April 1, 2025 • 50 mins
Mike is joined by a panel of retail jewelers to talk about how they navigate the Jewelry Year. From when they schedule in their annual vacations, which jewelry shows they attend, and what jewelry styles are doing well at their respective stores.
Matt & Kim from R. Gregory Jewelers in Statesville, NC
https://www.rgregoryjewelers.com/
Cole from Ware's Jewelers in Bradenton, FL
https://www.waresjewelers.com/
Caleb from Harkleroad Jewelers in Savannah, GA
https://www.harkleroaddiamonds.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to In the Loop.
What is up everybody?
My name is Michael Burpo.
Thanks again for listening toIn the Loop.
This week we're doing aretailer roundtable and what
that is is a open discussion andconversation with jewelry
retailers discussing how theyrun and organize their store,
(00:24):
and this week we're talking allabout how they run and organize
their store.
And this week we're talking allabout how they structure their
year, and I'm joined by CalebHarkle-Rode from Harkle-Rode
Diamonds and Fine Jewelry, Mattand Kim from R Gregory Jewelers
and Cole Rowland from Ware'sJewelers, and we're talking
specifically about when is thebusy part of their year and when
(00:45):
is the down part of their year,when do they take their
vacations and which trade showsthey're attending, as well as
who do they bring to the tradeshows.
It's a really cool conversation.
They're very open and honestabout how they organize and run
their store and I hope you learnmaybe something from it as well
.
Thanks so much.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
And we're back next week, Tuesday, with another
episode.
So cheers.
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(02:00):
Slash go.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
And now back to the show.
What is up?
Everybody?
My name is Michael Burpo.
Thanks again for listening toIn the Loop, and this week we
have a very cool retailer roundtable and I'm joined by Kim and
Matt from R Gregory Jewelers,caleb from Harkle Road, fine
(02:26):
Jewelry Is that correct?
You got it?
You got it Awesome.
And Cole from Ware's Jewelershow are y'all doing today?
Great man, happy to be here,awesome.
So what we're going to do is Iwanted to kind of set this up
for the listeners we're going tobe talking all about sort of
like the yearly calendar.
I know that this can be similarfor a lot of stores, like we're
(02:46):
all going to be busy from BlackFriday to hopefully until
Christmas.
It should be slamming.
But for some stores there areactually different parts of the
year that are more popular thanothers.
Some places do a great jobaround Valentine's Day or, for
example, where I'm at in upstateNew York, the fall is really
popular because we have a lot ofleaf peepers that come through.
(03:07):
But for other stores, I'm surethat there are like regular
events and promotions that mightbe in town that you need to
plan around.
And I also want to talk aboutwhen are you strategizing, like
when you go on vacation, or whenare you strategizing for
upgrades at your store?
So maybe, kim and Matt, can youtalk to me.
When do you think is your busyseason?
(03:30):
What would you say?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Like I said, obviously Christmas, but we also
we travel to Antwerp twice ayear.
We used to only do it in thespring, but we're now doing it
twice a year, spring and fall.
So we try to promote that 30 to45 days out start, and so that
has definitely become a busierseason for us leading up to
those two trips so that we'realways kind of coming or going.
It always gives us something totalk about.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
That sounds really smart.
Is that something that you guyslike you said 30 to 40 days are
marketing?
It Is that, like I'm sureyou're probably hitting up a lot
of different marketing channelsfor that.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yes, we do a lot of social um email blast email
blasts um, sent out through youguys um, billboards um, and then
in-store tons of in-storesignage to get people we do some
radio advertising also.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Super cool with that and caleb.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
What about yourself?
When is the the busy uh seasonfor your store?
Speaker 5 (04:24):
yeah, so we.
So we're in Savannah, georgia,and obviously holiday, but we
actually now is a really busytime for our store.
A lot of people don't know this, but we have the second largest
St Patrick's Day parade in thecountry here in Savannah and so,
oddly enough, it is a bit of agift giving holiday here.
(04:44):
Uh, emeralds are our number oneselling gemstone in our store,
so we do quite a bit.
We just had a trunk show withsingle stone, a new designer
that we picked up at Centurion.
Um, it did really, really well.
So now it's kind of a busy time.
We come out of winter and thesun starts shining and it gets
nice outside and things getkicked back up for us.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Oh, that's really neat.
I love that there's like aconnection to that, because you
know very easily it could justbe like a whatever holiday.
You know, I'm sure that somepeople have not a big St
Patrick's Day, but it's greatthat you guys are capitalizing
on that.
And what about yourself, cole?
What does Wares do for the busyseason?
Speaker 6 (05:25):
I mean outside of, obviously, christmas, christmas,
I mean everybody's busy duringthen.
We, um, we actually get a lotof response from our northern
crowd during the winter season.
Florida is a big, obviously abig uh vacation spot.
Uh.
We're south of tampa so a lotof people escape down here for
six months and, you know, thenthey go home.
So we stay busy all the wayfrom probably, you know a little
(05:46):
bit before black friday untilabout the end of of april really
, um, and then everybody goeshome, um, and then we dip down
uh pretty hardcore in the summerbecause it's pretty hot uh, so
people don't like to really beoutside uh too much during then.
But you know it's it's, it's abig time of year for us.
We get get a lot of people, youknow, just spending a lot of
time in Florida.
We're running a nationalrarities event at the store as
(06:08):
we speak right now.
So that's been huge for theweek.
It's been an incredible turnout.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
So really good stuff.
Wow, I love that you guys aredoing that.
They were just a sponsor forour show the past couple of
weeks.
That's actually where we foundthem.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
Let's go All right, justin, I'm sending this to you.
At the Punchmark show that wealways go to with you guys, I
talked with Tyler there and hetalked me into it, and it's
worked out really, really wellfor us, so we're happy about it.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Hell, yeah, that's super cool and I guess that kind
of brings up the conversation.
So you mentioned, you know, thesnowbirds as we refer to them
up here, because we're, you know, upstate New York right around
now.
We call this shoulder season.
So this is definitely our downpart of the year.
It's when the skiing stopsbeing great and but the snow is
still on the ground.
(06:56):
Or we some people call mudseason, but I prefer shoulder
because it's on the other sideof the year as well, Because we
also have November is definitelya time as soon as the leaves
come down but the snow hasn'tcome in, we call that shoulder
season.
And I guess I was going to ask,because that's not true for
everybody.
I guess maybe, Caleb, can youtell me do you have a down part
(07:18):
of the year and what do you doto kind of capitalize on that
part of the year when you knowit's going to be slow?
Speaker 5 (07:24):
Sure.
So August for us is a reallycan be a slow month.
School's getting back insession and those start dates
are all kind of all over theplace in August some early
August, some middle and late.
So things tend to slow downpretty much there.
But we kind of allow that timefor people to take some extra
time off.
People take some vacation again.
(07:45):
If we're doing, like, um, someimprovement stuff around the
store, um, that's usually a goodtime for that.
Um, yeah, we try to just, youknow, kind of get ready for q4,
uh in august and kind of getready for the busy season and
and fall that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
yeah, I guess having a time to to go and take your
vacations is definitelyimportant.
And what about yourselves, kimand Matt?
Is there a time when you knowit's going to be a little bit
sleepier around town, and whatdo you do to kind of capitalize
on that?
Any of those summer months,june, july, august?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I feel like there's always a lull here and there,
depending on the school schedule, and then usually, like the
rolling into January, rightafter that last week of December
it can be a little quiet.
So that's usually where we'lltry to take a family vacation.
Is that first week in Januaryand then the summer, the school
schedule.
Here we'll see a kind of alittle slow time, depending on
(08:39):
where it lands.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
And do you typically try to like strategize around
that?
Because I feel like a naturaltendency might be to, oh, let's
have an event during that timeof the year and like boost sales
.
But I guess another optionwould be to lean into it more
and then, yeah, take like avacation as well.
Have you ever tried boosting itor doing like an event, or is
it just not worth the juice andworth the squeeze on that one an
(09:03):
?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
event, or is it just not worth?
The juice isn't worth thesqueeze on that one.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
The last summer we did the like 60 off for six
hours just on a random Saturdayin June, and it was I mean it
was ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
I'm like, okay, I mean, I was completely blown
away.
I had no clue it would do whatit did.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
And then I'm wondering okay, do we need to
try this again.
Everybody says, yes, you haveto do it again.
I'm a little bit like can we bethat successful two years in a
row?
Or do we have that much stuffwe want to sell at 60 off, but
we're going to do it again.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
So hopefully it carried us well through the
summer.
I mean, I was blown away.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
That's super cool.
Yeah, I've always wonderedabout you don't want to go to
the well too much.
You know, I always think aboutthat Because at the same time
I've also heard of some stores.
They have like we don'tdiscount ever, except for this
one week or something like that,and they have like this whole
(09:55):
strategy we never discountexcept for this one time.
Do you feel like, do sales dipafter that 60% event or do they
do okay?
Speaker 3 (10:02):
We didn't really see a dip and it's actually helped
us when we put that on the books, because we put it on the books
pretty far out in advance.
We try not to discount anyway,so when we knew that that was
coming we were able to just evenhold back even harder on that,
and then let them know, you knowif it's still here.
You know, here's the dates ofthe 60 off.
(10:22):
I mean you can definitely getit then, um, but rolled into
july.
We even had people come in umhoping, you know, a week later
hoping to get that same dealbecause they weren't able to
make it.
Um, I don't know of a incidentwhere we actually did it.
We may have budged just alittle bit, you know, just to
make them happy, but it itdidn't seem to affect sales
(10:44):
moving forward after that.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, I worried that it was going to affect, you know
, just to make them happy, butit it didn't seem to affect
sales moving forward after that.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Yeah, I worried that it was going to affect.
You know like, are people goingto buy now for Christmas, or
was it going to affect?
But it really didn't.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
We're coming off literally the best year we've
ever had in 40 years of business.
So, um well, we'll see whatthis year does.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
That's so fascinating .
I love hearing about that kindof stuff and and Cole, and so
you had already alluded that thesummer gets pretty hot.
I can't sympathize, so I don'treally know anything about that.
But do you, do you have aanything that you do during that
?
Is that like when you try toremodel or try to, you know, try
out new business strategy?
Or is it just like hey, we knowit's going to be a little bit
(11:20):
slow, so take as much time asoff as you want?
Speaker 6 (11:23):
Um, our store is a little bit of a different place
than than most.
I think we're in transition.
Um, my fiance and I are buyingthe store at the beginning of
next year.
So, um, uh, with with thecurrent ownership, we're not
trying to bleed them completelydry uh, promotions and like
market this and market that andspend all your money.
Um, so, to go forward, andobviously we want to do stuff
(11:43):
like that, but we're trying tokind of figure that out and
there's going to be a remodelattached to the um to the buy.
So we have some some stuff inthe in the works there, um, kind
of not not necessarily arebrand, but kind of like a, you
know, an upgrade to where we'reat now.
So we haven't planned anythingfor the summer just yet.
Um, I want to do a coupledifferent things, but we might
do a wedding band event orsomething like that.
(12:05):
But we really got to figure outwhat works best for our store.
Um, moving forward.
So we kind of, honestly, we doa lot of our events during
busier seasons because it makespeople more excited about being
in the store.
We kind of do it a little bitdifferently than most, but once
the transitions fully happen, wewant to try to do at least one
event a quarter, um to getpeople excited every quarter,
(12:27):
instead of just, you know, oneor two.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah, I think that that marketing and, uh, I
affectionately refer to as, likethe cadence, you know one, one
a quarter, because you don'treally want sometimes, I think
it's.
It's a shame that Thanksgivingand Christmas are so close
together, because they're two ofthe you know the best holidays
and they're only within threeweeks of each other.
Is that something when it comesto, like, deciding what kind of
(12:52):
events and promotion thatyou're going to be doing?
Is that something that you planyou know how far out in advance
?
Is that, cole?
Is that like you're planning,you know, 12 months at a clip,
or are you doing like quarter byquarter?
Speaker 6 (13:06):
I mean, ideally I want to run it based off of
where we struggled last year.
If there was a lull betweenNovember you know your
Thanksgiving to your Christmas,there shouldn't be a big lull
there.
If there is, we probably needto figure something out.
But ideally we would try to.
We would try to plan it youknow, middle of Q2, running into
Q4, plan it, you know themiddle of q2, uh, running into
(13:27):
q4 because we want to make surethat we can get the marketing
out there and plan how we'regoing to market and then reach
out to our resources and makesure they have the script
they're going to run or makesure our sales staff knows
exactly what they're going tosay to uh, to employee or to the
customers that are coming in.
So yeah, I mean, I thinkeverybody kind of has a
different view of that.
I mean, obviously you want tostart as early as you can, but
you don't want to start tooearly to where everybody forgets
that it's even happening.
(13:47):
So it kind of just depends onyour staff and how you can
communicate with them.
I think.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, and Caleb, you get to be, you know, in the busy
season right now.
What did you guys do to marketfor this event?
Obviously, it sounds like it'sa pretty good time, but is there
anything that you do to try tolike kind of push it to the next
level each year?
Or at this point, is it sort of, I guess, running on its own,
(14:14):
like volition, essentially?
Speaker 5 (14:16):
Yeah, so we're in.
You know, I came back to workwith my dad and his business 10
years ago and so ever since thenI've been kind of trying to get
a calendar of events going onand um, trunk shows and things
like that.
So definitely there's aconcerted effort to try to keep
that momentum going and, um, tokeep the events consistent.
(14:37):
Um, you know, I think that's abig thing.
You get through a year, you go,okay, that was great.
And then you know, sometimes youknow we, I think for us we get
caught up in the day to day,running, running, running,
running the hamster wheel, like,oh, you know, q1's over in two
weeks and we haven't doneanything, like you know.
So my big thing is, yeah,starting at the beginning of the
(14:57):
year, like you mentioned, like12 months out, and just saying,
hey, let's plan.
You know, we'll do this trunkshow here, this trunk show here,
we'll couple it to St Patrick'sDay, to Mother's Day, to
Thanksgiving, you know, and thenour holiday, open house.
So we are two or one a quarterand like to at least, you know,
get it on paper at the beginningof the year.
So it's in the back of our mindto plan.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Now and I guess this is kind of open to everybody
(15:48):
no-transcript, and I think it'svery interesting to try to
figure out why, like you know,if you're, if you're going
fishing and nothing bites.
Maybe you have a reason, ormaybe it's just a slow day for
fish and have, I guess maybe youknow Kim or Caleb or Cole or
anybody, um, have you ever trieda marketing uh, or a marketing
(16:09):
event or some type of promotionand had it not go as well or
that you learned a lot from?
Is there anything like thatthat you that you'd be willing
to share?
And if not, we'll just callthis one of those events and I
can just cut it and move intothe next one.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
I'm like probably too many to count.
That's what I'm saying.
Yes, I mean.
We try things all the time andthey flop, but I'm trying to
think like specific one that,well, we've even had like.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
So we do an estate sale every November and we've
had record breaking where we'vedone, you know, over $100,000 in
one day with them.
And then the next year you'reall ramped up because last year
you killed it and, for somereason, like it, just completely
flops and you do half of whatyou did the year before and
(16:51):
everybody's standing aroundlooking at each other and you're
embarrassed.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
You brought somebody in and people here and they're
looking and we did this greatbusiness
Speaker 6 (16:59):
last year, where you know where's all the customers
that marketed the same.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
We, we did all the same things.
So, yeah you, you never know.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
Yeah, for me, I think , trunk shows are always.
I was just talking to my wifeabout this because we just had a
trunk show.
You know, you bring just like Isaid, you bring somebody in,
you've got all this, there's allthis hype, and then you know
the door opens at 10 and you'relike, hey, all right, where are
the?
Where is everybody?
And you know you, just, that'sthe thing.
(17:32):
Like, there's a certain amountof you know with like,
particularly like a trunk show.
You know, either it's going tobe a day that the people show up
or they don't, no matter howmany postcards you send or text
or emails.
You know you've done what youcan to get them in the door.
But yeah, we've, we'vecertainly had some that like, at
the end of the day, I was like,oh, you know nobody.
I was like, oh, you know nobody.
But then we've had others where, you know, I expected nobody
(17:54):
and we killed it.
So there is a bit of you knowyou, just, it depends on the
people.
You know we can do so much toget them there, but they have to
show up and be in the mood tobuy.
So but, yeah, plenty, we've hadplenty that just didn't take
off.
Speaker 6 (18:11):
You know, you chalk it up and you do it again next
year, you know that's impressive, yeah, uh, I mean, as far as
our store is concerned, I'mstill relatively new to the
business.
To consumer side of of thebusiness, um, I not.
We did plenty of things thatdidn't go so well in six or
seven years.
So, um, you know, we learnedfrom those, obviously, and
pivoted.
(18:31):
But on the retail side the onlything we've done that we've
been able to run twice sinceI've been there, um was we did
an inventory reduction sale.
The first year I was there andit did amazing.
Um, the second year it didn'tdo so great Um, and I know that
Tim and your husband had talkedabout that.
I don't necessarily think that'ssomething you guys should worry
about.
I think for us it was just wewere one of those stores who
(18:52):
never discounted and never didanything like that, and then we
did a 50% off and then we didanother one the next year.
So it felt like people werekind of waiting for it to happen
.
And then it did happen and itstill didn't show up.
So I don't know if it's besomething we're going to do in
2026 or not, but, um, that's theonly one we've really ran into
that hasn't worked.
But again, we've ran two orthree events since I've been
there.
(19:13):
So nothing too crazy on our endas of yet, but I'm sure I will
find plenty that don't go sowell at some point.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Undoubtedly it happens.
But at the same time, you know,I've been the beneficiary and
also the victim of both sides ofthat, where and I do feel like
I remember the flops way betterthan I remember the surprisingly
good ones, whereas, like youknow, I do art walks where it's
kind of like a farmer's marketwhere I sell my art, and what's
(19:41):
so funny is sometimes I go toone and, unbeknownst to me, they
booked an event across town atthe exact same time, so no one
is walking the streets,everyone's there.
And I feel terrible aboutmyself, like why did I do so bad
?
Maybe my work is bad right now.
Like maybe I need new stuff.
It's like, oh okay, this one isactually out of my control.
(20:03):
But a really interesting onethat I've been thinking about a
lot more is, in case you didn'tknow, there was a massive solar
eclipse right around this timelast year I guess it was more
like May-ish last year and itcame right through the Northeast
and, believe it or not, myhometown, saranac Lake, was one
(20:24):
of the best locations to see itand, as a result, the town
showed out for it and therewasn't a single vacancy in the
Tri-Lakes.
There wasn't for hotels.
Airbnbs were doing a killingjob.
But what's so fascinating is Isaw all this news and I was like
this is so good, how are theygoing to do it next year?
And it's like, oh, it's like asolar eclipse.
(20:46):
Maybe in like 250 years is thenext one, and I guess that's one
of those things.
How can you learn from themarketing of it all and how can
you learn about the success ifyou can't actually replicate and
duplicate it one-to-one?
So, like what you're talkingabout, cole, with these hyper
(21:07):
sales and going in and like, ok,this was super successful.
What is it that we learned,other than people love discounts
, you know?
Like what can you learn fromthat nugget?
Well, I'm hoping that our youknow my area learned is you know
how can they market behind ahappening and be successful?
I guess that ties in with whatI was hoping to talk about is,
(21:29):
like what channels you monitorand when it comes to marketing.
So I think that we had touchedon this earlier like, oh, we
market through our website andin-store signage and stuff like
that.
Cole or Caleb or Kim or Matt,are you all using print
advertising primarily?
(21:49):
Are you mainly digital print ofmeaning billboards and
newspapers and things like thatand flyers, or are you all
primarily on like Facebook andGoogle and things like that?
Speaker 6 (22:03):
So for the most part, our store before we had made
the change and started thetransition, did almost no
marketing.
I think a lot of that wasbecause Bob and Cheryl ran the
store by themselves, primarily,with Bob being a bench guy since
he was 20 years old.
Marketing never really wassomething he had time to do and
(22:23):
or the resources to make ithappen.
The store does a lot of repairbusiness as it is, so he was
doing all of that by himself.
So we've really pivoted and wedo a lot more direct mailers.
Our average customer sitssomewhere between 55 and 58.
So direct mailers areeverybody's favorite here.
Email blasts don't get opened,just not something our customers
(22:47):
do really well.
We do a lot of direct mailers.
We do a lot of direct mailers.
We do a lot of organicmarketing too.
We go to the local markets andwe pop up and take an ultrasonic
and clean jewelry and talkabout it and kind of tell people
the difference between labgrown and natural, because
everybody wants to know.
So we do a lot of organic stuff.
That's different.
We still have digital stuffrunning.
I'm just it's hard to crack themarket of Bradenton because
(23:12):
it's not necessarily a youngermarket.
So the digital stuff is kind ofa struggle for us, not
necessarily because of whoprovides it.
That'd be punchmark.
By the way, if anybody waswondering, they do an
exceptional job with theiradvertisements.
It's just I don't have a basethat finds it yet.
So we do a whole lot of kind ofguerrilla marketing stuff we've
(23:33):
come up with on our own, justbecause we know our customers
are going to respond to it.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
Yes, savannah is a big social town, so kind of one
of our primary things is justnetworking.
I'm at luncheons and happyhours and all sorts of stuff all
the time and it makes a hugedifference.
I mean, my first year when Icame back to work for dad, you
(24:00):
know from you know, let's say,june to December that year, we
added, you know, $100,000 to thebottom line just from contacts
that we met, that I metnetworking.
So it's been that's huge for us.
You know we're out, um, um, intown a lot, um, just you know
savannah's just, that's just howsavannah is.
(24:21):
You know that they, they dealwith who they know and um, and
so it's good to be in front ofpeople so that that facebook,
google are probably top threeInteresting Wow.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
That's so cool.
So is it as simple as just likehey, if you've never been to
the store, maybe stop in, we'dlove to hang out with you.
Is it like that?
Or is it more just like lettingthem you know, talking about
other things and then oh, by theway, I also am a jeweler.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
Yeah, so it's.
I think it's front of mind forus.
We've been in Savannah, we'reall local here, we're all from
here, we've been here about 40years, so we're known in town.
So I think it's just front ofmind for us.
And there are certainly newpeople.
Savannah's kind of booming withgrowth right now in hospitality
(25:10):
and the ports and things likethat, so plenty of new people
too.
So it's a front of mind.
Just say hey, you know good, oh, I saw Caleb last week.
I need to get reminds me I needto get my ring cleaned or a pop
in and my wife's ring needs tobe fixed, things like that.
And then, too, like meetingthese new people that are also
like new to Savannah and they'rekind of getting their feet wet
(25:30):
and trying to figure out youknow who does what, um, you know
.
So there is some someintroducing yourself to people
for the first time too.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Very cool.
And Kim and Matt, you hadmentioned it earlier, but just
remind me, are you so?
Are you on um online marketingand then in store as well?
What's your particular cocktaillook like?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
predominantly social um.
We do a lot of, have basicallyput all of our money, I would
say, in social media, social,digital um seo.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
What does all be?
It's all been handled by punchmark.
So um, and we get I mean we getreally good results and we
dabble a little in radio.
It's a small local radiostation that I've got the
ability to literally text the djand say hey, do you mind if I
run in this morning for a littlewhile and talk about our
antwerp trip and differentthings like that?
(26:20):
But the majority is all digitalwe are doing another um local.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Well they're syndicated.
They were radio radio, but nowthey're mainly podcasts and but
so we do advertise with them aswell and they're influencing,
you know.
So they come and come up and doall the pictures and all that
kind of stuff.
So we are throwing a little.
You three stores, thoughbetween you all it's so
different.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
And I think that's what's so exciting to me is I'm
on here all the time preachinglike the values of digital
marketing and things like that,but hearing that it really is
different.
For a long time, I always usedto poo-poo on billboards.
I think that they are just froma personal standpoint.
I think they're very ugly andjust like I have like a lot of
(27:16):
animosity for them in general,but there are some places that
they swear certain billboardsare just like their moneymakers
and they just love them, and Iguess that kind of goes to show
that it is very dependent onwhere you are and every store is
.
We talk with people that have,you know, these smaller stores
in areas like my town you know4,000 people and they're not
(27:39):
fighting for the generalpopulace, they're just fighting
for these people to be shoppingwith them instead of online like
through some bigger box store,whereas then there are people
that we're talking with, likeyou said, in Savannah, or, you
know, we have people in LosAngeles where they're fighting
for just their block,essentially, and it goes to show
that you know there's no rightway to do it.
(28:01):
There's no.
I think that there's a wrongway, but there's no.
There's definitely no perfectway and I think that that's kind
of worth keeping in mind and Ireally appreciate you guys
sharing that.
But we're going to take a quickbreak and when we come back I
want to talk about your tradeshow strategy and then we'll
talk about what's working atyour store.
So everybody, stay with us.
Speaker 7 (28:24):
Hey everyone, jason from Punchmark here.
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Speaker 1 (29:20):
And now back to the show.
Welcome back everybody.
I'm still joined by three verydistinguished jewelry retailers,
four members but threedifferent stores, and I want to
talk to you all about tradeshows.
(29:41):
To me they sort of mainly setthe cadence, at least for us,
because we are a vendor.
So we're constantly looking at,we go to two RJO shows a year,
two IJO shows a year, jck andCenturion.
I don't know if there's asecond Centurion show.
It's so far away I can't evenremember.
(30:01):
It seems like those are a lotof them, though there are a lot
of other optional ones, like JISin Miami and AJS in Atlanta,
and there's a lot of other ones.
There's some in New York Citythat we don't go to.
I kind of wanted to ask firstof all maybe we'll do a quick
loop around Kim and Matt, areyou part of any jewelry
(30:24):
organizations?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yes, we're IJO and RJO, ijo, rjo, caleb, what about
yourself?
We're.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
RJO, rjo and Cole.
We're just IL, ijl, rjl.
Caleb, what about yourself?
We're RJL, rjl and Cole.
We're just IJL, ijl.
Oh, very cool.
So we have one that's in both,one in one, one in the other.
So, cole, when you are in asIJL, are you going to both shows
?
And what's your group look like?
(30:51):
Is it just you?
Are you bringing um bob, thecurrent owner, um, or how big is
your entourage, if you will?
Speaker 6 (30:59):
yeah, I mean, we go to both shows.
So I think it's super importantto go to both.
Um the first the first one is alittle bit different than the
second one.
Obviously the the summer showyou're looking for your, your q4
, you're trying to figure outwhat's going to work for you and
what's not working or hasn'tworked all year.
Um, as far as staff is concerned, we bring everybody.
Um, I think it's our, our staffis not huge.
We have five, uh total peoplethat show up, and that's Bob and
(31:22):
his wife, uh, my fiance, andthen, uh, the sales associate we
just hired.
So we're working toward ummaking sure everybody's allowed
to go, because, as a previousvendor, I think it's a big deal
when the whole staff is involved, because a lot of the time, as
the owner or the sales manageror whatever your title is,
you're not on the floor sellingall the time.
(31:43):
So if your staff's not involvedin understanding of what you're
buying and why you're buying itand how expensive it is and all
this stuff, they don't need toknow everything, but they need
to know a lot about what's inthe store.
So we find it very beneficialto bring everybody and get
everybody's opinion, because ittakes more than just the owners
to run the store.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, and I've heard a million times that getting
buy-in from your sales associatewhen you decide to bring on a
new line or re-up with the line,maybe that has given you
troubles in the past, havingthat buy-in from them so
important.
I think it's the hidden saucethat really helps make a sale.
But Kim and Matt, you guys I'msure have your hands full with a
(32:26):
lot of options.
Four shows a year if you wanted, if you had to guess how many
are you going to and what's yourentourage look like.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
We do both IJO shows.
I mean no offense to RJO.
I hope no one's listening andgoing to be offended but we're
very much more integrated thanIJO.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
So that's a non-negotiable Matt usually does
summer solo.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I have other things that I do in the summer, so I do
take summer kind of a step awayfor a minute, so Matt usually
does summer solo.
I have other things that I doin the summer, so I do take
summer kind of a step away for aminute, so Matt usually does
summer solo.
And then we try to take ouremployees to the first show, the
spring show.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
And then, depending on what we get accomplished with
those, we'll go to AJS, mainlythis proximity.
We can literally hop on and getthere and if we wanted to, we
could turn that around in a dayif we really wanted to grind it
out.
But usually at least every otheryear, if not every year, we'll
go to AJS too.
If we're looking for somethingnew, that's maybe not in one of
(33:22):
the buying groups, or if we'rejust doing mainly research on,
you know, preparing for the yearout.
If there's a line we think wewant to add, we may go and just
kind of almost do recon to seewhat we think about.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
We try to hit an RJ and this year they were both Wow
.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
Phoenix and Palm Springs, so it was hard and like
a week apart, so we couldn't go.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I mean we could have, but it just didn't feel
feasible to do both back to backlike that.
So it just kind of depends onwhere the RJO show lands, on
whether or not we try to hitthose or not.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
And Caleb.
So on the RJO side of things Ithink that was RJO was in
Phoenix, I believe I can'tremember.
And what's that?
Are you trying to go to both?
I can't remember where the nextone is going to be and what's
your entourage look like?
Speaker 5 (34:10):
So yeah, so we went to Centurion for the first time
in February, which was a reallygreat show, and we were planning
originally on going to RGO backin Phoenix.
But we're also in the processof opening a new store where
we're going building our ownfreestanding store, and we
weren't sure if we were going tobe in by then or not.
(34:30):
So we opted not to go to theRJO show.
We'll go to Chicago in thesummer.
Normally it's it's either it's acombo of me and my wife or me
and my dad, my wife and his wife, so it's usually, you know,
kind of a family trip, which isnice.
But we have been kind of toyingwith the idea of bringing some
(34:52):
staff just for the exact reasonthat they mentioned, like
getting them some buy-in,letting them see, like how this
works, and they're the onesselling it every day.
You know I'm not on the floorevery day, I'm kind of in the
process of taking over from mydad.
So there's a lot of stuff thatback a house that requires me
and they're the ones pushing itand selling it for you, and so
(35:15):
getting some buy-in from them Ithink is a great idea.
So we'll probably start thissummer at JCK and bring one or
two, um, maybe, of our top salespeople with us yeah, going to
jck is just, uh, man,mind-boggling.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
It's just the world of jewelry at your fingertips
and I guess that kind of youknow ties in rather nicely.
Um, caleb, what, what right now, would you say.
Obviously it's very storedependent and it's so different
wherever you are in the world.
Um, what's doing well for foryour store currently?
Um, if you had to say, sure.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
So, uh, naturally or, excuse me, lab is still um,
doing is very strong, uh, it's,it's uh the lab and natural is
uh kind of back to meeting inthe middle.
So, um, but we're doing, youknow, lab, fashion, lab, studs,
lab, you know bridal um, andthen, as far as natural goes, um
(36:11):
, we're doing really well withum, natural diamonds that are
two carat plus.
So the diamonds that we'reselling in natural are are
bigger, which is really nice.
Um, you know, I think this yearwe've sold a number of two and
three carrots and we're workingon a seven carrot sale now.
So it's, it's, the naturalbusiness is bigger, for sure for
(36:34):
us.
You know any, and then you know, beyond that, it's it's lab.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Wow, that's so fascinating because it felt like
there was like a moment where Isort of quieted down.
Maybe I was wrong looking at it, but at least from what I was
hearing, For sure For us anywayI was.
Speaker 5 (36:51):
You know there was a big push back to natural Um and
that's kind of that kind of hassoftened a little bit.
But, like I said, with looseyou know, we're doing well with
larger natural um and nice colortoo.
Um too is doing well for us,kind of higher end color doing
super well.
Things that you know.
We're trying to focus on thingsthat you can't.
You know we are three jewelrystores within a mile of us and
(37:14):
so things that you can't go shop, things that you can't go down
the street and get, you know animportant area for growth for us
.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
That's a really interesting distinction, that's
for sure.
And Cole, what about yourself,if you had to just pinpoint, is
there anything in particularthat's doing really well for you
right now?
Speaker 6 (37:35):
I mean, like Caleb said, big color, that's a lot
different than, like he said, astore down the street can shop.
I couldn't have said it bettermyself than what he said.
Um, it's kind of hard forsomebody to find a one-of-a-kind
parlay piece.
If you find it, good luck.
Uh, I don't know how you didthat, but, uh, that's, that's
doing really well for us.
Um, balari does really good forus in that.
(37:57):
In that circumstance as well, um, and of course, lab um is
inevitable.
Um, but I guess the good thingthere is it's a bigger stone.
Um, I mean, it starts at threecarat and above.
I rarely do they want to seeanything lower than that.
Uh, but I have seen a trendrecently, um, with, like your,
your first marriage, like your,that those, those customers are
(38:19):
buying a very, very big stoneand then a small band that they
can barely even see.
It looks like the stone is kindof floating on their finger.
It's a repair nightmare, to behonest, but it is what people
are loving right now for us.
And then another thing thatdoes really well for us too is
custom.
We do a lot of pulling oldcustomers' diamonds out of stuff
(38:42):
they don't want to use anymore,and then we do cad image and
make that all up and pretty forthem.
It's different than what theyused to have, but same stuff.
So people tend to love that andwe we use shaw for that.
So they're doing really wellfor us I love that.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
That's super cool and kim and matt, um anything,
particularly that's kind ofdriving the ship for you, I
would say probably being high incolor.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
It's funny.
You said parlay, I was going tosay parlay.
You can't be like the one of akind piece like this so I'd say
color and then, just like normalstaples, like bangles and the
soft flex bangles have been verystrong for us the past couple
of years.
And then, of course, lab.
I'm kind of glad to see the labgrowing, like we've kind of
(39:25):
seen it start to meet in themiddle and almost start to sway
back to natural, um, so I'mhoping it trends that way too.
But you know, bangles, we useharamodi and then our color, um,
it's typically parlay and we dosome with roman and jewels, um,
but yeah, like you can't,that's that's always a great
Speaker 2 (39:50):
great way to get people in when you've got a
strong custom business.
We do a lot.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Do a lot of custom man, that's so cool, shout out
the parlay, I'm gonna I'm gonnadrop them this episode.
I'd be like, yeah, you wanna,I'll wear some parlay, I don't
mind.
But I wanted to ask a littlebit about.
I wrote an article recentlyabout trends and as I was
researching it they were sayingthat the fine gold jewelry fine
(40:14):
gold meaning like dainty is justlike another kind of version,
is kind of on the outs andthings are starting to be more I
don't want to say clunky, butmore built up Bulky, bulky,
bulky stuff, which is confusingto me because the price of gold
is at an all-time high.
How does that kind ofrationalize itself?
Speaker 2 (40:37):
It does too.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
I mean, I look at things.
I'm like this is crazy, yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
But it's what people want and they're buying it.
We just placed an order withRoyal Chain and there's some
chunky.
I mean big chunky.
I mean I hate to say expensive,but when your invoice comes in
and it's billed at $2,500 anounce it is what it is, but it's
kind of nice in a way, becauseyou don't have to apologize for
(41:03):
the price.
Everybody knows everything's up,yeah, so eggs are up.
Why should gold jewelry not beup?
So we apologize for it?
We just, we just price it.
They talk about how, what thegold price is all the time, in
all different avenues, so wejust price it and they, if they
balk at the price, they will.
(41:23):
It's $2,900 an ounce, that's.
I mean, it's kind of is what itis, and usually they'll shrug
and they'll just buy it.
Yeah, fascinating.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Wow, I never would have thought the price of eggs
but actually help out thejewelers.
But here we are.
I guess that's that's one ofthose other ones is, you know,
just the flexibility, especiallybecause of so you talked, we
all had talked about lab grown.
Um, what's fascinating aboutlab is something I have been.
I've been following thee-commerce trends, um, for our
(41:53):
platform, and 2023 was, you know, like our, our, one of our best
years, uh, and that's becausethe average value AOV was
incredible and it's becauseeverybody would buy one
lab-grown single stone pendanton a gold chain and then the
(42:14):
value was through the roof andthat would be the one thing that
they would buy.
But nowadays, people are buyingit and the value is much lower.
It and the value is much lowerIf the value is kind of again
sort of shifting.
Are you, how are youcommunicating with your shoppers
(42:35):
that the value of a lab is veryuncertain going forward?
How do you kind of?
I've heard of waivers where youhave them like signed, like hey
, we communicated this to you,do not try to sell us this stone
back in three years.
Is that something that you'vedabbled with Anybody?
Speaker 6 (42:47):
And for us, the people that come in that are
looking for Lab already knowwhat we're going to tell them
Majority of the time.
Rarely do I have to go throughthe spiel and explain it and say
you know, this is not worthwhat you think it's going to be
worth if you try to pass it downand we kind of present it as
like, if this is a familyheirloom, if this is a fashion
piece, it's, you know, lab's nota bad option for you, but this
(43:09):
is something you're going topass down and give to your
daughter or your granddaughteror whoever Natural is the way to
go in that circumstance.
So a lot of the time, I don'twe don't make them sign a waiver
or anything, but I think theyprobably already understand it,
Um, and then we'll bring out,obviously, their testers and
everything like that to to makesure they know what the
difference is.
Um, and now, most of the time,I don't even have to worry about
(43:29):
it.
Honestly, um, upfront, at least.
So for now.
Speaker 5 (43:33):
Yeah, that's the same with us.
You know the lab shopper, um,for us there's just not a whole
lot of selling involved.
They, they know exactly whatthey're getting.
They go hey, I want athree-carat on a solitaire and
that's what I want.
Okay, good, ring them up andthat's really it.
That's crazy.
One way we've it is I mean, thesales are over, just like that.
(43:58):
It's very different than thenatural presentation and one
just like he was talking aboutregarding, like heirlooms.
You know, people come in andthey do say, I'm going to get
this, I'd like to pass this down.
You know how we've decided toword that.
As you know, this is going tobe valuable because it belonged
to this person.
Not going to financially, it'snot going to be valuable.
This is going to be specialbecause it belonged to your mom.
(44:19):
Like, and we, we try to, wemake it very clear that you know
, hey, you know, and, and, likehe said, they all, they all know
it, they're aware.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Wow, from what we've seen, yeah, you know it's such a
wide variety of educationlevels across the across the U?
S with regards to the lab,because, you know, I live in a
pretty pretty small upstate townand people don't even know
about them.
They like literally do not knowthat labs are a thing, that
they are whatever identical to anatural.
(44:50):
But that kind of education ismaybe more, I wonder, is it more
pertinent in a city setting orin the South, or is it just
people don't really have tons,and you know tons and tons and
tons of money up here, sothey're not considering like a
three carat natural versus lab.
It's not something I've everhad, like you know, an answer
(45:14):
for yet, but it's something I'vebeen kind of considering as
I've started to.
You know, continue to payattention to the, to the
industry.
But I think I'd like to kind ofwrap this up really quickly, and
one thing I always do at theend of a retail roundtable is
ask this question, which is whatare you working on?
And that's like if I know onething about jewelers and I know
one thing about business ownersin general is that there's
(45:36):
always something that you'reworking on, and I think maybe
I'll just pose that question toyou all is like what is the
current project that you're umundergoing?
Because is it could be cabinets, could be, uh, fixing up the or
reorganizing the?
Um the vault for the first timeforever?
Um, what is your currentproject?
(45:56):
Like uh, cole, caleb, matt, kim, anybody?
Speaker 6 (46:00):
for us right now.
It's it's succession, um.
I mean, that's something that.
That's something that Calebmentioned as well.
It's a tough process oneverybody's plate.
Bob's been in his store for 40years, so it's hard for him to
let it go.
I think he's getting there, butthat's a conversation we have
every day.
Steven at IJO has beenwonderful to help us with that.
(46:23):
Wilkerson's going to beinvolved, going forward.
So that's the biggest thing onour plate right now, um, and it
will always be the biggest thinguntil 2026 hits.
So we kind of put everythingelse as far as projects are
concerned on the back side,because nothing really matters
until that situation's handled,because Ware's been around for
(46:44):
53, going on 54 years inBradenton.
So that legacy is important tonot only our customers but Bob,
of course, too.
So that's where we're at.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
That's a great one.
And, matt and Kim, what aboutyourselves?
Speaker 3 (46:57):
We're in the process of.
Our project right now isbasically doubling the area of
our bridal Decided to reallyinvest in that this year, so
we're basically just doublingthe square footage case space of
the bridal area and justleaning into that this year.
Man.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Hopefully, that's one of those ones, though, that
I've heard.
Every jewelry store has to makethat plunge, and it seems like
or a lot of them make the plunge.
It seems like it's the smartand intelligent way to go about
it, so good luck to you on that.
And what about yourself, caleb?
Speaker 5 (47:32):
So we're kind of wrapping up now the building of
our freestanding store, andthat's been a two-year project.
We're moving to 5,000 squarefeet.
Right now we're in about 2,000square feet in a strip center
with one other shop next to us.
So that's every day, that iswhat we're doing.
I'm at the store, then I'mgoing to the site, then just on
(47:56):
the email, on the phone, withpeople just making sure things
are getting done in a timelymanner and and running along and
, um, well, also trying tomanage, you know, the, the
day-to-day business at the, atthe store that's open now.
So hopefully, um, we'll be inby May 1 and, uh, we can start
kind of finding our rhythm atour new location.
But, um, yeah, so that's whatwe're doing, it's and it's, it's
(48:19):
every day.
That is so exciting.
Speaker 6 (48:22):
That's not a small one.
Speaker 5 (48:22):
That's awesome.
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
All of those are so like, probably seem to be all
encompassing all, like you know,a real focus.
But if there's one thing I know, it's that every jeweler and
every retailer is working onsome type of project.
No one's just sitting aroundkind of counting the dollars.
So I really appreciate you allbeing so candid and sharing your
information with us.
(48:45):
I'm sure that listeners like Imentioned before we got on this
call jewelers.
They love listening to otherjewelers talk about jewelry.
They do, and if I can bringlike a mini trade show to other
people while they're commutingin the car, that's the best
thing I can do.
So I really thank you all.
I really appreciate your time.
Everybody thanks for listeningand check out these people's
(49:09):
websites.
They're all beautiful and we'llbe back next week, tuesday,
with another episode.
Thanks everybody, bye.
All right, everybody.
That's the end of the show.
Thanks so much for listening.
(49:40):
No-transcript.
Don't forget to rate thepodcast on Spotify and Apple
Podcasts and leave us feedbackon punchmarkcom slash loop.
That's L-O-U-P-E.
Thanks.
We'll be back next week,tuesday, with another episode.
Cheers, bye.
Welcome to In the Loop.
What is up everybody?
My name is Michael Burpo.
Thanks again for listening toIn the Loop.
This week we're doing aretailer roundtable and what
that is is a open discussion andconversation with jewelry
retailers discussing how theyrun and organize their store,
(00:24):
and this week we're talking allabout how they run and organize
their store.
And this week we're talking allabout how they structure their
year, and I'm joined by CalebHarkle-Rode from Harkle-Rode
Diamonds and Fine Jewelry, Mattand Kim from R Gregory Jewelers
and Cole Rowland from Ware'sJewelers, and we're talking
specifically about when is thebusy part of their year and when
(00:45):
is the down part of their year,when do they take their
vacations and which trade showsthey're attending, as well as
who do they bring to the tradeshows.
It's a really cool conversation.
They're very open and honestabout how they organize and run
their store and I hope you learnmaybe something from it as well
.
Thanks so much.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
And we're back next week, Tuesday, with another
episode.
So cheers.
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(02:00):
Slash go.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
And now back to the show.
What is up?
Everybody?
My name is Michael Burpo.
Thanks again for listening toIn the Loop, and this week we
have a very cool retailer roundtable and I'm joined by Kim and
Matt from R Gregory Jewelers,caleb from Harkle Road, fine
(02:26):
Jewelry Is that correct?
You got it?
You got it Awesome.
And Cole from Ware's Jewelershow are y'all doing today?
Great man, happy to be here,awesome.
So what we're going to do is Iwanted to kind of set this up
for the listeners we're going tobe talking all about sort of
like the yearly calendar.
I know that this can be similarfor a lot of stores, like we're
(02:46):
all going to be busy from BlackFriday to hopefully until
Christmas.
It should be slamming.
But for some stores there areactually different parts of the
year that are more popular thanothers.
Some places do a great jobaround Valentine's Day or, for
example, where I'm at in upstateNew York, the fall is really
popular because we have a lot ofleaf peepers that come through.
(03:07):
But for other stores, I'm surethat there are like regular
events and promotions that mightbe in town that you need to
plan around.
And I also want to talk aboutwhen are you strategizing, like
when you go on vacation, or whenare you strategizing for
upgrades at your store?
So maybe, kim and Matt, can youtalk to me.
When do you think is your busyseason?
(03:30):
What would you say?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Like I said, obviously Christmas, but we also
we travel to Antwerp twice ayear.
We used to only do it in thespring, but we're now doing it
twice a year, spring and fall.
So we try to promote that 30 to45 days out start, and so that
has definitely become a busierseason for us leading up to
those two trips so that we'realways kind of coming or going.
It always gives us something totalk about.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
That sounds really smart.
Is that something that you guyslike you said 30 to 40 days are
marketing?
It Is that, like I'm sureyou're probably hitting up a lot
of different marketing channelsfor that.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yes, we do a lot of social um email blast email
blasts um, sent out through youguys um, billboards um, and then
in-store tons of in-storesignage to get people we do some
radio advertising also.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Super cool with that and caleb.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
What about yourself?
When is the the busy uh seasonfor your store?
Speaker 5 (04:24):
yeah, so we.
So we're in Savannah, georgia,and obviously holiday, but we
actually now is a really busytime for our store.
A lot of people don't know this, but we have the second largest
St Patrick's Day parade in thecountry here in Savannah and so,
oddly enough, it is a bit of agift giving holiday here.
(04:44):
Uh, emeralds are our number oneselling gemstone in our store,
so we do quite a bit.
We just had a trunk show withsingle stone, a new designer
that we picked up at Centurion.
Um, it did really, really well.
So now it's kind of a busy time.
We come out of winter and thesun starts shining and it gets
nice outside and things getkicked back up for us.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Oh, that's really neat.
I love that there's like aconnection to that, because you
know very easily it could justbe like a whatever holiday.
You know, I'm sure that somepeople have not a big St
Patrick's Day, but it's greatthat you guys are capitalizing
on that.
And what about yourself, cole?
What does Wares do for the busyseason?
Speaker 6 (05:25):
I mean outside of, obviously, christmas, christmas,
I mean everybody's busy duringthen.
We, um, we actually get a lotof response from our northern
crowd during the winter season.
Florida is a big, obviously abig uh vacation spot.
Uh.
We're south of tampa so a lotof people escape down here for
six months and, you know, thenthey go home.
So we stay busy all the wayfrom probably, you know a little
(05:46):
bit before black friday untilabout the end of of april really
, um, and then everybody goeshome, um, and then we dip down
uh pretty hardcore in the summerbecause it's pretty hot uh, so
people don't like to really beoutside uh too much during then.
But you know it's it's, it's abig time of year for us.
We get get a lot of people, youknow, just spending a lot of
time in Florida.
We're running a nationalrarities event at the store as
(06:08):
we speak right now.
So that's been huge for theweek.
It's been an incredible turnout.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
So really good stuff.
Wow, I love that you guys aredoing that.
They were just a sponsor forour show the past couple of
weeks.
That's actually where we foundthem.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
Let's go All right, justin, I'm sending this to you.
At the Punchmark show that wealways go to with you guys, I
talked with Tyler there and hetalked me into it, and it's
worked out really, really wellfor us, so we're happy about it.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Hell, yeah, that's super cool and I guess that kind
of brings up the conversation.
So you mentioned, you know, thesnowbirds as we refer to them
up here, because we're, you know, upstate New York right around
now.
We call this shoulder season.
So this is definitely our downpart of the year.
It's when the skiing stopsbeing great and but the snow is
still on the ground.
(06:56):
Or we some people call mudseason, but I prefer shoulder
because it's on the other sideof the year as well, Because we
also have November is definitelya time as soon as the leaves
come down but the snow hasn'tcome in, we call that shoulder
season.
And I guess I was going to ask,because that's not true for
everybody.
I guess maybe, Caleb, can youtell me do you have a down part
(07:18):
of the year and what do you doto kind of capitalize on that
part of the year when you knowit's going to be slow?
Speaker 5 (07:24):
Sure.
So August for us is a reallycan be a slow month.
School's getting back insession and those start dates
are all kind of all over theplace in August some early
August, some middle and late.
So things tend to slow downpretty much there.
But we kind of allow that timefor people to take some extra
time off.
People take some vacation again.
(07:45):
If we're doing, like, um, someimprovement stuff around the
store, um, that's usually a goodtime for that.
Um, yeah, we try to just, youknow, kind of get ready for q4,
uh in august and kind of getready for the busy season and
and fall that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
yeah, I guess having a time to to go and take your
vacations is definitelyimportant.
And what about yourselves, kimand Matt?
Is there a time when you knowit's going to be a little bit
sleepier around town, and whatdo you do to kind of capitalize
on that?
Any of those summer months,june, july, august?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I feel like there's always a lull here and there,
depending on the school schedule, and then usually, like the
rolling into January, rightafter that last week of December
it can be a little quiet.
So that's usually where we'lltry to take a family vacation.
Is that first week in Januaryand then the summer, the school
schedule.
Here we'll see a kind of alittle slow time, depending on
(08:39):
where it lands.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
And do you typically try to like strategize around
that?
Because I feel like a naturaltendency might be to, oh, let's
have an event during that timeof the year and like boost sales
.
But I guess another optionwould be to lean into it more
and then, yeah, take like avacation as well.
Have you ever tried boosting itor doing like an event, or is
it just not worth the juice andworth the squeeze on that one an
(09:03):
?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
event, or is it just not worth?
The juice isn't worth thesqueeze on that one.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
The last summer we did the like 60 off for six
hours just on a random Saturdayin June, and it was I mean it
was ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
I'm like, okay, I mean, I was completely blown
away.
I had no clue it would do whatit did.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
And then I'm wondering okay, do we need to
try this again.
Everybody says, yes, you haveto do it again.
I'm a little bit like can we bethat successful two years in a
row?
Or do we have that much stuffwe want to sell at 60 off, but
we're going to do it again.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
So hopefully it carried us well through the
summer.
I mean, I was blown away.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
That's super cool.
Yeah, I've always wonderedabout you don't want to go to
the well too much.
You know, I always think aboutthat Because at the same time
I've also heard of some stores.
They have like we don'tdiscount ever, except for this
one week or something like that,and they have like this whole
(09:55):
strategy we never discountexcept for this one time.
Do you feel like, do sales dipafter that 60% event or do they
do okay?
Speaker 3 (10:02):
We didn't really see a dip and it's actually helped
us when we put that on the books, because we put it on the books
pretty far out in advance.
We try not to discount anyway,so when we knew that that was
coming we were able to just evenhold back even harder on that,
and then let them know, you knowif it's still here.
You know, here's the dates ofthe 60 off.
(10:22):
I mean you can definitely getit then, um, but rolled into
july.
We even had people come in umhoping, you know, a week later
hoping to get that same dealbecause they weren't able to
make it.
Um, I don't know of a incidentwhere we actually did it.
We may have budged just alittle bit, you know, just to
make them happy, but it itdidn't seem to affect sales
(10:44):
moving forward after that.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, I worried that it was going to affect, you know
, just to make them happy, butit it didn't seem to affect
sales moving forward after that.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Yeah, I worried that it was going to affect.
You know like, are people goingto buy now for Christmas, or
was it going to affect?
But it really didn't.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
We're coming off literally the best year we've
ever had in 40 years of business.
So, um well, we'll see whatthis year does.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
That's so fascinating .
I love hearing about that kindof stuff and and Cole, and so
you had already alluded that thesummer gets pretty hot.
I can't sympathize, so I don'treally know anything about that.
But do you, do you have aanything that you do during that
?
Is that like when you try toremodel or try to, you know, try
out new business strategy?
Or is it just like hey, we knowit's going to be a little bit
(11:20):
slow, so take as much time asoff as you want?
Speaker 6 (11:23):
Um, our store is a little bit of a different place
than than most.
I think we're in transition.
Um, my fiance and I are buyingthe store at the beginning of
next year.
So, um, uh, with with thecurrent ownership, we're not
trying to bleed them completelydry uh, promotions and like
market this and market that andspend all your money.
Um, so, to go forward, andobviously we want to do stuff
(11:43):
like that, but we're trying tokind of figure that out and
there's going to be a remodelattached to the um to the buy.
So we have some some stuff inthe in the works there, um, kind
of not not necessarily arebrand, but kind of like a, you
know, an upgrade to where we'reat now.
So we haven't planned anythingfor the summer just yet.
Um, I want to do a coupledifferent things, but we might
do a wedding band event orsomething like that.
(12:05):
But we really got to figure outwhat works best for our store.
Um, moving forward.
So we kind of, honestly, we doa lot of our events during
busier seasons because it makespeople more excited about being
in the store.
We kind of do it a little bitdifferently than most, but once
the transitions fully happen, wewant to try to do at least one
event a quarter, um to getpeople excited every quarter,
(12:27):
instead of just, you know, oneor two.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah, I think that that marketing and, uh, I
affectionately refer to as, likethe cadence, you know one, one
a quarter, because you don'treally want sometimes, I think
it's.
It's a shame that Thanksgivingand Christmas are so close
together, because they're two ofthe you know the best holidays
and they're only within threeweeks of each other.
Is that something when it comesto, like, deciding what kind of
(12:52):
events and promotion thatyou're going to be doing?
Is that something that you planyou know how far out in advance
?
Is that, cole?
Is that like you're planning,you know, 12 months at a clip,
or are you doing like quarter byquarter?
Speaker 6 (13:06):
I mean, ideally I want to run it based off of
where we struggled last year.
If there was a lull betweenNovember you know your
Thanksgiving to your Christmas,there shouldn't be a big lull
there.
If there is, we probably needto figure something out.
But ideally we would try to.
We would try to plan it youknow, middle of Q2, running into
Q4, plan it, you know themiddle of q2, uh, running into
(13:27):
q4 because we want to make surethat we can get the marketing
out there and plan how we'regoing to market and then reach
out to our resources and makesure they have the script
they're going to run or makesure our sales staff knows
exactly what they're going tosay to uh, to employee or to the
customers that are coming in.
So yeah, I mean, I thinkeverybody kind of has a
different view of that.
I mean, obviously you want tostart as early as you can, but
you don't want to start tooearly to where everybody forgets
that it's even happening.
(13:47):
So it kind of just depends onyour staff and how you can
communicate with them.
I think.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, and Caleb, you get to be, you know, in the busy
season right now.
What did you guys do to marketfor this event?
Obviously, it sounds like it'sa pretty good time, but is there
anything that you do to try tolike kind of push it to the next
level each year?
Or at this point, is it sort of, I guess, running on its own,
(14:14):
like volition, essentially?
Speaker 5 (14:16):
Yeah, so we're in.
You know, I came back to workwith my dad and his business 10
years ago and so ever since thenI've been kind of trying to get
a calendar of events going onand um, trunk shows and things
like that.
So definitely there's aconcerted effort to try to keep
that momentum going and, um, tokeep the events consistent.
(14:37):
Um, you know, I think that's abig thing.
You get through a year, you go,okay, that was great.
And then you know, sometimes youknow we, I think for us we get
caught up in the day to day,running, running, running,
running the hamster wheel, like,oh, you know, q1's over in two
weeks and we haven't doneanything, like you know.
So my big thing is, yeah,starting at the beginning of the
(14:57):
year, like you mentioned, like12 months out, and just saying,
hey, let's plan.
You know, we'll do this trunkshow here, this trunk show here,
we'll couple it to St Patrick'sDay, to Mother's Day, to
Thanksgiving, you know, and thenour holiday, open house.
So we are two or one a quarterand like to at least, you know,
get it on paper at the beginningof the year.
So it's in the back of our mindto plan.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Now and I guess this is kind of open to everybody
(15:48):
no-transcript, and I think it'svery interesting to try to
figure out why, like you know,if you're, if you're going
fishing and nothing bites.
Maybe you have a reason, ormaybe it's just a slow day for
fish and have, I guess maybe youknow Kim or Caleb or Cole or
anybody, um, have you ever trieda marketing uh, or a marketing
(16:09):
event or some type of promotionand had it not go as well or
that you learned a lot from?
Is there anything like thatthat you that you'd be willing
to share?
And if not, we'll just callthis one of those events and I
can just cut it and move intothe next one.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
I'm like probably too many to count.
That's what I'm saying.
Yes, I mean.
We try things all the time andthey flop, but I'm trying to
think like specific one that,well, we've even had like.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
So we do an estate sale every November and we've
had record breaking where we'vedone, you know, over $100,000 in
one day with them.
And then the next year you'reall ramped up because last year
you killed it and, for somereason, like it, just completely
flops and you do half of whatyou did the year before and
(16:51):
everybody's standing aroundlooking at each other and you're
embarrassed.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
You brought somebody in and people here and they're
looking and we did this greatbusiness
Speaker 6 (16:59):
last year, where you know where's all the customers
that marketed the same.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
We, we did all the same things.
So, yeah you, you never know.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
Yeah, for me, I think , trunk shows are always.
I was just talking to my wifeabout this because we just had a
trunk show.
You know, you bring just like Isaid, you bring somebody in,
you've got all this, there's allthis hype, and then you know
the door opens at 10 and you'relike, hey, all right, where are
the?
Where is everybody?
And you know you, just, that'sthe thing.
(17:32):
Like, there's a certain amountof you know with like,
particularly like a trunk show.
You know, either it's going tobe a day that the people show up
or they don't, no matter howmany postcards you send or text
or emails.
You know you've done what youcan to get them in the door.
But yeah, we've, we'vecertainly had some that like, at
the end of the day, I was like,oh, you know nobody.
I was like, oh, you know nobody.
But then we've had others where, you know, I expected nobody
(17:54):
and we killed it.
So there is a bit of you knowyou, just, it depends on the
people.
You know we can do so much toget them there, but they have to
show up and be in the mood tobuy.
So but, yeah, plenty, we've hadplenty that just didn't take
off.
Speaker 6 (18:11):
You know, you chalk it up and you do it again next
year, you know that's impressive, yeah, uh, I mean, as far as
our store is concerned, I'mstill relatively new to the
business.
To consumer side of of thebusiness, um, I not.
We did plenty of things thatdidn't go so well in six or
seven years.
So, um, you know, we learnedfrom those, obviously, and
pivoted.
(18:31):
But on the retail side the onlything we've done that we've
been able to run twice sinceI've been there, um was we did
an inventory reduction sale.
The first year I was there andit did amazing.
Um, the second year it didn'tdo so great Um, and I know that
Tim and your husband had talkedabout that.
I don't necessarily think that'ssomething you guys should worry
about.
I think for us it was just wewere one of those stores who
(18:52):
never discounted and never didanything like that, and then we
did a 50% off and then we didanother one the next year.
So it felt like people werekind of waiting for it to happen
.
And then it did happen and itstill didn't show up.
So I don't know if it's besomething we're going to do in
2026 or not, but, um, that's theonly one we've really ran into
that hasn't worked.
But again, we've ran two orthree events since I've been
there.
(19:13):
So nothing too crazy on our endas of yet, but I'm sure I will
find plenty that don't go sowell at some point.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Undoubtedly it happens.
But at the same time, you know,I've been the beneficiary and
also the victim of both sides ofthat, where and I do feel like
I remember the flops way betterthan I remember the surprisingly
good ones, whereas, like youknow, I do art walks where it's
kind of like a farmer's marketwhere I sell my art, and what's
(19:41):
so funny is sometimes I go toone and, unbeknownst to me, they
booked an event across town atthe exact same time, so no one
is walking the streets,everyone's there.
And I feel terrible aboutmyself, like why did I do so bad
?
Maybe my work is bad right now.
Like maybe I need new stuff.
It's like, oh okay, this one isactually out of my control.
(20:03):
But a really interesting onethat I've been thinking about a
lot more is, in case you didn'tknow, there was a massive solar
eclipse right around this timelast year I guess it was more
like May-ish last year and itcame right through the Northeast
and, believe it or not, myhometown, saranac Lake, was one
(20:24):
of the best locations to see itand, as a result, the town
showed out for it and therewasn't a single vacancy in the
Tri-Lakes.
There wasn't for hotels.
Airbnbs were doing a killingjob.
But what's so fascinating is Isaw all this news and I was like
this is so good, how are theygoing to do it next year?
And it's like, oh, it's like asolar eclipse.
(20:46):
Maybe in like 250 years is thenext one, and I guess that's one
of those things.
How can you learn from themarketing of it all and how can
you learn about the success ifyou can't actually replicate and
duplicate it one-to-one?
So, like what you're talkingabout, cole, with these hyper
(21:07):
sales and going in and like, ok,this was super successful.
What is it that we learned,other than people love discounts
, you know?
Like what can you learn fromthat nugget?
Well, I'm hoping that our youknow my area learned is you know
how can they market behind ahappening and be successful?
I guess that ties in with whatI was hoping to talk about is,
(21:29):
like what channels you monitorand when it comes to marketing.
So I think that we had touchedon this earlier like, oh, we
market through our website andin-store signage and stuff like
that.
Cole or Caleb or Kim or Matt,are you all using print
advertising primarily?
(21:49):
Are you mainly digital print ofmeaning billboards and
newspapers and things like thatand flyers, or are you all
primarily on like Facebook andGoogle and things like that?
Speaker 6 (22:03):
So for the most part, our store before we had made
the change and started thetransition, did almost no
marketing.
I think a lot of that wasbecause Bob and Cheryl ran the
store by themselves, primarily,with Bob being a bench guy since
he was 20 years old.
Marketing never really wassomething he had time to do and
(22:23):
or the resources to make ithappen.
The store does a lot of repairbusiness as it is, so he was
doing all of that by himself.
So we've really pivoted and wedo a lot more direct mailers.
Our average customer sitssomewhere between 55 and 58.
So direct mailers areeverybody's favorite here.
Email blasts don't get opened,just not something our customers
(22:47):
do really well.
We do a lot of direct mailers.
We do a lot of direct mailers.
We do a lot of organicmarketing too.
We go to the local markets andwe pop up and take an ultrasonic
and clean jewelry and talkabout it and kind of tell people
the difference between labgrown and natural, because
everybody wants to know.
So we do a lot of organic stuff.
That's different.
We still have digital stuffrunning.
I'm just it's hard to crack themarket of Bradenton because
(23:12):
it's not necessarily a youngermarket.
So the digital stuff is kind ofa struggle for us, not
necessarily because of whoprovides it.
That'd be punchmark.
By the way, if anybody waswondering, they do an
exceptional job with theiradvertisements.
It's just I don't have a basethat finds it yet.
So we do a whole lot of kind ofguerrilla marketing stuff we've
(23:33):
come up with on our own, justbecause we know our customers
are going to respond to it.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
Yes, savannah is a big social town, so kind of one
of our primary things is justnetworking.
I'm at luncheons and happyhours and all sorts of stuff all
the time and it makes a hugedifference.
I mean, my first year when Icame back to work for dad, you
(24:00):
know from you know, let's say,june to December that year, we
added, you know, $100,000 to thebottom line just from contacts
that we met, that I metnetworking.
So it's been that's huge for us.
You know we're out, um, um, intown a lot, um, just you know
savannah's just, that's just howsavannah is.
(24:21):
You know that they, they dealwith who they know and um, and
so it's good to be in front ofpeople so that that facebook,
google are probably top threeInteresting Wow.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
That's so cool.
So is it as simple as just likehey, if you've never been to
the store, maybe stop in, we'dlove to hang out with you.
Is it like that?
Or is it more just like lettingthem you know, talking about
other things and then oh, by theway, I also am a jeweler.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
Yeah, so it's.
I think it's front of mind forus.
We've been in Savannah, we'reall local here, we're all from
here, we've been here about 40years, so we're known in town.
So I think it's just front ofmind for us.
And there are certainly newpeople.
Savannah's kind of booming withgrowth right now in hospitality
(25:10):
and the ports and things likethat, so plenty of new people
too.
So it's a front of mind.
Just say hey, you know good, oh, I saw Caleb last week.
I need to get reminds me I needto get my ring cleaned or a pop
in and my wife's ring needs tobe fixed, things like that.
And then, too, like meetingthese new people that are also
like new to Savannah and they'rekind of getting their feet wet
(25:30):
and trying to figure out youknow who does what, um, you know
.
So there is some someintroducing yourself to people
for the first time too.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Very cool.
And Kim and Matt, you hadmentioned it earlier, but just
remind me, are you so?
Are you on um online marketingand then in store as well?
What's your particular cocktaillook like?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
predominantly social um.
We do a lot of, have basicallyput all of our money, I would
say, in social media, social,digital um seo.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
What does all be?
It's all been handled by punchmark.
So um, and we get I mean we getreally good results and we
dabble a little in radio.
It's a small local radiostation that I've got the
ability to literally text the djand say hey, do you mind if I
run in this morning for a littlewhile and talk about our
antwerp trip and differentthings like that?
(26:20):
But the majority is all digitalwe are doing another um local.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Well they're syndicated.
They were radio radio, but nowthey're mainly podcasts and but
so we do advertise with them aswell and they're influencing,
you know.
So they come and come up and doall the pictures and all that
kind of stuff.
So we are throwing a little.
You three stores, thoughbetween you all it's so
different.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
And I think that's what's so exciting to me is I'm
on here all the time preachinglike the values of digital
marketing and things like that,but hearing that it really is
different.
For a long time, I always usedto poo-poo on billboards.
I think that they are just froma personal standpoint.
I think they're very ugly andjust like I have like a lot of
(27:16):
animosity for them in general,but there are some places that
they swear certain billboardsare just like their moneymakers
and they just love them, and Iguess that kind of goes to show
that it is very dependent onwhere you are and every store is
.
We talk with people that have,you know, these smaller stores
in areas like my town you know4,000 people and they're not
(27:39):
fighting for the generalpopulace, they're just fighting
for these people to be shoppingwith them instead of online like
through some bigger box store,whereas then there are people
that we're talking with, likeyou said, in Savannah, or, you
know, we have people in LosAngeles where they're fighting
for just their block,essentially, and it goes to show
that you know there's no rightway to do it.
(28:01):
There's no.
I think that there's a wrongway, but there's no.
There's definitely no perfectway and I think that that's kind
of worth keeping in mind and Ireally appreciate you guys
sharing that.
But we're going to take a quickbreak and when we come back I
want to talk about your tradeshow strategy and then we'll
talk about what's working atyour store.
So everybody, stay with us.
Speaker 7 (28:24):
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Speaker 1 (29:20):
And now back to the show.
Welcome back everybody.
I'm still joined by three verydistinguished jewelry retailers,
four members but threedifferent stores, and I want to
talk to you all about tradeshows.
(29:41):
To me they sort of mainly setthe cadence, at least for us,
because we are a vendor.
So we're constantly looking at,we go to two RJO shows a year,
two IJO shows a year, jck andCenturion.
I don't know if there's asecond Centurion show.
It's so far away I can't evenremember.
(30:01):
It seems like those are a lotof them, though there are a lot
of other optional ones, like JISin Miami and AJS in Atlanta,
and there's a lot of other ones.
There's some in New York Citythat we don't go to.
I kind of wanted to ask firstof all maybe we'll do a quick
loop around Kim and Matt, areyou part of any jewelry
(30:24):
organizations?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yes, we're IJO and RJO, ijo, rjo, caleb, what about
yourself?
We're.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
RJO, rjo and Cole.
We're just IL, ijl, rjl.
Caleb, what about yourself?
We're RJL, rjl and Cole.
We're just IJL, ijl.
Oh, very cool.
So we have one that's in both,one in one, one in the other.
So, cole, when you are in asIJL, are you going to both shows
?
And what's your group look like?
(30:51):
Is it just you?
Are you bringing um bob, thecurrent owner, um, or how big is
your entourage, if you will?
Speaker 6 (30:59):
yeah, I mean, we go to both shows.
So I think it's super importantto go to both.
Um the first the first one is alittle bit different than the
second one.
Obviously the the summer showyou're looking for your, your q4
, you're trying to figure outwhat's going to work for you and
what's not working or hasn'tworked all year.
Um, as far as staff is concerned, we bring everybody.
Um, I think it's our, our staffis not huge.
We have five, uh total peoplethat show up, and that's Bob and
(31:22):
his wife, uh, my fiance, andthen, uh, the sales associate we
just hired.
So we're working toward ummaking sure everybody's allowed
to go, because, as a previousvendor, I think it's a big deal
when the whole staff is involved, because a lot of the time, as
the owner or the sales manageror whatever your title is,
you're not on the floor sellingall the time.
(31:43):
So if your staff's not involvedin understanding of what you're
buying and why you're buying itand how expensive it is and all
this stuff, they don't need toknow everything, but they need
to know a lot about what's inthe store.
So we find it very beneficialto bring everybody and get
everybody's opinion, because ittakes more than just the owners
to run the store.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, and I've heard a million times that getting
buy-in from your sales associatewhen you decide to bring on a
new line or re-up with the line,maybe that has given you
troubles in the past, havingthat buy-in from them so
important.
I think it's the hidden saucethat really helps make a sale.
But Kim and Matt, you guys I'msure have your hands full with a
(32:26):
lot of options.
Four shows a year if you wanted, if you had to guess how many
are you going to and what's yourentourage look like.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
We do both IJO shows.
I mean no offense to RJO.
I hope no one's listening andgoing to be offended but we're
very much more integrated thanIJO.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
So that's a non-negotiable Matt usually does
summer solo.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I have other things that I do in the summer, so I do
take summer kind of a step awayfor a minute, so Matt usually
does summer solo.
I have other things that I doin the summer, so I do take
summer kind of a step away for aminute, so Matt usually does
summer solo.
And then we try to take ouremployees to the first show, the
spring show.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
And then, depending on what we get accomplished with
those, we'll go to AJS, mainlythis proximity.
We can literally hop on and getthere and if we wanted to, we
could turn that around in a dayif we really wanted to grind it
out.
But usually at least every otheryear, if not every year, we'll
go to AJS too.
If we're looking for somethingnew, that's maybe not in one of
(33:22):
the buying groups, or if we'rejust doing mainly research on,
you know, preparing for the yearout.
If there's a line we think wewant to add, we may go and just
kind of almost do recon to seewhat we think about.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
We try to hit an RJ and this year they were both Wow
.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
Phoenix and Palm Springs, so it was hard and like
a week apart, so we couldn't go.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I mean we could have, but it just didn't feel
feasible to do both back to backlike that.
So it just kind of depends onwhere the RJO show lands, on
whether or not we try to hitthose or not.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
And Caleb.
So on the RJO side of things Ithink that was RJO was in
Phoenix, I believe I can'tremember.
And what's that?
Are you trying to go to both?
I can't remember where the nextone is going to be and what's
your entourage look like?
Speaker 5 (34:10):
So yeah, so we went to Centurion for the first time
in February, which was a reallygreat show, and we were planning
originally on going to RGO backin Phoenix.
But we're also in the processof opening a new store where
we're going building our ownfreestanding store, and we
weren't sure if we were going tobe in by then or not.
(34:30):
So we opted not to go to theRJO show.
We'll go to Chicago in thesummer.
Normally it's it's either it's acombo of me and my wife or me
and my dad, my wife and his wife, so it's usually, you know,
kind of a family trip, which isnice.
But we have been kind of toyingwith the idea of bringing some
(34:52):
staff just for the exact reasonthat they mentioned, like
getting them some buy-in,letting them see, like how this
works, and they're the onesselling it every day.
You know I'm not on the floorevery day, I'm kind of in the
process of taking over from mydad.
So there's a lot of stuff thatback a house that requires me
and they're the ones pushing itand selling it for you, and so
(35:15):
getting some buy-in from them Ithink is a great idea.
So we'll probably start thissummer at JCK and bring one or
two, um, maybe, of our top salespeople with us yeah, going to
jck is just, uh, man,mind-boggling.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
It's just the world of jewelry at your fingertips
and I guess that kind of youknow ties in rather nicely.
Um, caleb, what, what right now, would you say.
Obviously it's very storedependent and it's so different
wherever you are in the world.
Um, what's doing well for foryour store currently?
Um, if you had to say, sure.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
So, uh, naturally or, excuse me, lab is still um,
doing is very strong, uh, it's,it's uh the lab and natural is
uh kind of back to meeting inthe middle.
So, um, but we're doing, youknow, lab, fashion, lab, studs,
lab, you know bridal um, andthen, as far as natural goes, um
(36:11):
, we're doing really well withum, natural diamonds that are
two carat plus.
So the diamonds that we'reselling in natural are are
bigger, which is really nice.
Um, you know, I think this yearwe've sold a number of two and
three carrots and we're workingon a seven carrot sale now.
So it's, it's, the naturalbusiness is bigger, for sure for
(36:34):
us.
You know any, and then you know, beyond that, it's it's lab.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Wow, that's so fascinating because it felt like
there was like a moment where Isort of quieted down.
Maybe I was wrong looking at it, but at least from what I was
hearing, For sure For us anywayI was.
Speaker 5 (36:51):
You know there was a big push back to natural Um and
that's kind of that kind of hassoftened a little bit.
But, like I said, with looseyou know, we're doing well with
larger natural um and nice colortoo.
Um too is doing well for us,kind of higher end color doing
super well.
Things that you know.
We're trying to focus on thingsthat you can't.
You know we are three jewelrystores within a mile of us and
(37:14):
so things that you can't go shop, things that you can't go down
the street and get, you know animportant area for growth for us
.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
That's a really interesting distinction, that's
for sure.
And Cole, what about yourself,if you had to just pinpoint, is
there anything in particularthat's doing really well for you
right now?
Speaker 6 (37:35):
I mean, like Caleb said, big color, that's a lot
different than, like he said, astore down the street can shop.
I couldn't have said it bettermyself than what he said.
Um, it's kind of hard forsomebody to find a one-of-a-kind
parlay piece.
If you find it, good luck.
Uh, I don't know how you didthat, but, uh, that's, that's
doing really well for us.
Um, balari does really good forus in that.
(37:57):
In that circumstance as well, um, and of course, lab um is
inevitable.
Um, but I guess the good thingthere is it's a bigger stone.
Um, I mean, it starts at threecarat and above.
I rarely do they want to seeanything lower than that.
Uh, but I have seen a trendrecently, um, with, like your,
your first marriage, like your,that those, those customers are
(38:19):
buying a very, very big stoneand then a small band that they
can barely even see.
It looks like the stone is kindof floating on their finger.
It's a repair nightmare, to behonest, but it is what people
are loving right now for us.
And then another thing thatdoes really well for us too is
custom.
We do a lot of pulling oldcustomers' diamonds out of stuff
(38:42):
they don't want to use anymore,and then we do cad image and
make that all up and pretty forthem.
It's different than what theyused to have, but same stuff.
So people tend to love that andwe we use shaw for that.
So they're doing really wellfor us I love that.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
That's super cool and kim and matt, um anything,
particularly that's kind ofdriving the ship for you, I
would say probably being high incolor.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
It's funny.
You said parlay, I was going tosay parlay.
You can't be like the one of akind piece like this so I'd say
color and then, just like normalstaples, like bangles and the
soft flex bangles have been verystrong for us the past couple
of years.
And then, of course, lab.
I'm kind of glad to see the labgrowing, like we've kind of
(39:25):
seen it start to meet in themiddle and almost start to sway
back to natural, um, so I'mhoping it trends that way too.
But you know, bangles, we useharamodi and then our color, um,
it's typically parlay and we dosome with roman and jewels, um,
but yeah, like you can't,that's that's always a great
Speaker 2 (39:50):
great way to get people in when you've got a
strong custom business.
We do a lot.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Do a lot of custom man, that's so cool, shout out
the parlay, I'm gonna I'm gonnadrop them this episode.
I'd be like, yeah, you wanna,I'll wear some parlay, I don't
mind.
But I wanted to ask a littlebit about.
I wrote an article recentlyabout trends and as I was
researching it they were sayingthat the fine gold jewelry fine
(40:14):
gold meaning like dainty is justlike another kind of version,
is kind of on the outs andthings are starting to be more I
don't want to say clunky, butmore built up Bulky, bulky,
bulky stuff, which is confusingto me because the price of gold
is at an all-time high.
How does that kind ofrationalize itself?
Speaker 2 (40:37):
It does too.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
I mean, I look at things.
I'm like this is crazy, yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
But it's what people want and they're buying it.
We just placed an order withRoyal Chain and there's some
chunky.
I mean big chunky.
I mean I hate to say expensive,but when your invoice comes in
and it's billed at $2,500 anounce it is what it is, but it's
kind of nice in a way, becauseyou don't have to apologize for
(41:03):
the price.
Everybody knows everything's up,yeah, so eggs are up.
Why should gold jewelry not beup?
So we apologize for it?
We just, we just price it.
They talk about how, what thegold price is all the time, in
all different avenues, so wejust price it and they, if they
balk at the price, they will.
(41:23):
It's $2,900 an ounce, that's.
I mean, it's kind of is what itis, and usually they'll shrug
and they'll just buy it.
Yeah, fascinating.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Wow, I never would have thought the price of eggs
but actually help out thejewelers.
But here we are.
I guess that's that's one ofthose other ones is, you know,
just the flexibility, especiallybecause of so you talked, we
all had talked about lab grown.
Um, what's fascinating aboutlab is something I have been.
I've been following thee-commerce trends, um, for our
(41:53):
platform, and 2023 was, you know, like our, our, one of our best
years, uh, and that's becausethe average value AOV was
incredible and it's becauseeverybody would buy one
lab-grown single stone pendanton a gold chain and then the
(42:14):
value was through the roof andthat would be the one thing that
they would buy.
But nowadays, people are buyingit and the value is much lower.
It and the value is much lowerIf the value is kind of again
sort of shifting.
Are you, how are youcommunicating with your shoppers
(42:35):
that the value of a lab is veryuncertain going forward?
How do you kind of?
I've heard of waivers where youhave them like signed, like hey
, we communicated this to you,do not try to sell us this stone
back in three years.
Is that something that you'vedabbled with Anybody?
Speaker 6 (42:47):
And for us, the people that come in that are
looking for Lab already knowwhat we're going to tell them
Majority of the time.
Rarely do I have to go throughthe spiel and explain it and say
you know, this is not worthwhat you think it's going to be
worth if you try to pass it downand we kind of present it as
like, if this is a familyheirloom, if this is a fashion
piece, it's, you know, lab's nota bad option for you, but this
(43:09):
is something you're going topass down and give to your
daughter or your granddaughteror whoever Natural is the way to
go in that circumstance.
So a lot of the time, I don'twe don't make them sign a waiver
or anything, but I think theyprobably already understand it,
Um, and then we'll bring out,obviously, their testers and
everything like that to to makesure they know what the
difference is.
Um, and now, most of the time,I don't even have to worry about
(43:29):
it.
Honestly, um, upfront, at least.
So for now.
Speaker 5 (43:33):
Yeah, that's the same with us.
You know the lab shopper, um,for us there's just not a whole
lot of selling involved.
They, they know exactly whatthey're getting.
They go hey, I want athree-carat on a solitaire and
that's what I want.
Okay, good, ring them up andthat's really it.
That's crazy.
One way we've it is I mean, thesales are over, just like that.
(43:58):
It's very different than thenatural presentation and one
just like he was talking aboutregarding, like heirlooms.
You know, people come in andthey do say, I'm going to get
this, I'd like to pass this down.
You know how we've decided toword that.
As you know, this is going tobe valuable because it belonged
to this person.
Not going to financially, it'snot going to be valuable.
This is going to be specialbecause it belonged to your mom.
(44:19):
Like, and we, we try to, wemake it very clear that you know
, hey, you know, and, and, likehe said, they all, they all know
it, they're aware.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Wow, from what we've seen, yeah, you know it's such a
wide variety of educationlevels across the across the U?
S with regards to the lab,because, you know, I live in a
pretty pretty small upstate townand people don't even know
about them.
They like literally do not knowthat labs are a thing, that
they are whatever identical to anatural.
(44:50):
But that kind of education ismaybe more, I wonder, is it more
pertinent in a city setting orin the South, or is it just
people don't really have tons,and you know tons and tons and
tons of money up here, sothey're not considering like a
three carat natural versus lab.
It's not something I've everhad, like you know, an answer
(45:14):
for yet, but it's something I'vebeen kind of considering as
I've started to.
You know, continue to payattention to the, to the
industry.
But I think I'd like to kind ofwrap this up really quickly, and
one thing I always do at theend of a retail roundtable is
ask this question, which is whatare you working on?
And that's like if I know onething about jewelers and I know
one thing about business ownersin general is that there's
(45:36):
always something that you'reworking on, and I think maybe
I'll just pose that question toyou all is like what is the
current project that you're umundergoing?
Because is it could be cabinets, could be, uh, fixing up the or
reorganizing the?
Um the vault for the first timeforever?
Um, what is your currentproject?
(45:56):
Like uh, cole, caleb, matt, kim, anybody?
Speaker 6 (46:00):
for us right now.
It's it's succession, um.
I mean, that's something that.
That's something that Calebmentioned as well.
It's a tough process oneverybody's plate.
Bob's been in his store for 40years, so it's hard for him to
let it go.
I think he's getting there, butthat's a conversation we have
every day.
Steven at IJO has beenwonderful to help us with that.
(46:23):
Wilkerson's going to beinvolved, going forward.
So that's the biggest thing onour plate right now, um, and it
will always be the biggest thinguntil 2026 hits.
So we kind of put everythingelse as far as projects are
concerned on the back side,because nothing really matters
until that situation's handled,because Ware's been around for
(46:44):
53, going on 54 years inBradenton.
So that legacy is important tonot only our customers but Bob,
of course, too.
So that's where we're at.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
That's a great one.
And, matt and Kim, what aboutyourselves?
Speaker 3 (46:57):
We're in the process of.
Our project right now isbasically doubling the area of
our bridal Decided to reallyinvest in that this year, so
we're basically just doublingthe square footage case space of
the bridal area and justleaning into that this year.
Man.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Hopefully, that's one of those ones, though, that
I've heard.
Every jewelry store has to makethat plunge, and it seems like
or a lot of them make the plunge.
It seems like it's the smartand intelligent way to go about
it, so good luck to you on that.
And what about yourself, caleb?
Speaker 5 (47:32):
So we're kind of wrapping up now the building of
our freestanding store, andthat's been a two-year project.
We're moving to 5,000 squarefeet.
Right now we're in about 2,000square feet in a strip center
with one other shop next to us.
So that's every day, that iswhat we're doing.
I'm at the store, then I'mgoing to the site, then just on
(47:56):
the email, on the phone, withpeople just making sure things
are getting done in a timelymanner and and running along and
, um, well, also trying tomanage, you know, the, the
day-to-day business at the, atthe store that's open now.
So hopefully, um, we'll be inby May 1 and, uh, we can start
kind of finding our rhythm atour new location.
But, um, yeah, so that's whatwe're doing, it's and it's, it's
(48:19):
every day.
That is so exciting.
Speaker 6 (48:22):
That's not a small one.
Speaker 5 (48:22):
That's awesome.
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
All of those are so like, probably seem to be all
encompassing all, like you know,a real focus.
But if there's one thing I know, it's that every jeweler and
every retailer is working onsome type of project.
No one's just sitting aroundkind of counting the dollars.
So I really appreciate you allbeing so candid and sharing your
information with us.
(48:45):
I'm sure that listeners like Imentioned before we got on this
call jewelers.
They love listening to otherjewelers talk about jewelry.
They do, and if I can bringlike a mini trade show to other
people while they're commutingin the car, that's the best
thing I can do.
So I really thank you all.
I really appreciate your time.
Everybody thanks for listeningand check out these people's
(49:09):
websites.
They're all beautiful and we'llbe back next week, tuesday,
with another episode.
Thanks everybody, bye.
All right, everybody.
That's the end of the show.
Thanks so much for listening.
(49:40):
No-transcript.
Don't forget to rate thepodcast on Spotify and Apple
Podcasts and leave us feedbackon punchmarkcom slash loop.
That's L-O-U-P-E.
Thanks.
We'll be back next week,tuesday, with another episode.
Cheers, bye.
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