| Jewelry marketing, for most jewelry retail businesses, | | | | majors as a result. |
| is often the highest operating expense after wages | | | | From supermarkets to hardware, the corner store has |
| and rent, yet is one of the most unaccountable and | | | | been replaced-in fact wiped out -by the arrival of the |
| misunderstood areas for jewelry store owners. | | | | conglomerate. Yet in the jewelry industry the chain |
| Rent is carefully negotiated when the regular review | | | | stores, although having a significant market share, have |
| comes up and the productivity of staff members is | | | | failed to take over. |
| always being discussed but when it comes to | | | | Of the almost four thousand jewellers in Australia less |
| advertising and marketing many jewelers don't take | | | | than a third are chain stores -almost 2700 stores are |
| responsibility for their advertisements, or worse, just | | | | still run as part of a family operated business or by an |
| don't do any jewelry marketing at all. | | | | owner who has only one of two stores. |
| This often comes from a lack of understanding of the | | | | Why has jewelry escaped the trend of so many other |
| marketing/advertising process and the fact that | | | | industries that have become the sole domain of the |
| advertising is never a finished task. Staff can be hired, | | | | large corporation? |
| or rent reviewed on a periodic basis, but marketing of | | | | One word - trust. |
| the stores jewelry is ongoing. Last months good | | | | At the end of the day when a customer buys a |
| jewelry promotion counts for nothing after the last day | | | | diamond they don't know what they're really buying. |
| of the month - you have to start the process all over | | | | 99.9% of customers would have no way of knowing |
| again with a fresh angle - a new method of getting the | | | | whether they have been ripped off or not. There are |
| customer in-store. | | | | few other products where the customer is so reliant |
| There's a saying in many sports that you are only as | | | | on the honesty and integrity of the vendor. |
| good as your next game and marketing fits this to a | | | | Because of this the idea of dealing with a jeweler who |
| tee. There is no ongoing applause once the jewelry | | | | they know, with a member of the community who |
| promotion ends -you have to start fresh whether you | | | | attends the same clubs, who might worship at the |
| like it or not. | | | | same church, or whose children go to the same |
| This constant need to market and reinvent promotions | | | | schools, provides comfort to the customer that they |
| and advertisements causes many jewelers to give up | | | | have bought right. |
| -they don't have the skills to do it and don't appreciate | | | | This, and the last remaining vestiges of personal |
| the cost of failing to do so. | | | | service, protects the corner jeweler from chain store |
| Yet we are all marketers. | | | | obliteration -however it can also be a cause of |
| Regardless of our profession our objective is to | | | | downfall. |
| persuade more people that we have the solution to | | | | This protection is a comfort, but still leaves too many |
| their problems. | | | | jewelers content to function with average profits in the |
| Wikipedia defines marketing well when it says that | | | | clubby atmosphere that this protected environment |
| marketing is used to create the customer, keep the | | | | can bring. Too often these same jewelers feel they |
| customer, and satisfy the customer. Marketing originally | | | | can get along without it so they see no reason to try. |
| grew from the professional approach of large | | | | Sadly the game is changing. The wall of trust will not |
| organisations who, faced with competition and an | | | | last forever with any guarantee, and the jeweler |
| obsession with market share, changed from a | | | | whose marketing consists of opening the door and |
| production focus (a focus on making products with little | | | | waiting for the customer to walk in will go the way of |
| thought on who would buy them) to a marketing focus | | | | the dinosaur. |
| (a focus on the customer). | | | | Any jeweler in the future who is not spending at least |
| Sadly many small and medium sized businesses, | | | | 20-30% of their time thinking, planning and strategizing |
| running as Mom and Pop operations, have been much | | | | how to "create, keep and satisfy the customer" will |
| slower to appreciate the need to appeal to their | | | | find the problem solved for them. |
| customers more and have lost market share to the | | | | They will simply have fewer customers. |