While July is not known to be one of the more red hot sales months for retail jewelers; this July should set records for some jewelry stores when they compare July 2011 sales to July 2010 sales. This year, July will have 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This only happens once every eight centuries or so!

Most jewelers set their budgets using a comparison to previous year sales. The addition of extra week end days to sell should afford many retail jewelry stores with more total sales for July. There are other months in 2011 that have 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays; however only July has 5 Fridays and 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. The months preceding and following July; both June and August have only 4 Saturdays and 4 Sundays. Make sure you are counting apples to apples when comparing sales by month, by year. For many stores having more week end days will have a positive affect on sales and months with fewer week end sales days as compared to last year need to be considered too.

Other unique observations about 2011. There are four very unusual dates this year: 1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11 and 11/11/11.

Just for fun . . . Take the last two digits of the year in which you were born- now add the age you will be this year. The result is 111 and that is the same for everyone!

JCK