Here’s Where Jewelers Found Their Best Salesperson

Published

6 years ago

August 29, 2017

INSTORE Staff

Rainmakers come from all over.

If you want to sell lots of jewelry, it helps to hire great salespeople.

But where to find them?

As we collect responses for this year’s Big Survey, we’re bringing you a few highlights from years past. We call them Big Survey Flashbacks.

Today we bring you an item from our 2012 survey: “If you have sales staff, where did you find your best-ever salesperson?”

Here’s how the answers broke down:

Hired from among regular customers — 13 percent.
Recruited from another retail business — 12 percent.
Recruited from a non-retail business (e.g. doctor’s office) — 2 percent.
Recruited from another jewelry store — 11 percent.
Staff recommendation — 10 percent.
Friend or relative’s recommendation — 10 percent.
Via an industry contact (GIA, vendor, buying group) — 9 percent.
From within the extended family (including spouse, in-law) — 6 percent.
Online ad — 6 percent.

Other responses included walk-in (5 percent), employment service (4 percent), sign in the front window (1 percent), Facebook, hired a friend, church, radio ad, college job board, trained-up gift wrapper (all less than 1 percent).

Want to have your say on the industry and what it means to own or manage an American jewelry store in 2017? Click HERE to take the latest INSTORE Big Survey. (The survey will probably take about 20 minutes to complete and is designed to be taken solely by store owners and managers.)

Time to Do What You've Always Wanted? Time to Call Wilkerson.

It was time. Teri Allen and her brother, Nick Pavlich, Jr., had been at the helm of Dearborn Jewelers of Plymouth in Plymouth, Mich., for decades. Their father, Nick Pavlich, Sr., had founded the store in 1950, but after so many wonderful years helping families around Michigan celebrate their most important moments, it was time to get some “moments” of their own. Teri says Wilkerson was the logical choice to run their retirement sale. “They’re the only company that specializes in closing jewelry stores,” she says. During the sale, Teri says a highlight was seeing so many generations of customers who wanted to buy “that one last piece of jewelry from us.” Would she recommend Wilkerson? Absolutely. “There is no way that I would have been able to do this by myself.”