Self Purchasing Women Are Spooked Away by High Gold Prices and Covid. Now what?

Jewelry store owners often daydream about the good old days, when a woman would wander into their brick and mortar store, and casually browse around, only to accidentally fall in love with a piece (after trying on about 10 different necklaces.) A quick reason for buying it was always handy, and the next thing you know, money was exchanged.

That dream is in stark contrast with the Covid reality and rising gold prices in this uncertain economy. Frivolous large purchases are the first expense to go. Which means that a lot of jewelers end up stuck with fashion inventory that is hard to move. That is if anybody is still brave enough to "just browse" in a world of face masks and disinfectant sprayed everywhere. Survival mode has set in everywhere.

Luckily, this is not the first time jewelers have seen this scenario. Count some 10 years ago when gold was soaring into the skies, and jewelers were faced with a similar challenge. The ones who adapted started buying gold. The ones who didn't, closed their doors. Similar situation happened with the rise of online jewelry giants like BlueNile, who took a big chunk of the diamond goods pie, and moved a lot of the diamond business online.

SO what is the next maneuver for independent jewelers in this messy 2020? It's simple. Go after those self purchasing women who got spooked - and go where they are, instead of waiting for them to come to you. They are all online, adapting to this unusual reality. The subscription box business has boomed to 10 Billion per year (that is Billion with a B) Women are looking not just to make purchases, but to have affordable experiences and relationships.

That's great and all, but as a jeweler, how do you get these women's attention, and most of all, make your jewelry affordable for them despite the high gold prices? The answer is simple again - Rent the jewelry out to them. With a jewelry rental platform like Trejours, any jeweler can list their fashion jewelry inventory for short term rentals, and make easily 5 times the markup just by renting it out. The jewelry stays at the owner's store. Trejours is doing all the heavy lifting with nationwide marketing to select women, many of whom refer to themselves as "jewelry addicts". These women are renting, and quite a few of them end up also buying the jewelry when they fall in love with it.

When one door closes, another door opens. And if none of them open, you can always walk in through a window. This concludes Section 1 of our Survival guide.