America's Best Jewelers swap marketing ideas at JA

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America's Best Jewelers swap marketing ideas at JA

By Teresa Novellino

January 19, 2009

New York--Discussing everything from their successes with direct-mail gift certificates to sales events that hit home, jewelers had a chance to share best-practice ideas with their peers at the America's Best Jewelers (ABJ) Retail Benchmarking Symposium on Monday.

The National Jeweler Network event, held on Monday during the JA New York Winter Show, also included an awards luncheon for independent jewelers who were honored with the ABJ title after scoring high marks on National Jeweler's benchmarking survey. The survey, which was sent out last spring, examined how well 263 participants from around the country performed in areas ranging from operations to customer service.

Specific topics included in the symposium's morning session were marketing, operations and human resources.

Fresh off the holiday season, retail jewelers who were part of a panel on marketing had much to say about the programs that were successful during what turned out to be a difficult period for many. The common denominator: offering sales or discounts brought in traffic.

Both Carl Doubet Hendry, of Carl Doubet Jewelers in Greenville, Del., and Roger Gupta of Diamond Hut, based in Jersey City, N.J., found that mailing out gift certificates to their best customers was a great help in driving traffic over the holiday season.

"Through our mailing list, we [separated out] the percentage of top clients and sent them personalized greetings," Hendry said.

In addition to the gift cards that went out with customers' names on them, he personally handed out additional gift cards to non-customers, such as those who provided him with good service at local restaurants.

All told, approximately 10 to 15 percent of those who received the $100 Carl Doubet gift cards brought them into the store and made a purchase. Since the store has been in business since 1895 and is well known in the community, the $100 "bill" offered to customers featured a picture of his grandfather, the founder, instead of Ben Franklin's image.

Gupta, who has offered gift certificates in a postcard format in years past, switched it up this year, and sent out sturdier laminated gift cards for $100. This small change brought in traffic during a tough holiday season for the store.

"The gift cards cost us five or six times as much as the postcards, [but it was worth it]," Gupta said. "Everybody kept it in their wallets, including many male customers who would never have held onto a postcard."

Sandra Sugar of Sandra's Fine Jewelry, in Bethesda, Md., has learned that many of her customers receive cash gifts for Christmas and Hanukkah, so she takes advantage of what might be a slow time for the store by holding a big blowout sales event in January.

Customers who line up first thing in the morning receive 45 percent off of everything in stock, and the discount diminishes as the hours go by, ending up at 30 percent off by the afternoon. The blowout sales have brought in between $50,000 and $75,000 a shot.

The discounting is worth it to Sugar because it gets rid of inventory and provides greater liquidity for the business.

"It brings in and frees up cash," Sugar said.

Jewelers who are interested in discussing retail practices as part of the new ABJ social-networking program can go to ABJNetwork.com.

ABJ event sponsors included: Stuller, the title sponsor; The Wall Street Journal, media sponsor; Arabov Group, official diamond sponsor; Debbie Brooks, elite sponsor; and Jewelers of America, education sponsor.

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