Past - Present - Future
Part I

This issue of Retail Jewelry Insights is retrospective. As such it summarizes key events that have changed the jewelry industry over the last decade and analyzes year-end trend. Part II is prospective in that it identifies and analyzes ten key turning points that will shape the jewelry business in 2010 and the next decade. 


Where Have We Been?
“A Giddy Finish to 20th-Century Jewelry Sales”, that was the JCK headline on March 1, 2000. It was referring to jewelry sales for the 1999 November-December sales period. Then, according to reporters, sales at Tiffany “leaped” 27%, while Zale’s sales were up 16%. Many independents did substantially better. For instance, the AGS said more than half its members reported “gains of more than 20%” with “one in ten achieving 40% or higher sales than in 1998”. According to one consultant, “There was an unbelievable sense of euphoria”…”a lot of money to be made”…and “a general prosperity and sense of good times” was at hand. Now, a decade later uncertainty fills the senses…a lot of money has been lost…and a general privation and a sense of hardship is at hand as jewelers race to complete the last Christmas season of the new millennium’s first decade.

What that headline will read on March 1, 2010 still remains uncertain. Clearly, jewelers didn’t experience the same declines as last year when 80% said sales were either flat or down and 65% reported sales down 10% or more during the November-December selling season. Still sales didn’t rebound back to historical levels for most jewelers...

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