he busiest time of the year has just past and the results are in from the jewelers in our survey group. Overall December sales were up from $346,450 in 2014 to $352,716 – a rise of 1.8 percent. Year-to-date rolling sales increased from $1,523,801 in December 2014 to $1,624,513 in the same month in 2015 – an annual increase of 6.6 percent.

Below is a breakdown of the numbers over the last three years:

The numbers show good growth over the last two years with the drop in quantity sold between 2014 and 2015 being more than offset by an increase in average sale value. After sitting at around the $225 mark for the last two years, average sale saw a 13 percent increase from $222 to $251 in 2015. That has resulted in a lift in gross profit from $170,331 to $171,058. The drop in units sold from 1,456 to 1,295 capped the growth in gross profit – had 2014’s volume of units been maintained, sales of $365,456 would have occurred and gross profit on a 49 percent margin as per 2014 would have resulted in gross profit of $179,073, an increase of $8,015 on the actual result achieved.

So how do your numbers compare? It’s a great opportunity to grab your own reports and compare the results your store has achieved against the average of your peers. Start by looking at your sales figures. This is a difficult comparison to make as each store is different but once you delve past this point you can start to see what others are achieving across the key reporting areas.

In the information above, we detail three of the four key performance areas of any jewelry store (stock turn is not included in these numbers but for reference in this exercise the average store is achieving a stock turn of 0.64 times per annum – that’s $64,000 of sales achieved annually for every $100,000 or inventory being held).

Let’s look at units sold. The typical store detailed above is showing 1,296 items sold per year. Different businesses have different mixes and depending on your own store’s formula this will vary. Do you tend to be a high value seller with fewer items sold or a large volume seller of cheaper items? Most will fit into one or the other. Looking at these items in isolation may not provide the answer but if you compare your units sold with the average sale ($251 in our data) you will start to get a picture of where you sit relative to the pool of information.

For me, the two most interesting numbers above, and the easiest to compare between stores, are margin achieved and percentage of sales provided by December. Margin can be a factor of whether you are a higher-end retailer (the higher the average sale the lower your margins will obviously be). However, if upon comparing your margin and average sale to the data you find you are lower on both counts then it is a sign something might need to change. If your margin is lower, it is a clear indication that other jewelers are selling higher priced items for a greater profit than you are so there may well be room to raise your margins.