STARTING THIS MONTH, we’re pulling our favorite tips from each issue of INSTORE and collecting them in one place online. Consider it your “Cliff’s Notes” for busy jewelers. For our March edition, we picked 13 tips — from Shane Decker’s three-show method to the surprisingly simple math behind your discounting habit to a DIY display hack that survived a building fire. Grab what you need and get back to work.
SALES
Three shows, not one.
Stop halfway selling. Shane Decker says every customer deserves three presentations: what they came for, the add-on, and the “wow” piece. The first takes five minutes — listen, match, deliver. The add-on takes 30 seconds: “Here’s what goes with that.” The wow? Something gorgeous, slightly above their range. You’re not pushing. You’re planting seeds. Maybe next anniversary, maybe next birthday. They saw it, they felt something, and now they know where it lives. sales, presentation, upselling, 2026 (78 words)
BRIDAL JEWELRY
Never ask how much they want to spend.
Here’s a bridal sale killer hiding in plain sight: asking the budget question too early. Shane Decker warns that when you ask how much they want to spend, couples think the money matters more to you than they do. Instead, ask about style preferences, metal color, diamond shape. Offer something to drink — it slows people down and they stay longer. Get the information you need without making it feel like a financial interview.
PRODUCTIVITY
Let AI save your Tuesday.
Between quoting repairs, wrangling customers, and answering “can I get it done today?” emails, most jewelers spend half their creative life in administrative quicksand. Denise Oros of Linnea Jewelers in La Grange, IL, recommends five AI prompts that turn chaos into choreography — from summarizing repairs in customer-friendly language to composing kind-but-firm replies to rush-job requests. “If time is gold,” Oros writes, “AI is the refinery. It can’t set stones, but it can turn mental clutter into mental carats.”
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STRATEGY
Small margin fixes compound fast.
Sherry Smith of Edge Retail Academy recently worked with a retailer whose markups were well below industry standards across nearly every category. After four hours resetting markups category by category, the retailer repriced millions of dollars of inventory. The first full month under the new pricing generated an additional $400,000 in gross profit — without increased traffic, additional marketing, or expanded inventory. That’s compounding. And it rewards action, not perfection.
STRATEGY
Track your discounting habit.
Many retailers don’t realize how often they discount because it’s rarely tracked. Sherry Smith of Edge Retail Academy says a common pattern is discounting on seven out of ten transactions with an average discount of 20 percent. Now imagine two modest improvements: discounting drops to five out of ten, and the average discount improves by five points. For a $5 million business, those changes can add $225,000 to $300,000 in gross profit per year. Modest changes. Massive math.
MANAGEMENT
Your words land harder than you think.
Kate Winslet still cries over comments about her weight from 30 years ago. Paul Simon still remembers Art Garfunkel’s crack about being taller — 60 years later. Peter Smith, retail consultant and author, warns that psychologists call it the Leader Amplification Effect: when the boss speaks, everything lands heavier. There are no throwaway lines. A baseline of decency and respect is all anyone can ask for. But you have to be aware that you’re carrying a megaphone whether you want one or not.
MOTIVATION
Swap goals for systems.
“Grow sales by 20%” sounds great on a whiteboard. It’s also useless. Sports psychologist John Eliot says outcome goals pull your attention in the wrong direction. James Clear agrees: “You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” Swap “get more referrals” for “send a handwritten thank-you note within 48 hours of every sale.” The goal is a fantasy. The system is the work.
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MOTIVATION
Start a good-vibes jar.
Put a jar in the back room. When something good happens — a compliment from a customer, a tough repair nailed, a big sale closed — somebody writes it down and drops it in. Read through the slips together once a month. It costs nothing, takes no time, and creates the kind of team energy that no bonus structure can buy.
STORE DESIGN
DIY your displays.
Can’t find displays that match your brand? Make them. Amanda Eddy of Amanda Deer Jewelry in Austin, TX, created an inspiration image of her dream pedestals, and her husband built them out of wood and painted them pink. They even survived a building fire. She also uses clear acrylic photo stands from Amazon, updated seasonally with in-house prints. “They look incredibly high-end,” Eddy notes, “but they’re actually an affordable find.” Displays are limited. DIY gives you a way to breathe your brand into the store floor.
FINANCE
Your inventory is a tax time bomb.
Mariel Diaz, founder of Accounting for Jewelers, reminds store owners that inventory directly impacts taxable income — and most people aren’t paying attention. A large buy in December that sells in January is inventory in December and Cost of Goods in January. Get those two out of sync and you’ll have a loss one year and a huge tax bill the next. Open your balance sheet today. Is your ending inventory accurate? Does COGS reflect what was sold?
COLORED GEMSTONES
Use gem lore as a hook.
Legends add life to colored gemstone presentations. “Burmese warriors used to insert rubies into their skin to make them invincible in battle,” says Valerie Peirano of Peirano Jewelers in Pleasant Hill, CA. Tracy Gibson of Studio D in Woodstock, IL, jokes that amethyst may claim to cure hangovers, “but I know from personal experience it doesn’t cure drunkenness.” Stories make color fun — and fun sells.
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MOTIVATION
Give them skin in the game.
People resist change they feel has been forced on them. Alison Reynolds and David Lewis, authors of “What Philosophy Can Teach You About Being a Better Leader”, argue that buy-in comes when staff see their fingerprints on the plan. Tell employees when their input changed your mind. Suddenly it’s not “the boss’s scheme,” it’s our scheme. That little shift turns reluctant compliance into genuine commitment. And frankly, nobody fights against their own idea.
ESTATE JEWELRY
Dress the set, sell the show.
Don’t display estate pieces like everything else. Craig Husar of Craig Husar Fine Jewelry in Wisconsin brought in vintage perfume bottles and trinkets as props. “Sales escalated because of that,” he says. Estate jewelry is theater. The pieces already have stories — give them a stage that matches. A little context goes a long way toward making old feel irresistible.
