Jewelers of America has released three new online courses at its J-Biz Education Center. Available in advance of the holiday sales season, the courses cover topics that include selling colored gemstones, explaining lab reports, and gemstone treatments designed to help jewelers and their sales associates close more sales during the prime shopping period.

“We know it’s crucial for the J-Biz online courses to be not only convenient and affordable, but also engaging and worthwhile,” says JA director of Education David Peters, who designed the courses specifically for the Web. “That’s why our first online releases are focused on usable sales skills and knowledge that associates can take directly to the customer.”

The J-Biz online courses cover timely topics in a format that gives sales associates quick competence to immediately enhance performance on the sales floor. They have been tailored to the schedule of a busy retail sales associate.

The three courses are:

* Counter Intelligence
JA’s popular Counter Intelligence training program—a comprehensive, multimedia self-study course—has been transformed for Web learning. The course educates sales associates about professionalism, ethics, and legal compliance. Students learn how to communicate information regarding precious metal quality marks, appraisals and laboratory reports, synthetic and imitation gems, and treatments.

* Communicating Color: Selling Colored Gemstones
This course is designed to give a sales-person practical knowledge about popular faceted gems and gemstone sources, colored stone value factors, gemstone enhancements and disclosure, and proven techniques to close more colored stone sales.

* Treatment Talk: Discussing Gemstone Enhancements
This course covers different types of popular treated gemstones found in most stores, stability and care and cleaning issues, and proven techniques to help a sales professional communicate this information simply and positively to customers.

All courses are self-study and structured in short sections, so that they can be conveniently started and stopped to fit any busy schedule. Students can also take the entire training course at once, if that’s preferable. The online courses include games, quizzes, and audio narration to motivate users as they learn.

JA online courses are also designed to assist retailers in their overall professional development plan for staff. Retailers can incorporate the individual curriculum topics into their staff training. The online course topics also correspond to the information necessary to complete JA’s professional sales and management certification. JA has made it easy for individuals or retailers to purchase courses; owners or managers can buy multiple courses for their staffs, and they will receive a unique password for each individual employee.

“JA’s J-Biz educational initiative intends to bring the independent retail jeweler into the 21st century. The online course component helps to meet this goal, by delivering high-quality education programs directly to retailers, in a format that is affordable and easily accessible wherever jewelers are,” says Matthew A. Runci, JA President & CEO.

Courses are available exclusively to JA members at theJ-Biz Education Center. Visit the J-Biz Education Center for more information.

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