Is your jewelry store stuck in the middle of the pack?
Where are you positioned in your community, more importantly, where do your clients see your store?
Is the consensus that you are a low priced value leader?
Are you the leading fine jewelry location in the area or are you attempting to carve out your niche somewhere in the middle with everyone else?
Far too many independent jewelers today have retreated to what they consider to be a safe position in the middle somewhere.
Certainly, it is a position, but it is far, far from safe.
Take a moment and consider the following:
Is Your Jewelry Store Stuck In The Middle?
– If you take on the mantle of the high-end jeweler.
Most of your clients will assume that you offer the best quality which is a desirable position.
You seldom have to discuss quality or craftsmanship because it is assumed due to the price.
Fewer transactions, however; the profit dollars come in large chunks and there are far few competitors.
America, by all reports, is quickly becoming a land of have’s or have not’s.
The true middle class is being squeezed out as never before.
The wealthy are still in there shopping.
– If you portray yourself as a low-cost jeweler.
Most people will assume you deliver an acceptable product at the lowest price.
Bargain driven value clients will increase your transactions.
Granted the profit dollars per transaction is smaller, but there are many more transactions to offset it.
Some competition, though far fewer than those stuck in the middle.
– If you make the middle of your home.
The price of jewelry in the middle tells people that you are not the finest quality and neither is your price the best.
That is certainly not a compelling story to tell.
If you are priced in between the two extremes you are competing with almost everyone else selling jewelry and that includes the Internet, unfortunately.
There are a lot of “wait and see” jewelers in the middle right now.
Since 2007 they have bought less and less high-end pieces because they convinced themselves that people are on hard times right now and cannot afford the luxury.
The problem is that the wealthy still can make purchases but you don’t have the pieces they want anymore, while the middle class that you bought for cannot afford jewelry as they did at one time.
Classic lose-lose position to be in right now.
Need further convincing?
Consider the well-known author Michael Porter and his research in the book titled, “Competitive Strategy”, p. 41-42 “The firm stuck in the middle is almost guaranteed low profitability.
It either loses the high-volume customers who demand low prices or must bid away its profits to get this business away from low-cost firms.
Yet it also loses high-margin businesses — the cream — to the firms who are focused on high-margin targets or have achieved differentiation overall.
The firm stuck in the middle also probably suffers from a blurred corporate culture and a conflicting set of organizational arrangements and motivation system.”
The identity for those jewelers in the middle becomes, “When you want to step up to something finer, but just haven’t arrived in life yet so you can afford the good stuff.”
Try getting people excited about that ad campaign.
The days of muddling along without a clear strategy in the middle are numbered for more and more independent jewelers.
If your sales are stagnant, and your market share has dropped then you have to ask yourself this question, “Is your jewelry store stuck in the middle?”
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The host of “Inside the Jewelry Trade” Radio Show – Jewelry Business Strategist – President of Four Grainer LLC. Author of the business books “A Reason To Chant,” and “A Reason to Chant – Jewelry Trade Edition.” Rod lives in Atlanta with his wife and two almost-human cats.