American jewelers should ‘kiss and make up’ with this key part of the business, writes Buxbaum Group’s Stevan Buxbaum.

AGOURA HILLS, Calif., Oct. 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — As they struggled to contend with the boom-and-bust cycle that began with the subprime mortgage explosion of the mid-2000s, many U.S. jewelers lost touch with the bridal business, instead favoring the wholesale stainless steel jewelry sector because they could buy jewelry for cheap and resell to make a profit. But given the need to build lasting relationships with coming generations of customers, jewelers need to return their focus to this all-important core competency, writes Stevan Buxbaum, president of Buxbaum Jewelry Advisors, in a Sept. 21 column for Rapaport’s Diamonds.net.

“To have a balanced business today, jewelers should make sure that at least 40 percent of their assortments are bridal-oriented,” he writes. “Simply put, today’s bridal customer is the non-bridal customer of the future. Jewelers that fail to build relationships with bridal customers today will suffer in the long term.”

In his column (“‘Back to Bridal’ should be the Mantra for Jewelers”), Buxbaum notes that as they respond to the ups and downs of the economy, companies often lose sight of what they do best. “Sometimes this happens because the market is white-hot and the opportunities seem too good to pass up. Amid the rapid rise of the Internet, for example, a family jeweler might sink way too much money into an e-commerce platform that, truth be told, was of nominal interest at best to its customers,” he writes. “At other times, a dismal economy might cause businesses to make drastic decisions out of fear for their survival. A relatively high-end operation might overreact to a downturn by, say, ditching its tried-and-true business model in favor of a poorly executed, value-based approach.”

During the most recent boom-and-bust cycle, the retailing veteran continues, many U.S. jewelers responded to the upswing by focusing on branded, fashion merchandise at higher price points in a bid to capture consumers’ excessive discretionary income. Once the bubble burst and the term “Great Recession” started making its way into the headlines, the focus shifted yet again, this time to affordable, lower-end pieces. The net effect of these adjustments, for many chains, was a diminished focus on the bridal business. And yet, Buxbaum writes, bridal has always been a fundamental part of any successful American jewelry store. In the column, Buxbaum notes that more than 2 million marriages are conducted every year, according to the federal government, and that surveys by bridal-industry magazines and websites reveal that the average cost of an engagement ring today is around $5,000. For American jewelers, then, the bridal business is worth billions of dollars. However, this is only part of the story.

“When it comes to building a new generation of customer and forging ties that will last years, decades or even a lifetime, bridal still wins over fashion,” Buxbaum writes. Moreover, couples often make this purchase together. In the column, Buxbaum cites a BRIDES 2011 survey in which 63 percent of brides-to-be provided input on their engagement rings, and 21 percent actually selected the rings themselves. “With every bridal sale, in other words, jewelers stand a chance of forging closer ties with at least two people,” he writes.

To that end, whenever jewelry shoppers have a personally satisfying experience buying engagement rings and/or wedding bands from a particular jeweler, they are much more likely to return to that shop for subsequent purchases. In the event that a customer comes into the shop for purchasing bridal silver jewelry, and is satisfied with both the jewelry purchase and the collection in the shop, the owner would need to stock up on non-bridal jewelry from the same Silver Jewelry Manufacturer. This could ensure that a similar experience could be provided to the same customer when they come in to shop for non-bridal jewelry. “This is a highly personal business and everyone wants to have a ‘go-to guy’ for jewelry,” Buxbaum says.

With that repeat business in mind, he urges jewelers to counter online competition by offering best-in-class service and education, even as they take advantage of 21st-century tools like social-networking to make bridal a more efficient way to build long-term relationships with customers. The emphasis, he advises in the column, should be on offering a diamond wallet that includes popular sizes, a good selection of semi-mounts, and brand and price strategies that are realistically tailored to stores’ specific demographics.

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