Holiday Retail Hype

By Ronit Scheyer

Holidays are big business for jewelry retailers. As most industry experts will tell you, retail is an event- driven business. Although there are times when someone will make a purchase “just because,” most people buy a luxury item like jewelry when they have a reason to – whether it’s a gift-giving occasion like a holiday or an event like a marriage proposal or a birthday. According to research published by the DTC, only 12 percent of all diamonds by value are purchased for “no occasion”, which leaves a whopping 88 percent that is purchased for an event or occasion such as a wedding, anniversary, birthday or holiday.

In terms of sales, Christmas is the most significant holiday for all retailers, and even more so for jewelry retailers in particular. An average of 33 percent of the retail jeweler’s annual sales is generated during this period, as opposed to 24 percent for the typical retail merchant. When asked to list their biggest holidays in terms of sales, all the retailers with whom we spoke for this article singled out Christmas as the most important, followed by Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.

Diamonds Sell. Period.

If we are talking about what sells during holidays, it is clear that Christmas consumers love diamonds. More diamond jewelry is sold during this period than at any other time of the year. Retailers queried for this article stated that diamond jewelry is invariably their top seller for this holiday.

Kevin Gabriel, director of marketing for Kansas City-based retail jeweler Tivol, cited diamond fashion jewelry as an item that continues to be popular for their peak sales period. Cohen Ritchie of Oregon-based Harry Ritchie’s Jewelers said that, for them, diamond stud earrings and most recently, the Love Story brand wedding sets and diamond jewelry are their most lucrative sellers. When asked which items sold the best for these three holidays, Joshua Koerber of Denver jeweler Koerber’s said, “Diamond jewelry is always number one…It’s all diamonds – like Hearts On Fire, Diamond Circles and Journey pendants. Oh, and we sell a hell of a lot of diamond studs during every holiday season.” David Nygaard Jewelers of Virginia Beach said that engagement rings, diamond studs, and other diamond jewelry top their sales list.

For other holidays, though, the hot items vary. During the holiday of love – Valentine’s Day – anything red sells well, and for Mother’s Day, fashion jewelry is in high demand.

Figures released by the National Retail Federation (NRF) confirm that these holidays mean big numbers for retailers. According to the NRF’s 2007 Mother’s Day Consumer Intentions and Actions survey, consumers said that they planned to spend a total of $15.73 billion, an average of $139 per person, on their moms. More than (32.8 percent) of the shoppers planned to spend $2.1 billion on jewelry.

Marketing Madness
While most retailers can only dream of having customers come, unannounced and un-advertised-to into their stores to purchase big-ticket items, this is not the reality. Most retailers still need to engage in the nuts and bolts of driving foot traffic in old fashioned ways, such as television and radio adverts, periodicals inserts and direct snail mail and electronic mailings.

Different retailers advertise in different ways. Some mail out a catalog in the months leading up to the winter holiday season – like Tivol, as Gabriel said “our annual catalog is much anticipated by our customers, and we kick off the holiday season with this.” The company also produces specialized direct mail pieces that feature gift items. Others take a different approach: Harry Ritchie’s puts out scores of television and radio commercials to try and reach as many people as possible. Koerber explained that they tie the two together, focusing their attention on TV ads and direct mailings throughout the year and “hit[ting] it even heavier come November and on into December” – to boost winter holiday traffic.

But as any good businessperson knows, marketing is much more than tossing out a net and hoping to catch as many fish as possible. Tivol runs various events year-round to drive foot traffic. Each fall they host a Guys Night Out to feature men’s jewelry and timepieces. “We also take this opportunity to talk to them about gift ideas for the holiday,” said Kevin Gabriel, Tivol’s director of marketing.

They also run designer appearances and unique philanthropic events. For example, they hosted jewelry designer Penny Preville for a charity event. “She spent one day at each or our three stores. During the three days customers could make a donation to Wayside Waifs (a local animal shelter) and be entered to win a pair of Penny Preville earrings valued at $2400. On the third day (Saturday) we opened the Tivol Doggie Bar at our Plaza location. We encouraged people to come for the opening with their four-legged friends, and we served dog cake and had Tivol dog biscuits by Three Dog Bakery. This event raised more than $1800 for Wayside Waifs and resulted in seven dogs being adopted from the shelter.”

To boost winter holiday sales, Harry Ritchie’s runs one-day restyling events in November and December. This brings people into the stores to revamp the jewelry they already own into something hopefully a little bigger and more expensive. Ritchie noted that they also offer a four-day sale in December to drive foot traffic in that all-important Christmas selling period.

Koerber’s store manager Joshua Koerber described an event that the company holds on a regular basis. Every year, Koerber’s holds a “Girls Night Out,” to which they invite their best women customers to the store. They wine and dine the ladies, with  drinks and hors d‘oeuvres. While the women are at the store, they show them new designs and new ‘special’ pieces. Afterwards, they are taken out to a Broadway show. They also concentrate on working with local charity organizations and hospitals in fundraising activities.

Some jewelers believe in the power of customer service and “personal contact” between the company and the customer, such as David Nygaard, who noted this aspect of selling as being the most important marketing strategy in his tool kit.

One Christmas morning he received a call from a distraught customer who had forgotten someone on her gift list. Although admittedly not dressed in a big red suit, Nygaard and his family personally delivered a watch to the customer. Not only are holidays good for jewelry sales, they can also have happy endings.