Our annual JCK Retailer Survey gives the lowdown in five crucial categories of operations. How does your business compare?
After three years of putting together the JCK Retailer Survey, we’ve learned a thing or two about how successful jewelers run their stores.
By asking questions about their performance and tactics in five categories of retail operations, otherwise known as the 5 S’s—Store, Stock, Sales, Staff, and Salary—we’ve learned, for example, that custom design remains important to more than half of all retailers. But it’s slightly more important to those who reported higher sales in 2012. We’ve also discovered that diamond-buying is even more important to the higher-sales crowd than gold-buying.
And the biggest finding of 2012? Successful retailers are more likely to have invested in advertising, social media, and promotions than their less-successful counterparts. To put it bluntly, you’ve got to pay to play.
Here are just a few of questions you’ll find inside:
- What are your annual per-store gross sales?
- How important are custom designs to your business?
- How has your gold-buying business been affected by the fluctuating cost of the metal?
- On what media do you rely most to promote your business?
- How many employees do you have, on average, per store?
- How do you compensate your sales staff?
- How do you train your sales staff?
- How do you think your salary compares with the industry average?
- To what degree are you satisfied with your job?
- What is your single biggest on-the-job concern?