Modern Jewelry Trends

s it a sign of a growing trend? The Wall Street Journal’s Cranky Consumer column tried out jewelry rental sites this week. The column gave rave reviews to Adornbrides.com. The WJS rented a pair of single-strand diamond earrings for two days for $90 plus shipping. The bride-oriented site has about 20 pairs of earrings, 14 necklaces, and seven bracelets. Top price is $960 to rent a diamond necklace set with 9.26 cts of diamonds the site values at $26,800. The site doesn’t encourage other renters: it asks you for your wedding date, not when you want to rent and the selection is focused on pretty conservative bride-type items. Other sites mentioned in the story are Bagborroworsteal.com, which we wrote about in Something Borrowed, in May, and two costume jewelry rental sites Borrowedbling.com and Imoveritonline.com. Bagborroworsteal.com is criticized for not including addressed return envelope.

For retail jewelry store owners, one of the most frustrating aspects of competing with online retailers is that many do not have to collect sales tax. Especially on high-ticket items, the difference sales tax makes in the consumer’s final price can be significant. If you are in favor of requiring online retailers to collect sales tax, you will soon have a chance to have your voice heard by someone who can make a difference. Jewelers of America has invited Representative Charles Rangel, the powerful chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, to speak at the opening of the JA Show next Sunday morning. Representative Rangel, who JA has been lobbying on a proposed bill to allow individual states to impose sales taxes on e-commerce sales to their residents, will be touring the show and speaking to members of the trade afterwards.

Last week I talked about the successful but not-so-tasteful positioning of Steven Singer, the retailer in Philadelphia that folks love to hate. Another jewelry retailer in Michigan has attracted media attention not for his advertising but for a rather unusual security system: live scorpions in his display cases. Scott Ward of South Lyon Watch & Jewelry in South Lyon, Michigan was featured on WDIV, his local TV station and online on MSN.com explaining his somewhat high-maintenance system. “I’d think twice before I’d smash the glass and stick my hand in a case with a bunch of outraged scorpions,” Ward says. “It cuts down on the chance of a smash and grab.” Drama like this is bound to get attention and is a good way to get a lot of coverage for a special exhibit. At the Sri Lankan Gem Show in 1991, a 393-carat star sapphire, one of the world’s largest, was displayed in a case containing a king cobra. The snake-enhanced security was covered in the International Herald Tribune as well as national media. And today, it’s even easier to spread the news. This kind of video clip, whether produced by a TV station or done in house and uploaded to You Tube, can be pretty effective viral marketing. Of course, like Steven Singer’s style, it has to be appropriate for your target market. Ward says it has definitely increased his traffic although he hasn’t yet seen a boost in sales.

By now everyone knows that Google is an affordable way to easily buy ads online. You set a budget, pick your keywords, and pay only when someone clicks on your ad. But you may not know that you can now use Google to buy newspaper ads too. The new Google Print Ads service allows you to easily book ads online in your choice of more than 200 newspapers. Basically, the online giant is automating the process of buying the remnant space that most newspapers have left over when they reach deadline each day. Here’s how it works: You select the newspaper or newspapers you are interested in, select the ad size, day of the week and section, and you’ll see the rate card price for the ad. You can then submit a bid for that space. The newspaper can accept or reject your bid. If they reject it, they can tell you why and you can choose whether to bid again. The program would be particularly convenient for jewelry and watch brands who want to have a presence in newspapers in several different markets. Using Google ads allows you to maximize your budget, looking at the cost per thousand (CPM) of each newspaper, and you only have to deal with one bill. Because you can upload a different ad for each newspaper, it would also be handy for small chains and for brands who want to support important retail customers in several markets when launching a new product. Interestingly, the list of advertisers now using the service includes a lot of big online retailers. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Google and the e-commerce companies help revive growth in newspaper advertising? If all this sounds intriguing, you might want to give it a try before August 31. If you publish a newspaper ad before that deadline, you’ll receive up to $1,000 in credit toward a future Google Print Ads campaign.

Jewelry ads are nothing if not predictable: a blend of romance, sparkle, and status. Classical music, evening gowns. But Philadelphia jeweler Steven Singer think those tasteful ads just blend into the background like wallpaper. So Singer’s ads are, well, not exactly tasteful. In fact, people complain about them all the time, which is exactly the way Singer likes it, especially if they end up buying from him anyway. The distinctive voice in a Singer ad is not unlike that of one of his favorite advertising venues: the Howard Stern show. He speaks to men in a funny, unpretentious, lowest-common denominator kind of way. Instead of the opera, he sponsors chicken wing eating contests. And he doesn’t have designer trunk shows in his store, he has an annual “World’s Largest Bubble Bath,” complete with swimsuit-clad “hot” female contestants looking for prize-filled eggs hidden in the four feet of foam that fills the store. But nothing got as much attention as his huge billboards that say “I hate Steven Singer!” that the store began using in 2004. The billboards lead you to his website, which includes ten reasons to hate Steven Singer (for all the jewelry he makes you buy for your wife.) In addition to communicating the unique personality of the store, the website does a good job of parodying the normal cliched jewelry website. (Although Steven Singer, like many luxury jewelers, doesn’t sell online.) Singer says the in-your-face style boosts his sales, now $6.5 million annually, about 15 to 20 percent each year. A fun beer-drinking jewelry store for guys may not be your niche, of course, but Steven Singer has an original and distinctive personality. A real strong brand can’t ever appeal to everyone. Does your store have its own voice? If it does, make sure you are communicating it clearly on the web, in your ads, and in your store and store events. If you don’t, you too might end up hating Steven Singer.

The better your internet connection, the more the internet influences what you buy. In a new study by Media-Screen, 50% of consumers with fast connections said that the internet had influenced a recent purchase: 36% cited shopping sites and 15% search engines. That compares to only 11% who said television commercials influenced a recent purchase. Magazine ads were even lower at 6%. The survey, called Netpop | Shop, tracks the purchasing behavior of 1,397 U.S. broadband users 13 years and older. Of course, you have to take these numbers with a teaspoon or two of salt. This is user-reported data, after all, and we feel smarter when we say we research purchases online than when we say we are TV zombies who buy what commercials tell us to buy. But still, the numbers are pretty convincing. For people who care enough about the internet to get a broadband connection, the influence of the internet is rapidly overtaking advertising in traditional media. For these users, the internet is changing word-of-mouth recommendations too. An additional 9% of these consumers said their purchases were influenced by things other people said online in user-generated content such as consumer reviews and blogs. Shoppers spend an average 3.8 hours researching online purchases. Yet another reason why your store needs to have a helpful, information rich website, even if you don’t sell online.

With everyone working their way through a Netflix queue, perhaps it’s not surprising that consumers are now also opting for online borrowing of other consumer items. Although you can borrow clothes and shoes, as you might expect, handbags are the most popular rental item. (No someone-else-sweat-in-these-shoes issues.) Bag Borrow or Steal, the leading online fashion rental brand, has hot designer handbags for about $270 a month. But Bag Borrow or Steal also has designer fine jewelry available for loan, including brands like Chanel, Charriol, Stephen Dweck, Scott Kay, Vera Wang, and Rosiblu. So what does it cost to be Cinderella for a week? For members, an 18k link necklace by Faraone Mennella is $195 per week or two-inch gold hoops studded with citrines by Simon Alcantara are $70 a week. Two carat total weight diamond studs from Rosiblu are $305 a week, $845 a month. (Surprisingly, 3-carat diamond chandeliers by Vera Wang are the same price.) You don’t have to join (membership can be only $5/month if you sign up for six months) but you get lower prices and can sign up on wait lists for popular pieces if you do. I can see brides renting jewelry for their wedding day. For the groom, Watch My Wrist, a site that offers watch rentals, isn’t quite as enticing. Despite the fact that Watch My Wrist was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal recently, the site design doesn’t inspire confidence, with amateur graphics and misspellings. The price of temporary time? A Rolex Submariner is $240 a week, a Baume Mercier Hampton Chronograph is $99 a week, or a Chopard Happy Snowflakes watch is $187 a week. On rental sites, you could pretty quickly rack up charges that equal the sales price of any item, so this option is probably better for people who are willing to pay to wear or carry something different each month. This is a little easier to take with fashion items that might be out of style by then anyway. This is especially true on borrowedbling.com, a costume jewelry site where the “diamond crystal” pieces are basically only worth the rental fee. But I’m surprised that there isn’t an online rental service that specializes in brides, with tiaras and fantastic jewelry for her special day. It would give “something borrowed” a whole new ring. Until then, consider having a real tiara on hand for loans to deepen your relationship with couples who buy engagement and wedding rings in your store. It could be a centerpiece for your bridal events too.

In yet another example of a niche jewelry website, a new online jewelry retailer, Jewelry4Aces, is focusing exclusively on poker and playing card themed jewelry. The owners claim this is the first business of its kind and I don’t dispute it. But there are lots of poker jewelry lines, including an official World Series of Poker collection from the Triton division of Frederick Goldman in association with Harrah’s Licensing Company launched last year. As part of the partnership, Triton created the World Series of Poker champion’s bracelet. Swiss watch brand Corum also signed for a six year stint as official timepiece for the WSOP, which includes creating watches for the nine players who make the final $10,000 round. Roberto Martinez has a licensed World Poker Tour Collection of jewelry based on poker-related symbols such as hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades and popular poker sayings. Jewelry4Aces.com manufactures all its own jewelry in 18k and platinum and diamonds and it doesn’t have any official license, hoping instead to attract people who enjoy playing, rather than watching, the game.

Online jewelry retailer Ice.com is taking inspiration from the success of home shopping networks and adding a video network called IceTV to entice online shoppers with sound and motion. The premiere video, Spring 2007: The Newest Hottest Latest Trends, is more MTV than QVC, with a camera zooming around a model wearing trends like geometric shapes, hoops, long necklaces, big bold rings, and other styles. Links to product are right next to the video. Future segments will include educational videos like how to buy a diamond and clips on what the stars are wearing. And Ice.com isn’t the only retailer adding online video content to its site. Home Depot now has instructional videos and Baby Universe.com goes even further with a live online tv channel called BabyTV, including ads from manufacturers. Will watching videos on products and other topics inspire purchases or will it distract consumers away from the buying process? Either way, the linking of retail and video is clearly an idea whose time has come.

The linking of magazines and video is also an idea whose time has come. In fact, Modern Jeweler now has an exciting new Jewelry Video Network designed for retail jewelers with videos on diamonds, gemstones, pearls, jewelry trends, manufacturing, and events attended by our editors. It’s the tube for you. We will be posting more videos every week. Future videos will include a look at exciting new jewelry collections launched in Basel this year. Like the videos on Ice.com, the technology is key: you’ll find the videos load quickly and play smoothly with no special software required.

If you sell jewelry online, you know that credit card fraud is a constant threat, especially with international orders. A new service from Paily offers insurance against credit card fraud, allowing retailers to accept credit cards rather than requiring customers to pay by wire transfer. Online jewelry retailers Ice.com and Diamond.com, owned by the same company, report an 80% increase in international sales after starting to use the new service. The e-tailer now completes 95 percent of its international orders. Unlike brick & mortar stores, online merchants are liable for all fraudulent credit card orders made on their websites: if you sell online, you still have protection for sales in your retail store, but are fully liable for all fraudulent orders made online. Paily offers to assume all fraud-related risk, guaranteeing no charge-backs, allowing online sales charged to any credit card, shipped to any address, including addresses other than the billing address, a common occurrence during the holiday season. Paily does not charge setup or monthly fees; the merchant pays only for the legitimate orders and not for the fraudulent ones. This make it easy for the merchant to easily test the service. Paily’s jewelry customers who have both brick & mortar and online stores include: Diamonds International, Pearl Paradise, and Solomon Brothers Fine Jewelry.