Brand Positioning:
A Winning Strategy for Jewelers

This issue of Retail Jewelry Insights™ will focus on the changing marketplace and how brand values and jewelry store positioning can be used to defend a jeweler’s current market share and gain market share from weaker, poorly positioned competitors.

Business Finally Improves!

After nine months of unprecedented sales declines, jewelers began to see sales improve in September of 2009 as they calendarized the previous year’s weak sales numbers.  Starting slowly in September, specialty jewelry sales increased about 0.3% followed by a (0.7%) decline October.  Then sales took off in November and December, increasing 7.5% and 14.3% respectively.   According to analysts, total specialty jewelry sales declined about (3.9%) in 2009 versus a (6.1%) decline in 2008.  All told, specialty jewelry sales declined about (9.6%) to about $27.2 billion from sales highs in 2007 or about $29 billion...