It’s now been 10 months since the recession officially ended and independent jewelers seem to be in two groups: A) Those who have put the worst of slump behind them and who are warily beginning to position themselves for the next phase of the economic cycle; and B) those jewelers who are hanging in there, wondering if their tough situation is still a result of things they can’t control.

This debilitating uncertainty seems to be one of the central features of the post-recession environment. Banks won’t lend because they don’t believe they will be repaid, companies won’t hire because they don’t trust consumers to spend, and consumers are spending some months and then reining in their expenditures the next.

In such a climate, it is more important than ever to be on top of your numbers and to be benchmarking against peers, not just for overall sales, but categories, margins, occupancy cost ratios and more. INSTORE runs a set of key benchmarks collected by David Brown’s Edge Retail Academy each month in our By the Numbers page. Our Brain Squad also provides comments from retailers on what’s selling well in their part of the US or Canada. Buying groups, peer groups and online forums provide other opportunities to find out how your peers are doing. And there are a number of industry surveys that can provide useful information, including JA’s Cost of Doing Business Survey and INSTORE’s Big Survey, which will run in our October edition. (And if you haven’t taken it yet, please do – the data you add will help everyone. The link is below.)

With a basic understanding of how your store is doing against similar-sized stores in similar markets you can then make better judgments on how to apply your scarce resources, and just to know if the problem lies with you and could be alleviated with some sort of remedial action. (And if you basic financial concepts like GMROI are still a mystery, then getting some professional help should be the first thing you invest in.)

To go to INSTORE's "Big Survey", click here.