The JA Report: News, Tips & Trends from Jewelers of America

Get Cyber Monday Sales for You Too

According to recent studies, consumers say they are less likely to purchase jewelry this holiday season. So it’s more important than ever that you put your store front-and-center. One of the most economical ways to accomplish this is to ride the coattails of broader industry or retail promotions, like Cyber Monday. Connect your online or in-store promotions to this heavily promoted e-shopping day, which falls the Monday after Thanksgiving, to gain a competitive edge.

Amanda Gizzi of Jewelry Information Center (JIC) shares the following ideas on how your store can ride—not get wiped out by—the Cyber Monday wave:

• Don’t miss out! Remember that the Monday after Thanksgiving is already recognized by consumers as a big shopping day. Last year ComScore reported that online sales for the day hit a record $733 million.

Focus on the Good News

Get Last-Minute Male Shoppers

Consumers will likely need more persuasion to purchase gifts this year as they face a more challenging economy.  This doesn’t mean consumers won’t purchase or receive jewelry, but they need to be reminded why jewelry is the perfect gift during these uncertain times.

One way to do this is to remind your male customers that a jewelry gift for loved ones can be the bright spot in their holidays and in their lives. In addition to targeting these shoppers throughout the season, don’t forget the ones who hold off until the bitter end by holding a “Christmas Eve Spectacular.” 

Jewelry Information Center’s Amanda Gizzi notes it’s no secret that men tend to wait until the last minute to purchase gifts for their loved ones. She shares the following ideas to thrive with last-minute male shoppers: 

• Hold a special event on the holiday eve just for men. 
• Have beers, free gift wrapping and a laid back atmosphere. Don’t forget to ask them for whom they are purchasing the gift. The more they talk about their significant other, the more likely they are to purchase. 
• Send invitations a few weeks out and consider placing a radio or newspaper advertisement to promote the event.     

Take The Tip:Find trend and gift ideas to help inform your male shoppers at Jewelry Information Center's website, www.jic.org.

Give Staff Tools to Communicate with Customers

In offering great customer service at your store, we hope you’ve already taken important steps to ensure your staff can provide the best customer service possible. In addition to proper training, they’re also going to need the right tools to perfect customer service -- and technology plays a crucial role. 

Jewelers of America Director of Education David Peters offers the following “tech support” tips to truly thrive in customer service:

• Use a Database System. Invest in a comprehensive database system that allows you to record, organize and customize all customer contact information.

• Individual Emails. Provide each employee with a personalized email address for customer communications.
• Update Website. Use your website to collect customer data and provide opportunities for customers to contact you. You can do this by incorporating a sign-up option at your Website for customers to receive news, updates or promotions from your store.  

Stay Calm and Plan Ahead

In today’s 24-hour news cycle, it's easy to feel a bit on the edge. But rather than pointing to the sky in abject fear a la Chicken Little, you’ll do your business (and yourself and your family) much more good by remaining calm.

Industry analyst Ken Gassman put the current economic climate into perspective in a recent IDEX Online column, “Don’t Panic, It’s Not The End of the World.” He reminds retailers that while jewelry demand may soften in a tough economy, it’s remained relatively strong this cycle and more importantly, it will rebound. “Jewelry is not a fad product; it has been around for at least 50,000 years,” he notes.

Gassman says jewelers need to hit this period of softness head-on. He offers up a “Plan of Action,” which includes the following tips:

• Increase Customer Contacts: Set up a “clientelling” program to contact your best customers. Gassman reminds us that while just over 25% of jeweler’s business comes from the big holidays, the rest comes from life cycle milestone events like anniversaries and birthdays. Jewelers with good customer records can call their clients to remind them that they have “just the thing” for an upcoming life cycle event.

• Target Advertising: In a slow economy, highly targeted advertising -- like direct mail and phone calls -- is the way to go. Use them to reach out to your best customers.

• Properly Incentivize Sales Associates: Make sure the compensation system for sales associates rewards them primarily for doing their job -- selling. And don’t let them get bogged down with paperwork.

• Focus on the Real Competition: Gassman says don’t fret over other jewelers -- whether they’re of the Wal-Mart, online or down-the-street variety -- because a jeweler's biggest competition for dollars comes from merchants selling handbags, scarves, sunglasses, cosmetics, shoes, and other accessories.

Take The Tip: 

• Click here to read Gassman’s full report at IDEX. We plan to revisit it for advice (and to stay calm) as the season progresses.
  

• Many of our previous tips give simple solutions for some of Gassman's well-researched suggestions, review them by checking out our tip archives on Marketing, Working with the Web, Management and Merchandise.
  

Let There Be Music!

 Nothing livens up a retail environment better than music, especially during the holiday season. While a holiday music compilation may get customers in the spirit, it can’t compare to live music. A music-themed event can make your store the center of festivities and it gives you the opportunity to give back to your community in a unique way.

 

Make Your Employees Provide GREAT Customer Service

We’ve stressed again and again how critical customer service is, but while the message may be getting through to you, is it reaching your employees? If not, you’d better bring it home or you’ll risk a disconnect between the kind of experience you provide to clients and what happens when you’re not out on the sales floor.

Jewelers of America Director of Education David Peters offers advice on training your employees to deliver the best service:

• Work on both verbal and written communication skills. For example, poor grammar or spelling can undermine the credibility of thank-you notes and emails.
• Focus training on job-specific skills. For example, work with salespeople on listening skills so they can sell from a better-informed perspective.
• Standardize the way telephone calls are answered and handled, and require all employees to comply.
• Establish guidelines for handling complaints, and as much as possible, empower employees to make decisions.

Identify Your Profit Winners & Losers

Retailers balance the products and business practices that contribute to profitability with those that don’t.

For example, you may accept losses in the off-season if you know you can make them up during times of peak demand. Or, in achieving sales goals you may accept products that don’t contribute to your profitability. But as the Deloitte white paper “Preparing for an Economic Storm” points out, businesses must be able to challenge these practices and assumptions. That doesn’t mean you need to completely drop them. Instead, you should look for ways to restructure, renegotiate or re-price them to become contributors.

Spread the Holiday Joy with Cards

Hopefully, you market your business year-round and your holiday preparations are well underway. However, if you haven’t yet begun, get started now!  One great way to remind consumers what a great gift jewelry can be is to show your best costumers that you’re thinking about them and wishing them the best this season.

Jewelry Information Center’s Amanda Gizzi notes that this year, personal relationships are everything.  She shares ideas on how to make the most of your season’s greetings:

• Holiday cards should only contain a “from our family to yours” type of message. Do not mix your messages. 

Be Savvy With Email Marketing

Using effective email marketing outreach is a simple step you can take this holiday season to see significant returns. However, good judgment must be used to decide how often to send email promotions and what content to include to ensure you put customers first and earn their trust, rather than turn them off.

Constantcontact.com provided the following tips that you can put into practice immediately with a focus on keeping your brand intact:

1. Reward Subscribers. According to Constant Contact, gift cards make an ideal reward. Use an email promotion that encourages customers to buy by including a monetary reward as a thank you. For example, for every $100 they spend, offer a $10 gift card to apply to their next purchase.

Be Innovative Online

We have been emphasizing the importance of working with the Web, rather than avoiding it, to thrive in today's market. The National Retail Federation’s Shop.org Annual Summit, held last month in Las Vegas, reaffirmed the need for retailers to establish the best online retail presence they can.

Lisa Everitt shared “Four Big Ideas” from the conference at the BNET’s Retail Industry blog. Jewelers should take advantage of these innovative Web ideas to stand out in the competitive retail jewelry market:

• E-commerce=Commerce: Having an online presence is crucial. According to Forrester Research, online retailing is not only continuing to grow, it may be the only part of retail that will see growth in the near future.

Get Out & Network!

Out-of-store networking can be a great way to create buzz about your business that extends well beyond the borders of your store. Sure, it would be fantastic if every customer were drawn to your store like bees to honey. But, sometimes, it takes more than a nice storefront and traditional marketing to get people to notice you.

Jewelers of America Director of Education David Peters says getting out there can help you to:

• Build new relationships and make friends
• Share ideas and information
• Discover new partnerships and ways to make your business grow
• Begin making referrals and they will return the favor

The following tips will have you thriving with networking:

Use Cause-Related Holiday Promotions

 As we’ve written in earlier posts, now is not the time to cut back on your promotional marketing. We know you’re looking for event ideas that will generate buzz about your store and connect you with your customers and community -- without breaking the bank.

Starting this week, we’ll share low-cost holiday promotion ideas from David Peters, Director of Education for Jewelers of America.

Show that you care this holiday season. Your community, like many others across the U.S., could be feeling the stress of the mortgage crisis and job losses. Highlight your commitment to your community, while promoting the holiday spirit of generosity, by giving back to those in need with charitable events like food, clothing or toy drives.

Peters suggests the following ideas for a successful event:

Exceed Customer Service Expectations

Excellent customer service is the foundation of a successful business, and during these challenging times it has become more important than ever. You’ve got to make sure that the building blocks of customer care are solid at your store.

No matter the scope of products you offer or the range of benefits you deliver, Jewelers of America Director of Education David Peters notes that these will have little impact on customer loyalty, if you fall short on basic service.

He suggests the following action items to make life easier for your customers:

Push Marketing Into High Gear

 As we enter the final quarter of the year, even if you’ve stayed ahead of the curve, now is NOT the time to stop promoting your business. In fact, it’s imperative that you keep the momentum going because if you don’t, you can be sure your competitors will!

Over the coming weeks, we’ll share a series of high-impact, low-cost ideas from Jewelers of America Director of Education David Peters that will help kick start your holiday season.

Peters shares his marketing rules for creating a marketing foundation that thrives:

Know How to Showcase Your Product Online

Having a web presence is important, but how much product should you share with visitors to your site? Images of your product online -- whether you have e-commerce capability or not -- will be crucial to creating interest in your store and the jewelry you sell there.

Over at Export Business Source’s “Retail Online” blog, Suze Bragg says the first thing you should ask yourself is what are you trying to accomplish when you display products online? For instance, do you want to test the interest in a particular item? Are you trying to drive customers to your store? Do you want to sell to them online? Perhaps both?

Marketing Dos and Don’ts

We all agree that marketing will be a key component to the holiday selling season, especially with cash-strapped consumers making tough buying decisions. Yes people will give, but will they give jewelry? And if they give jewelry, why will they choose your store to buy it from?

Marketing ensures that your store is at the very least on the radar, but it’s also important to make sure you’re sending the right message.

Prepare for Customer Shifts

Customer behaviors you’ve come to rely on can change dramatically as a result of an economic downturn.

That’s why, “Preparing for an Economic Storm,”  a white paper from Deloitte, notes the need for customer-driven businesses to stay ahead of the curve, so they can reevaluate and react to shifts in client behavior.

For instance, many customers will “trade down” to offset changes (like high fuel costs) in their planned spending. Deloitte suggests you evaluate your product mix and pricing strategies in the context of changes in consumer demand.

Tips on how to best prepare your pricing strategies to reflect new customer behavior:

Let Go of Profitless Customers

It’s clear that you need to focus a good portion of your holiday selling season efforts on your most loyal customers, and let go of clients who have proven profitless.

Jewelers of America Director of Education David Peters cites research showing the 20% of customers that account for a jeweler’s “loyal” base produce 80% of the profit, while the 25% of customers identified as “scavengers” produce just 5% of profit. Another 5% of customers -- the “crooks” -- contribute no profits at all and can actually cost money.

Peters says it’s key for retailers to clean up their customer base. Save your valuable time serving the scavengers and apply it to marketing to your loyal customers.

Survive a Cash-Flow Crisis

As the crisis on Wall Street reaches out to Main Street and credit markets get tighter, cash flow may be the most critical component to your store’s success (or failure).

Over at Wall Street Journal’s Independent Street Blog, Raymund Flandez shares “Five Tips for Surviving a Cash-Flow Crisis.”

He spoke to Rusty Luhring, owner of Luhring SurvivalWare Inc., which provides financial modeling software for small businesses, who offered the following tips.

Ideas on how to best manage your cash flow:

Conserve Cash

According to “Preparing for an Economic Storm,” a white paper released this summer by Deloitte, a leading professional services organization, many companies do not include performance metrics that look at cash flow in their management goals and incentives. Being “lazy” about these processes can mean missed opportunities during normal business cycles and can seriously threaten your business in the bad times.

In a downturn, Deloitte notes less demand causes most businesses to experience a combined cash and margin squeeze: inventory turns more slowly, causing a greater need for price reductions, which affects working capital and margin.

To help you avoid the cash and margin "squeeze," Deloitte suggests retailers:

Fight the Retail Forecast: Inventory

To have your store experience better than the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) holiday retail sales prediction of 2.2% growth, Daniel Butler, NRF vice-president for retail operations, recommends that retailers focus on small inventories.

Butler, quoted in “How Small Stores Can Lure Holiday Shoppers,” by John Tozzi of BusinessWeek, offers these tips to keep inventory lean:

• Refuse late orders
• Watch for over shipments to avoid having product you can’t sell.
• Retailers should also keep as much inventory upfront as possible, so that it’s out there where customers can see it (and buy it).

Fight the Retail Forecast: Customer Focus

Don't let the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) less-than-rosy predictions (2.2% growth) for holiday retail sales, deflate your confidence. Now is the time to think about how you can buck the trends. Don't focus on price, instead as we’ve noted again and again, your customers will be the key.

In “How Small Stores Can Lure Holiday Shoppers,” John Tozzi of BusinessWeek.com explains that since independent retailers can’t win on price, they must leverage their biggest advantage: personal relationships with customers and the ability to deliver superior service.