Off to a Good Start!

The Cutting Edge

Black Friday not so blue

Sales for Black Friday, or Black Weekend as I like to call it, were pretty darn good. Over the years sales over the Black Weekend have not been that important to higher end independent jewelers. That weekend tends to be a mall/kids/sale driven event. Better jewelry customers come on their own terms and usually later in the holiday season, after all most of those larger buyers are men. Men tend to be last minute as we all know. That being said, this years Black Weekend was more important that usual in that I think it indicates the mood of the shopping public. People have been nervous and are looking for signs of hope and things are looking up. By almost all accounts, folks are in a better mood this year.

  • Alex Rysman at Romm Diamonds (Brockton, MA) reported a solid 10% increase over the Black Friday weekend.
  • David Fairclough (Toledo,  OH) reported a strong 30% increase with much more traffic than last year.
  • Bob Woolsey from Jones Bros. Jewelers (Peoria, IL) said all departments were up with much more traffic. Sales over the Black Weekend were up 52%!
  • Chris Wells of Well’s & Co in Virginia Beach came back from the dead in 2010 with an increase of 1142% over the Black Friday weekend. Chris told me, ” Last year we were really just dead, only a handful of customers. This year we had steady traffic, especially for Pandora and several nice sales that closed out the month. I feel much better about the rest of the Holiday season.” I should think so.

We are off to a great start for the 2010 Holiday Selling Season. Remember, every sale you make early is found money. Making those calls, getting in those memo diamonds. Right now you have the time to work those smart, early shoppers. Get on the wave and ride it now. Don’t wait until December 15th to kick up the energy level. Every day that passes is retail hours lost and as you know the last seven days will be too crazy!

Now is precious time!

Gather your crew together and get this season off to a solid focused start. Just call them together in the morning and remind them that what they do this week and next will mean the difference between good and great.

  • Tell them that you will spare no expense to get in whatever you need to close a sale!
  • The urgency is real. Tell your clients: “This will be the biggest Christmas in many years. If you love it, buy it because it won’t be here long!”
  • Bigger, better diamonds will be gone by Dec 15th. Now is the time to buy!
  • Always add on! Show every customer every piece in the collection. Two packages are always more exciting than one!