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

Address Buyer Concerns

Unless a potential customer has money to burn (and who does these days), every buyer has concerns that you and your sales staff must alleviate. According to Jewelers of America’s David Peters, many of these concerns are predictable and should be addressed early in the sales process. He notes that if you don’t deal with them head on, you risk them coming up later as objections.

Typical buyer concerns to be aware of and address include:

Marketing in a Recession

Like most companies, you’re still dealing with the realities of the economic turndown, even if things may be on an upturn. In “In a Recession, Put Everyone in Marketing,” Rosabeth Moss Kanter notes that when you can’t cut anymore, you have to leverage the creativity of your employees. 

Use these tips, from the article on Hardvardbusiness.org, to find creative ways to continue making savings in your business:

Colorful Disclosure

Colored gemstone jewelry has become more popular among consumers and can provide decent profit margins for your store. But when you sell color, are you providing consumers with enough information? Given the amount of treatments, synthetics and stimulants available on the market, it’s essential that you’re upfront with your customers, so that they understand what they are -- or are not -- purchasing.

Jewelers of America’s David Peters offers the following tips on how to ensure proper ethics and disclosure when selling colored gemstones:

Speak Effectively for Your Brand

Becoming an effective spokesperson for your store takes work, but the effort can be worth it when you garner free and positive publicity for your business. But before you step in front of the cameras or give a pithy quote, Jewelry Information Center’s Amanda Gizzi says you must prepare.

Use these rules from JIC to prepare as you get ready for your “close-up”:

Heat Up Sales in Spring and Summer with Rubies

Often referred to as the “King of Gems”, ruby is one of the most popular colored gemstones today. It’s certainly the most popular red gem among consumers.  Spring and summer months bring an increased opportunities to sell this beautiful stone: ruby is a favorite alternative gem for the center stone in engagement rings; and July babies are lucky to be able to claim ruby as their birthstone.

One of the most successful approaches is to combine romance and lore with product knowledge and gemological information. The technique will almost always lead to increased sales of rubies.

Take these tips, from David Peters, of Jewelers of America, to help raise your customer’s awareness and desire for rubies:

Turn Trends into Transactions

The economic downturn has meant jewelers must buy smarter and better than ever before. At her JCK Las Vegas session, “JCK Style: What’s Hot and Why You Should Care,” Jewelry Information Center spokesperson Helena Krodel will provide much needed insight on how to turn hot trends into transactions for your store. 

To prepare to buy right, and for the right trends, Krodel says to consider key fashion influencers, such as:

Don’t Quit

With the light just starting to glimmer at the end of the tunnel, it may be tempting to let up a little -- like a runner who hesitates before the finish line. But now isn’t the time to break your pace. Quitting is not an option for you or your staff, says Jewelers of America’s resident education and management expert David Peters.

Instead, he advises jewelry retailers to continue to focus on efficiency and the use the following tips in their daily plan:

Be PR Proficient

Effective public and media relations can provide a boost to your business. Jewelry Information Center’s Amanda Gizzi says a news feature about your store can give you third-party, non-biased approval. Plus, unlike advertising, it doesn’t cost money.

Gizzi shares some rules to follow in gaining positive publicity:

Update Your Website With Simple Fixes

Are you letting minor technical problems drag down the overall quality of your site? Mike Werling of Entrepreneur.com writes that solving these issues doesn’t require a total site makeover.

He shares everyday fixes you can make to improve efficiency and build your bottom-line:

Crafting a Powerful Product Statement: Communicate Product Vision

In our final installment on crafting a powerful product statement – which is essential to your sales pitch and your bottom-line -- we look at how to sum things up for consumers with a Product Vision/Summary statement. This sentence or phrase summarizes the core qualities of the product.

In order to make the most of your Product Vision section, Jewelers of America’s David Peters advises you to:

Crafting a Powerful Product Statement: Target the Product Benefits

Explaining the benefits of a piece of jewelry is one of the most important aspects of a sales presentation. Without a product benefit, why would the consumer want to buy a piece of jewelry in the first place? It is an intrinsic part of a powerful product statement.

Jewelers of America’s David Peters offers the following advice on communicating product benefits:

Crafting a Powerful Product Statement: Add Personality

A powerful product statement is key to closing a sale, since it tells customers why they should buy a product – i.e. what’s in it for them. Yesterday, we looked at “Product Attributes/Features,” the first of four components that go into an effective product statement. The second component, and most important according to Jewelers of America’s David Peters, is the product “personality” description.

Product Personality statement: The section of the product statement that personifies the product and brings the product to life for the customer, adding a dimension that connects more closely with their needs.

To create a successful product personality description you should:

Crafting a Powerful Product Statement: Describe Product Features

We recently wrote about how your store can use product knowledge to close more sales. This week, we teach you how to craft a powerful product statement. Each day, David Peters, Jewelers of America’s resident education and management expert, will review one of the four essential aspects of a product statement: product attributes/features; product personality; product benefits; and product vision/summary statement.

Product Attributes/Features: The key features that make the product desirable. You open your “product statement” with these attributes. To be successful make sure you:

Get Featured in Gift Guides

It’s not too early to start thinking about the holiday selling season. One way to gain traction during the holidays is to get your products mentioned in Gift Guides. From major media outlets to local newspapers and blogs, consumers turn to these guides for ideas on what to buy during the season.

Over at Small Business Trends, Margie Zable Fisher says many media outlets have early deadlines for gift catalogues, so now is the time to start planning.

Small Business Trends offers these tips on how to get free publicity from these important gift guides:

The Power of Product Knowledge: Get the Product Right

According to David Peters, Jewelers of America’s resident education and management expert, creating a powerful product statement for your customers can help you connect with your customer and close sales. In our series of tips on product knowledge, we’ve detailed what sales staff should consider to build a powerful product statement: observing the customer  and discovering their buying motivators. The final variable in creating a successful product statement is determining the customer’s appropriate product category. To do this, Peters suggests the following sales techniques:

The Power of Product Knowledge: Discover Buying Motivators

Product knowledge helps you build and close more sales. We continue our series of tips about creating a powerful product statement, with a focus on the buying motivation of a customer. David Peters, Jewelers of America’s resident education and management expert, says customer motivation is imperative to know prior to selling the product.  

To understand the customer’s buying motivation, ask these questions?

The Power of Product Knowledge: Observe the Customer

Product knowledge is just one aspect of successful sales, but it’s clearly an important one. Used correctly, this information can help you build and close more sales. So we’re providing a series of tips about the three sales variables that will help you create a powerful product statement.

Today’s focus: the customer. David Peters, Jewelers of America’s resident education and management expert, says you need to know who they are to properly unleash the power of product knowledge in your store.

Tips on what to observe about your customer:

Balance the “Sales Triangle”

David Peters, Jewelers of America’s resident education and management expert notes there are three aspects to becoming a great salesperson: self-management skills, interpersonal skills and product and technical knowledge (aka the “Sales Triangle”).

In order to be successful, he says the triangle must be balanced. In order to achieve this balance, you should to consider:

Think like a Businessperson, not a Jeweler

Do you think of yourself as a retailer who likes jewelry or as a businessperson who sells jewelry? If you answered the former, then you’re in line with the 54.1% of Jewelers of America members who identified themselves this way in the 2008 Jewelers of America Cost of Doing Business Report. Just 12% called themselves business people.

While the survey doesn’t delve into how a retailer’s self-proclaimed identity relates to (or hinders) their success, Ken Gassman of the Jewelry Industry Research Institute notes that too many jewelers are in the jewelry business, but not in the business of selling jewelry. In today’s challenging environment, a retailer has to operate their business on a professional level to succeed.

Gassman provides the following tips to help you think like a business person and sell more jewelry your store:

Put Your Jewelry Store Online

Today’s consumer is more open to the buying online than ever before. Consider this statistic found in a survey by Forrester Research and Shop.org: U.S. online retail sales rose an average of 11% in the first three months of 2009. That trend is sure to continue, as people choose to shop in ways that are most convenient for them, whether in person or on the web.

Whether you’re just getting started -- or want to revamp your existing site -- Jewelers of America’s resident education and management expert David Peters offers advice on entering the e-world of opportunity: