as we continue to inch back toward a sense of normalcy while under an atmosphere of change.