Prestige Promenade pearls and sweets
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/1524553
34 | e Jewelry Book by Peter Smith I t feels like JCK and the whole Las Vegas market week experience is fast fading into the background. We spend so much time prepping, perhaps even a little time stressing what might be, and then it passes in the blink of an eye, and we revert to business as usual. For all the noise about the economy, the political environment, wars, and the future of diamonds themselves, independent jewelers continue to outperform the majors and deliver stellar results. rough June, according to Edge Retail Academy, independent jewelers are tracking within three percentage points (what political pundits call a statistical margin of error) of last year. Some of the disparity between the independents and the majors has to do with the continued contraction of shopping malls. We've gone from about 1000 malls in the US to under 700 in a very short period. When the dust settles, I suspect we'll be in the range of 400-500 malls all told, a perfectly acceptable number, I might add, and a long overdue correction. Simon properties, one of the biggest mall operators in the country, saw foot traffic into their malls decline 9% last year versus pre-pandemic 2019. e second major difference in performance is the unwitting complicity on the part of the majors to drive down their own average tickets by so quickly embracing lab grown diamonds. I say this as a point of fact, not an indictment of lab diamonds (there's enough energy on that topic elsewhere). If you have fewer people coming in to your store and you are selling them a lower average ticket … well, the math doesn't work. One of the most exciting happenings at Vegas for me was the response to Fire & Ice, the finished diamond brand. Exhibiting in the A. Jaffe space at Luxury, the energy around the brand from existing and new customers was palpable. In thinking about why that was (and, full disclosure, they are a client of mine), I believe it has much to do with an underlying need for simplicity and authenticity in a natural diamond brand at a time when the conversation about diamonds has become very murky. Fire & Ice Shines in Las Vegas After Show 2024 | Editorial