Retailing by the Book
CIBJO, the World Jewelry Confederation, has written the book on jewelry retailing. The Retailer’s Guide to Marketing Diamond Jewellery is available for free download at www.cibjo.org. The 99-page guide, which is in a pdf format, has a lot of good basic information on evaluating and improving your retail jewelry business. There are some handy forms and worksheets on everything from how to have a friend mystery shop your store to evaluating ad media.
Sections include: Your Business, including strategic planning and using SWOT analysis; Your Customer, including motivation and a template for a customer database questionnaire; Staff Training, with a mystery shopping questionnaire; Branding, which includes seven reasons why it’s a good idea; Merchandising, including a guide to window display that recommends devoting 10 percent of your promotional budget to your windows; Public Relations and Events, including a template for writing a press release; and Advertising and Promotion, including a guide to working with an agency. In addition to business tool formats, the guide also includes case studies of retailers in the United Kingdom in many of the sections. Although all the examples and some of the recommendations are tailored to the U.K., there are plenty of tips that are helpful for U.S. retailers as well. The section on customers is based on De Beers research on customer motivations and how male and female customers have different needs and different expectations. It discusses the power of the “diamond moment” and tips for insuring that your customers achieve it. And, hey, the price is right.