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Is ‘ethical’ worth the extra money?

Last Wednesday, I attended a panel discussion on “ethical” diamonds organized by the Women’s Jewelry Association and held here in New York.

Inevitably, the discussion, moderated by jewelry industry writer and editor Peggy Jo Donahue, came around to the question of money: How much are people willing to pay for a diamond that lays claims to being responsibly mined?

It’s not unlike the questions Americans face in a myriad of other shopping situations.

You’re at the grocery store and the free-range, organic eggs, presumably produced by chickens with a (somewhat) better life than their factory-farmed counterparts, are lined up alongside regular, non-organic options. The organic eggs are double or even triple the price of the non-organic variety. Are you willing to pay more? Which will you choose? 

Two of the panelists, Rebecca Foerster, the U.S. vice president of Rio Tinto Diamonds, and Forevermark U.S. Inc. President Charles Stanley, said their companies charge a premium for their products because they believe there are people who are willing to pay for the assurance of owning an ethically sourced diamond.

Stanley noted that there will come a “tipping point” when the origin of products will become an issue across the board.

But Andrea Hansen, CEO of Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry, said from their viewpoint, the consumer hasn’t reached that point yet. Rather than attach a premium to their ethically sourced merchandise, the company takes a lower margin. “I don’t see on the retail level yet that the consumer is willing to pay that much more for the product,” she said.

As one of those people who definitely goes for the organic food in the grocery store, I’m all for knowing where my food, clothing, etc. comes from and knowing that the people on the producing end were treated fairly.

But I am a single woman living in New York City with no one to support but myself. Might I feel differently if I had four other mouths to feed or lived in a part of the country where there was less emphasis on origin?

During the discussion, the subject of how to distinguish ethically sourced inventory while not disparaging other stock arose. Foerster said what Rio Tinto tells retailers is to call their diamonds “Canadian” or “Australian,” not label them as “non-conflict.”

“It’s never setting it up as bad inventory vs. good inventory,” she said, comparing it to (as I have above) organic and non-organic in a supermarket. There are some shoppers who go straight to the organic selections while others, for whatever reasons, stick with less expensive, non-organic items.

Nobody’s insulted or running out of the store because the grocer carries both.

The fourth panel member, Susan Posnock, Jewelers of America’s associate director of public affairs, seconded this idea, noting that there are some consumers who still buy regular coffee even though fair-trade coffee has been readily available for years.

“It’s just about giving consumers choices,” she said.

Retailers, what’s the situation in your store and in your community as a whole? Do you have enough customers who care about where their diamond comes from to make carrying more expensive, but ethically sourced, diamonds worthwhile? 

The allure of Anthropologie

I was intrigued to learn that the new CEO of industry stalwart David Yurman Inc., Glen T. Senk, comes to the company from Urban Outfitters Inc., where he is credited with helping to grow the company’s Anthropologie brand from a single-store prototype into what it is today.

That is: a $1 billion-plus brand with stores all over the country, as well as a few now outside the U.S., and a strong online presence.

According to Yurman, Senk was selected for his “creative vision” as well as his “exceptional record of success in developing and expanding powerful multi-channel, multi-national retail and wholesale brands.”

If Senk had a hand in developing Anthropologie, which I believe offers one of the best retail experiences available today, then it certainly seems he will be an asset to an industry that is in need of a creative spark, both in stores and online.

I don’t shop in many national chain stores. Smaller boutiques like those found around New York’s East Village are more my style. But I do love Anthropologie and will make it a point to go in every time I see one no matter where I am in the country.

I love the way the stores are configured. They’re more like a cozy house--with beautiful wood floors and vintage-inspired furniture--than a store. I don’t necessarily even feel like I am shopping while I am in there, though the credit card bill I later receive suggests otherwise.

On a recent visit to Anthropologie, I noticed that they had launched a do-it-yourself charm necklace feature. Not unlike Pandora, Chamilia or the other bead brands that have become major sellers in recent years, the DIY Charms gives customers the chance to pick a chain style and then build a personalized necklace by choosing their own charms.

Customers are free to pick as few, or as many, little baubles as they would like, with the idea here being that they, hopefully, return to the store in the future for more charms or to swap out old ones for something new.

Sound familiar?

Anthropologie also has do-it-yourself charm functionality on its website, a cleverly designed interactive feature that certainly held my attention for a while. (See one of the necklaces I so lovingly constructed here--the site allows you to take a picture of your necklace and save it to your desktop or, of course, share it via Facebook and/or Twitter.)

But, don’t just take my word for it. Here are a few thoughts from my best friend, who is my age (we’ll say early 30s), also an Anthropologie shopper and who recently bought a suite of bridesmaids’ dresses from the store. After hanging on to the dresses for a couple months during some back-and-forth with her mother about the style, she returned them all for a full refund.

Here’s what she had to say about why she likes the store so much: “It’s not just the vast array of clothing and accessory lines from Anthropologie that I like or the fact that I know when I walk in, the problem won’t be finding something but, rather, finding too much. But it's the accommodating customer service that keeps me a fan for life. No questions asked on returns that can be taken back at any point, which they’ve been nothing but gracious about, emailing my receipts to me when asked, discounts in honor of a birthday and bending over backwards to help when I have questions about merchandise. The always-cheerful staff is obviously trained to know how to cherish their clientele and do everything in their power to keep them happy.”

The ability to establish and keep customers for life; that sounds like an asset any jewelry CEO should have.

Is all publicity positive?

My colleague and I just had a discussion this week about the tendency of some news websites to use too many clichés in their headlines.

Yet I just can’t get around applying the cliché “any publicity is good publicity” when I think about the recent, supposed marketing “missteps” by J.C. Penney.

As I am sure many of have heard -- as it received roughly as much coverage as the president’s jobs bill -- J.C. Penney made quite a stir this fall with its “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me” shirt, which I agree does send an abysmal message to young girls but certainly isn’t the only negative message filtering into their lives.

J.C. Penney pulled the shirt from store shelves but not before the chain’s juniors’ T-shirts received widespread press.

The next “gaffe” on J.C. Penney’s part was this commercial for its Van Heusen line of clothing for men, an advertisement I’ll refer to as the Fast Times at Ridgemont High flashback.

The ad was a split screen. The right side featured men modeling clothes from Van Heusen while the left showed the famous scene from that film when actress Phoebe Cates emerges from the swimming pool in her red bikini. (Before you leave this blog to Google the video clip, let me just tell you that the commercial cuts it off at the pivotal moment, the “good” or “bad” part, depending on your point of view.)

Saatchi & Saatchi, the same firm that did the award-winning “Welcome to the Doghouse” campaign for J.C. Penney a couple of years ago, crafted the commercial.

J.C. Penney got slammed for the spot, with many crying sexism. The chain apologized on its Facebook page and said it wouldn’t air the Fast Times flashback commercial again after its scheduled run ended in September. (As an aside, I didn’t find the commercial offensive. It was just a woman in a bikini, not to mention it’s a clip from a movie that’s almost 30 years old. Oh, and here’s a newsflash: men like to look at women, and sex is often used in advertising to sell products. Cates is hardly the first attractive woman injected into an unrelated ad targeting men.)

A number of news articles and blogs criticized J.C. Penney for being “dumb” for airing the Cates ad after the homework-shirt debacle, but I am not so sure the decisions were short-sighted. 

J.C. Penney, after all, is in the middle of a major image overhaul, bringing in executives from Apple and Target to update their shopping experience and attract more consumers.

And when one’s in the midst of a makeover, isn’t any publicity good publicity?

Peeking in Pandora’s box

I was surprised by Tuesday’s announcement that Pandora’s CEO was stepping down and the company retooling in the face of sliding sales and poor execution in both marketing and operations.

The announcement raised a number of questions for me about a brand that I have perceived as being über-successful within the industry, kicking off a craze for a charm bracelets with a modern twist and helping many jewelers make it through the recession when nothing else--save bridal--was selling.

Has Pandora simply saturated the market? One of the thoughts that first came to mind when I read the Pandora announcement was that they had simply reached a point where the majority of people who wanted their product had what they wanted and didn’t need or want to buy anymore.

Industry analyst Jeff Taraschi said that’s not necessarily the case. There are consumers out there still wanting to buy Pandora-type products, they’re just buying it from other companies that are selling it for less.

“When you’re successful it brings a lot of competition and it brings a lot of competition at lower price points,” he said. “People that like the [Pandora] look are buying the look from the competition rather than buying it from Pandora.” 

He added that Pandora might be feeling some heat from recently announced partnership between competitor Chamilia and Swarovski, a strong brand.

“There probably would be concern at the executive level in the boardroom ... about this Chamilia-Swarovski relationship. It’s direct competition,” Taraschi notes.

Is Pandora a fad that’s fading? In conducting interviews with retailers over the past couple of years, I’ve come to discover that Pandora is a deeply dividing topic. Some jewelers refuse to carry Pandora, or any similar lines, because they feel it doesn’t belong in a fine jewelry store and is a fad that will disappear over time. As one retailer Tweeted to me the other day, “It’s not real jewelry!”

On the other hand, there are jewelers who have hired extra people just to man the Pandora counter and swear by the product as a way to generate traffic in their stores and sales among today’s price-conscious consumers.

So, are Pandora’s recent weak financials and ousting of the CEO are a sign that the former were correct, that Pandora is a fad that’s losing steam? Taraschi and Ken Gassman, another analyst that follows the industry closely, say no.

Gassman said he was surprised by Pandora’s problems and the resignation of the company’s CEO. “Any company with a growth curve like theirs is bound to hit a rough spot, but it is unusual this early in their life cycle. Further, the CEO’s resignation is a surprise,” he said.

Despite the problems, he said jewelers tell him that Pandora continues to sell well, and he said he’s heard nothing about price resistance from jewelers or consumers (though price is evidently a problem, as discussed below).

He also said he thinks beads--the backbone of Pandora’s business--have staying power as a category due to their low price point.

“Beads won’t ever be a major jewelry category, but it is viable (just as charm bracelets always seem to sell, and diamond engagement rings always seem to sell)” Gassman said.  

Taraschi said beads aren’t like gold hoops or diamond line bracelets--jewelry staples that will be with the industry forever--but companies such as Pandora will continue to exist. Their success will ebb and flow, according to how innovative they are with their product.

So then, what is the main problem? The issue that came up time and again in Pandora’s hour-and-a-half long conference call on Tuesday: price.

As the prices of gold and silver have soared, so have Pandora’s prices. And that hasn’t sat well with their core customers, executives acknowledged during the call.

 “Every business has a certain amount of price elasticity,” Taraschi said. “They might have crossed a boundary where consumers are no longer willing to pay at that level.”

Rather than being creative and re-engineering their product to create something more affordable, the feeling must have been that the brand was strong enough to be insulated from consumer backlash due to increasing prices. “The results would say that was a flawed strategy. That’s why you eliminate the CEO, for misjudging price elasticity, for not working to engineer product so the same basic look and feel could be presented without the price increases,” Taraschi said.

During Tuesday’s call, Pandora executives said that the average selling price in the United States has risen 40 percent over the past 18 months.

The company said it won’t raise prices for the remainder of 2011 or in 2012, a pretty bold statement considering the way the cost of metals continues to rise. Executives acknowledged that this obviously means they will be taking a hit on margins. Pandora’s second quarter margins were 74 percent.

Lastly, here are a few notes from the conference call that I found interesting.  

• The weakness in their Q2 sales was caused by a “sharp deterioration” in the charms and charm bracelet business, and the U.S. market was singled out the largest contribution to this decline.

•  Pandora has too much inventory, a problem many jewelers grappled with, and ultimately corrected, during the recession. Pandora said its inventory as a percentage of revenue increased from 21 percent in the second quarter 2010 to 24 percent in the second quarter 2011. The company said it is overstocked due to a combination of high gold and silver prices slowing sales and its failure to adjust production levels to demand.

•  Pandora executives were asked during the conference call if they were willing to buy back inventory from overstocked retailers. One executive said it’s “one of the options we’ve got,” though no one made any firm commitment, acknowledging only that the company has an inventory problem that needs to be solved.

Looking for feedback on Forevermark

When I was heading over to London last week to learn more about De Beers’ Forevermark branded diamond program I spent the majority of my time on the plane working on an in-depth story to accompany our upcoming State of the Majors report.

Without giving too much away, one topic National Jeweler will be addressing in the analysis is the trend whereby some of the industry’s biggest sellers--think retailers such as Kay Jewelers and Macy’s--are stocking more and more “exclusive” lines tied to well-known names.

What is it about these exclusive partnerships that are so appealing these days? They are a way to get potential customers into your store by putting a name out there that they know, trust and consider to be an expert or standout in one certain area. Kay Jewelers is now offering a bridal line by Neil Lane, whose name is all over the place come red carpet time. At Sears, it’s wedding reality show star David Tutera, at J.C. Penney it’s bridal tied into the publication Modern Bride. On Monday, in fact, Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) published an article in which J.C. Penney’s CEO said that Modern Bride-branded  line had generated “strong gains” in its bridal business and that the company in general was focusing on its exclusive offerings to generate growth going forward. (A WWD subscription is needed to read the story.)

And for the independent retailer it’s...De Beers? After learning about Forevermark over the course of a couple of days last week, one thought that entered my mind was that for the independent retailer, Forevemark can be their “exclusive” offering, tied to a name that’s most definitely associated with diamonds in one way or another, De Beers.

At its core, Forevermark is yet another symbol of the changing times. For years and years, De Beers’ controlled the vast majority of the world’s supply of rough diamonds. Today, their share is less than half; it’s actually down to between 35 and 40 percent, as one De Beers executive told me when I was in London.

The company that once was interested in seeing diamonds sold everywhere and developed generic marketing campaigns for everyone to use now has had to create something special to set itself, and its diamonds, apart.

At the same time, the brick-and-mortar retailers that used to be the only go-to for diamond shopping now find themselves competing with online retailers that can sell it for less. They too, need to find something to standout from the competition and offer to the consumer something that they can’t find, and buy, online. (De Beers said they won’t be partnering with online retailers for the Forevermark program; whether or not U.S. retailers will be able to sell online is still up for debate, as noted in this interview with Forevermark CEO Stephen Lussier.)

It’s into this space that De Beers has launched Forevermark for the independent jeweler in the United States. The branded diamond only will be available at select retailers--think American Gem Society-level jewelers--who buy into the program. It’s not, as Lussier put it, “going to be the mass sort of program that De Beers’ historical programs were.”

De Beers declined to provide specific figures on how many jewelers it’s aiming to have in the Forevermark program, what jewelers already are signed up to carry the diamonds or to verify the dollar buy-in amount for the program, which, as I understand, varies from store to store.

I hope to have some of this information shortly but, in the meantime, I’d like to get some feedback from independent retail jewelers, and any other interested industry parties, on Forevermark.

Retailers: do you think carrying Forevermark is something that could help set your store apart?

From your perspective, what do consumers, in general, think of the name De Beers? One retailer told me that they thought the name carried positive weight with consumers. When I asked De Beers about it in London, Lussier told me that consumers’ general associations with the name “De Beers” are “very positive. There’s hardly any negative imagery associated with De Beers around the issue of conflict, quite the opposite.”

Along those same lines, De Beers also noted that one of the upsides to Forevermark is that it is essentially traced from mine to market and can be 100 percent guaranteed as conflict-free, which is an issue that is especially important to younger consumers. I don’t generally disagree with this statement, but it seems like every time I talk with retailers about this issue, they tell me that very few customers who come in to buy a diamond even bring up the “conflict” or “blood” diamond issue.

Retailers, what are you thoughts here? Comments can be noted here or e-mailed to michelle.graff@nationaljeweler.com.

Don’t wait around to get busy

In re-capping 2010 with retailers, I had a number of them tell me that business was up during the course of the year, but all with one interesting footnote: Sales were off in the months when they would traditionally see a lot of business--say, for instance, May for Mother’s Day--while the store was bustling in other months when business is usually dead.

“There is no rhyme or reason anymore,” one Arkansas retailer who’s been in business for more than 40 years told me.

Similar comments came from a jeweler in Louisiana and a store manager in California. The California retailer conjectured that the media might play a role, with consumers’ penchant for spending ebbing and flowing in tandem with the news about the stock market and unemployment.

The media, said industry analyst and Interactive Group President Jeff Taraschi, definitely has a greater impact on consumer spending these days. He said consumers today are “highly aware” of what celebrities wear to awards ceremonies--such as the recently-aired Academy Awards--thanks to the instant reports that pop up on the Internet nearly the same minute our so-beloved stars step onto the red carpet.

That can drive demand for a certain look or style just as, conversely, news about rising gas prices can cause consumers to clamp down on their spending.

“People who read are influenced by positives from the press and negatives from the press. I think that’s part of the equation,” Taraschi said.

But, he said, it’s not the whole story. He said the idea that retailers today don’t know how to anticipate what will be their busy months is “almost archaic.”

Today’s consumer is super-busy (though with what I’m not exactly sure since we have gadgets designed to make everything easier, but that’s probably a subject for another blog). People today want to “pack more into their life,” said Taraschi, so the idea of being able to shop by appointment or buy something online at the exact moment they have free during the day is ultra-appealing.

And while retailers shouldn’t completely abandon traditional forms of marketing, they do need to focus on being in touch with their customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. They need to stop worrying about where all the Mother’s Day shoppers are in May or the engagement ring buyers in November and give people a reason to come into the store at any time. 

Do a blog, send out a newsletter every season introducing your new collections, get a Facebook page, Tweet, sell online--anything that helps you virtually connect with your customers and brings people in to the store. It’s a point that’s been made over and over to retailers but one that definitely bears repeating.

“[Jewelers] have to be relevant to people who want to shop on demand rather than waiting for occasions,” Taraschi said.

Are shoppers having fun yet?

Last week, I went to see the stage version of “Pee Wee’s Playhouse,” the 1980s TV series that was a mainstay at my house on Saturday mornings. For those that missed it, either voluntarily or otherwise, each episode of the show featured a “Secret Word,” and viewers were asked to “scream real loud” every time one of the show’s characters uttered it (not my mother’s favorite aspect of the show). The “Secret Word” last Thursday was...“fun.”

Ahh, yes, fun, that thing that jewelry shopping is constantly criticized for not being. In a jewelry store, the merchandise is locked up under glass (for good reason), preventing customers from “playing” with the pieces while the stores themselves are often maligned for being stuffy and intimidating.

This criticism is one I’ve heard time and again over the years and it’s not one with which I necessarily disagree. But in the interest of giving credit where it is most definitely due, I have to point out a few examples of industry players that seem to be having some fun these days.

In the spirit of my still-lingering love for the Playhouse, feel free to scream real loud at every “fun” in this blog. I don’t mind.
 
Earlier this fall, I had the pleasure of sitting down with California designer Lori Bonn and a few members of her staff to build my very own Bon Bonns bracelet. These Bon Bonns are not of the edible “she-sat-around-eating-them-all-day-while-her-husband-was-at-work” variety. Rather, they are Lori’s clever take on the interchangeable bead craze. A person, such as myself, comes in to a retail store, chooses the beads they like and builds a bracelet that is entirely reflective of their personality and tastes, such as this one below.

After the bracelet is constructed, the wearer has the ability to move their beads around, take some off or add new ones into the mix. And retailers can feel free to put Lori’s clever display on top of the counter and let the customer play. Yes, I know this is not revolutionary—these types of bracelets have been around for a while—but that didn’t stop my Bon Bonn bracelet-building experience from being any less enjoyable.

More recently, National Jeweler did a story on jewelry design and manufacturing house Tacori holding a virtual “try-it-on” event for its 18k925 Collection at Bloomingdale’s. Using technology from London-based Holition, shoppers were able to virtually put on a piece of Tacori jewelry to get an idea of how it would look on them. There was no having to ask someone to take it out of the case and, thus, no feeling bad on the customers’ part if they tried on 20 rings and didn’t buy a single one. On the employees’ side, there was no need to hawk-eye customers while they played around with the jewelry. 

Tacori isn’t the first to use virtual try-it-on technology—Macy’s launched a  “Magic Fitting Room” earlier in the fall—but I was so happy to hear of someone in the jewelry industry taking the shopping experience to the next level. I think virtual experiences are going to be part of the retail landscape going forward. It’s nice to see an industry player out ahead of the pack, instead of lagging 10 years behind.

So will independent retailers that carry Tacori get a chance to see virtual reality at work in their store? Tacori spokeswoman Michelle Adorjan said, “Yes, we would hope to make this installation into a traveling experience. Ideally it would be for future rollouts with more Bloomingdale’s stores, as well as bringing this to our independent retailers to help them with innovative ways to interact with potential customers in their markets.”

Virtual try-it-on technology is a now a permanent part of Tacori’s Web site; you can “try” on some pieces from the 18k925 Collection yourself by clicking here. (Webcam required.) While the virtual experience is currently just limited to this one collection, Tacori plans to add the option of virtually trying on bridal very soon, which will have “lots of legs and potential applications for Tacori and our retailer partners,” Adorjan notes.

How fun.

NYT on millennials and personalization

Back in the August issue of National Jeweler, we wrote about the need among young engagement ring buyers--particularly those who are part of the generation known as the "Millennials" or "Generation Y"--to have something unique.

Earlier this week, The New York Times picked up the millennials-like-it-their-way torch with this article, featuring the same jewelry manufacturer highlighted in our own story--Gottlieb & Sons. The tagline of the Gottlieb & Sons campaign has been slightly altered since we wrote about it, shifting from "Wear Your Love Story" to "Every Romance Has a Story. Wear Yours." But the message remains the same.

Today's young engagement ring shopper could care less about topping their neighbor's 1-carat diamond with a 3-carat rock. It's not about financially out-dueling your friends and neighbors anymore but having something that's set apart from the ring, wedding, dress, etc. that everybody else is buying/throwing/wearing. It's a trend definitely worth jewelers' time and attention, and one Gottlieb & Sons was wise to acknowledge.

The Cleveland-based company deserves kudos for pointing out to jewelers what's really important to today's bridal customers and turning the conversation away from what jewelers always seem to spend their time worrying about: young people buying online. Forget about those customers that you're not going to get anyway--those who buy most everything online and very infrequently go into any kind of brick-and-mortar outlet, much less a jewelry store. Instead, focus on what the young people who are coming into your store want: something different.

Create buzz around the cash register

One idea that popped into my head during Tuesday's eco-luxe event (other than ‘I am a wasteful human being who needs to recycle more’) is that it's probably not a bad time to invest in some socially conscious, lower-price-point pieces to stick by the cash register.

Case in point: a new line called "Let it Bee." 

This line of bee-themed jewelry is attempting to create buzz around an issue that maybe doesn't get as much play as larger environmental issues, such as the plight of the polar bears, but is a big problem just the same: Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD.

Not to be confused with the awful Catholic version of Sunday school I was forced to attend every Sunday of my young life (thanks, Mom), CCD refers to the unexplained phenomenon of workers bees abandoning their hives, leaving the other bees behind. Without the workers, the hive collapses and the majority of its occupants die off.

What this means, in the long run, is fewer busy bees to pollinate crops, which, in turn, has an effect on the food chain.

Feel like the only thing we'll be missing if honeybees disappear is, well, honey? Consider a 2008 report from Congress that shows that honeybees are the most valuable economic pollinators of crops worldwide, contributing to the production of many fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, forage crops (plants eaten by grazing livestock) and some field crops (plants we eat).

I don't want to turn this jewelry blog into a biology lesson, so if you want more information on CCD, click here, or to download a PDF of the report just mentioned, click here.

In any case, “Let it Bee,” which consists of two distinct collections, features unique designs and is priced very well.

Pieces in the basic “Honey Bee Line” start at $15.99, while the more upscale pieces in the “Colony Culture Collection,” will run customers a max of $160.

(The “Apiary” bracelet pictured here is part of the Colony Culture Collection.)

Of course this isn’t fine jewelry (though the line's creator Meg Bryson wouldn't object to crafting a few high-end pieces), but it's cute, the designs are great and I could see the line having mass appeal to a number of age groups, from grandmas to young girls.

So would it be such a crime to place it by the cash register and sell it as an add-on?

It's for a good cause, as 5 percent of the proceeds from each sale goes to the CCD Research Team at Penn State.

Carrying the jewelry helps spread the word about CCD, giving life to the old adage "you learn something new everyday," and conveys a message of being socially responsible to your customers.

This is a line you can carry in good conscience, even if you hate bees because you've been stung too many times.

Do shoppers enjoy coming to your store?

Last week, I attended the Rapaport Diamond Conference, which concluded with an interesting discussion on the Kimberley Process.

While my original article focused on that--journalists are suckers for a good debate--I felt I'd be remiss not to mention another topic that caught my attention during this all-day extravaganza: Other retailers leave jewelry stores in the dust when it comes to providing a relaxing and enjoyable shopping experience for consumers.

This is especially detrimental in an industry that's asking consumers to drop at least hundreds--more normally thousands--of dollars per purchase.

And while I hate to beat a dead horse, as this is a topic this magazine has covered time and again, it's probably worth mentioning at least one more time.

Just ask Chris and C.K.

--Chris Ellis, president of Consensus Advisors, talked about how jewelry stores are unnecessarily filled to the brim with product.

Ellis is definitely a man who understands where jewelry stores go awry. His Boston-based investment banking and financial advisory firm has been front and center for some of the industry’s most high-profile meltdowns in recent years, including L.I.D. Ltd. and Friedman’s Jewelers.

What he said, essentially, is that retailers need to quit worrying about filling every square inch of their showrooms with display cases--which are then, of course, packed with goods they don't actually own and have no motivation to sell--and put something different in their store, like a bar or children's play area.

Don't think anybody will sit at the bar and it'll be a waste of your time and money?

Talk to Cathy Calhoun at Calhoun Jewelers in Pennsylvania or Jeff Weiss at Glennpeter Jewelers in upstate New York.

Their bars are a hit and, according to both Calhoun and the folks at Glennpeter Jewelers, so were the articles we did on both of their stores.

Cathy Calhoun told me she's been getting tons of calls about how she set up her bar (pictured here), whether or ot people use it, etc., since the article on her space ran in our September issue.

(Sorry I can't provide you with a link; that story's not up on our site yet, but the Glennpeter story was an online exclusive you can check out here.) 

--C.K. Venkatraman, of Indian retailer Tanishq, questioned whether or not jewelry stores both in India and the United States were doing enough to keep up with the increasingly interactive world that revolves around things such as iPods and "e-books," a reference to the new Amazon Kindle.

Diamonds might be a girl's best friend today, but will that still be the case 15 years from now?

"Are the jewelry stores in the U.S. sanctuaries?" he said. "Are the jewelry stores in India designed for the women of 2025?"

Venkatraman also notes that in almost every retail store, people can interact independently with the products, citing in particular the experience people have when they go to an Apple store.

People probably get sick of hearing experts heap worship on Apple like it's a retail demigod--the product of a retail store that's mated with a super-hip hangout--but it's pretty obvious they know what they're doing.

This is not the case in the vast majority of jewelry stores where the high-priced merchandise is locked up, though it is worth pointing out that Tiffany & Co. now has two stores that offer lower price-point merchandise that's displayed so customers can try it on without assistance. It opened the first earlier this year in California and followed recently with a second store in Seattle.

Venkatraman said jewelry stores need to figure out how to make the shopping experience more fun for customers, citing his company's now-shuttered Tanishq boutiques as a good example of how jewelry shopping can be a "stress-buster,” a calming, relaxing experience, for women.

Can the same be said about your store?