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

Be Aware When Buying Scrap Metals

If you are buying scrap items from consumers, such as gold jewelry, be sure to comply with local, state and federal requirements. For example, many localities require a second-hand dealer’s license. And, if you purchase more than $50,000 from the public in one year, you will need to comply with the USA Patriot Act’s anti-money laundering program.

There's more to consider, however, according to Jewelers Mutual Insurance Company. The organization suggests that you ask important questions of your insurance agent to assure you are fully covered by insurance for scrap metals kept at your store and when shipping to a refiner.

These five important questions to ask when purchasing, storing or shipping scrap metals are:

Make Good Business Resolutions in 2010

Personal resolutions can help individuals to get a disciplined, goal-oriented start to the New Year -- but what about resolutions for your business? Over at the National Jeweler Network, columnist Ellen Fruchtman shares her “Resolutions for Jewelers.”

Her top retail jewelry resolutions for the year are:

Cut Expenses On Your Retail Space

Use Simple Steps To Improve Inventory Management

Properly Manage Workplace Romance

Given the amount of time we spend at work, it’s no surprise that people connect and sometimes form relationships with their colleagues. That can sometimes lead to unforeseen complications in the work environment.

In the BusinessWeek article, “How Employers Should Handle Workplace Romance,” Karen E. Klein shares excerpts from her conversation with attorney Mark Kluger, who specializes in labor and employment practice.

Prepare yourself with his “dos and don’ts” for handling workplace romance:

Make Public Relations Gems From Daily Routine

Everyday monotonous tasks can be turned into a perfect public relations opportunity for your business. Learn to think like a well-oiled PR machine by making everything you do synonymous with your brand.  

The JICchicks, the spokeswomen of Jewelry Information Center -- Jewelers of America’s consumer education arm, perform public relations on a daily basis and offer some great examples:

Protect Yourself From Accepting Bad Money

Losing time and revenue to bad transactions is one of the most frustrating aspects of running a retail jewelry business. Thankfully, there are measures you can take to protect your business. For instance, have you ever been shopping and seen someone write a check only to have the cashier run it through a machine and hand it back to the customer? Have you wondered how exactly that works and what benefits it has to the business owner? Jewelers, large and small, can utilize check guarantee and conversion services and take other simple steps to avoid bad checks and fraud.

Matthew Focht, president of Tru, a consulting firm that specializes in payment processing, provides tips on using conversion services and protecting your business from bad checks:

Tip: Use Contests To Motivate Sales Staff

Are you looking for new ideas to motivate your sales staff? According to Nicole Reyhle, founder of Retail Minded, setting sales goals with incentives is key to keeping employees working at their full potential. In her article, "Motivating Retail Employees Through Sales Contests," she suggests that a fun way to motivate sales is by connecting sales goals -- based on staff schedules, special events, the employee's previous results, etc. -- to incentives through contests.

To thrive with staff incentives, discover her creative suggestions for contest ideas, plus consider registering for JIC's "Ultimate Proposal Contest":

Scout Your Store

While it has become popular to secret shop competitors, are you doing enough to look at your own store through customer’s eyes? In “Scouting Your Store!”, Brad Huisken, of IAS Training, notes the importance of seeing your store the way that other’s do. Unfortunately, he says businesses don’t use this technique often enough.

He shares the following tips to help you evaluate your business and thrive:

Reach Socially Conscious Consumers

Your sales staff should be prepared to answer basic questions on issues such as conflict diamonds. (If they are not, you may want to check out Jewelers of America’s member guidance documents at www.jewelers.org.) While preparing for questions can help you deal with customers who come in and ask them, what do you do about those consumers who have seemingly turned their backs on the jewelry industry and aren’t even bothering to walk through your door?

In “How Jewelers Can Reach Out to Socially Conscious Consumers,” JCK magazine’s Rob Bates shares insight on connecting with consumers who have been turned off by negative publicity about the jewelry market. He shares tips from a variety of experts, including David Peters, Jewelers of America’s resident education and management expert.

Use the following tips to connect with socially conscious consumers:

Integrate Bricks and Clicks for Customer Satisfaction

First, the good news: Many retailers took advantage of the huge jump in online spending this past holiday season. Comscore Inc. reported a whopping 20% increase in jewelry and watch sales over the previous year -- and not just for E-tailers. Many traditional retailers added a shopping cart to their websites this year. The bad news? Too many left customers frustrated when they failed to successfully integrate their online and traditional merchandising strategies.

This became apparent in a study by Forrester Research. It found that while most customers are satisfied with their online shopping experience, that attitude did not carry over when they "pre-shopped" online and then visited a store to make the purchase. Dissatisfaction centers around a disconnect between the two modes of selling. Larry Chasin, president & CEO of Ideal Diamond Solutions, an online jewelry merchandising platform provider, says the remedy is to tightly coordinate your online and in-store sales and merchandising.

He offers these tips to integrate your online sales with your in-store sales experience:

Use Google Analytics to Track Website Metrics

If your business has a presence online, you should keep track of the site analytics the same way you would with your brick-and-mortar store locations. Google Analytics is an easy-to-use tool that tracks your website statistics – and the best part is, it’s FREE! It can be implemented into your site by adding a piece of code to your website's HTML.

Once you, or your website developer, set up Google Analytics on your website you can use its reports to compare metrics on a variety of subjects like your unique visitors, referring websites, referring keywords, what content is most popular on your website, etc.

Once you start using Analytics, here are some things to look for: