Loann Stokes of Stokes
Jewelry Services in
Stillwater, MN, gets
some work done at the
bench in her favorite
old (circa early-2000s)
INSTORE Brain Squad
T-shirt.
HAVE FAITH
The jewelry business is definitely going through
a change, and retailers seem to be thinning out.
Yeah, things are changing, but it’s not all for the
bad. It’s time to be optimistic, vigilant and have
faith that there is a lot of promise for the future.
—
Gannon Brousseau, Marc Majors, Sam L. Majors, Midland, TX
This article originally appeared in the August 2016 edition of INSTORE.
OLD, SMELLY,
GRUMPY
As I travel around the
USA, I frequently stop into
jewelry stores. I love to
learn, and what better way
than from other jewelers?
I would have to say that
half of them are very sad
to me. Antiquated, old,
smelly, grumpy … They
needed to close their
doors a long time ago and
stop giving good jewelers
a bad name. But the
other half, WOW! They
inspire me, encourage me, motivate me. Kudos
to those out there giving
it their all. This is what a
jewelry store should be. —
Doug Meadows, David
Douglas Diamonds &
Jewelry, Marietta, GA
MORE INFO,
PLEASE
A few manufacturers,
designers, and vendors
put complete information
about a piece on a tag or on
the invoice. Most do not.
It would make it much
easier if they provided the retailer with the number
of stones, TCW, etc. for all
items. —
Gary Richmond,
Van Horne & Co.,
Granger, IN
FULL OF
SURPRISES
I enjoyed reading the July
issue. It was a fun read —
retail is full of surprises! —
Betsy Barron, Love &
Luxe, San Francisco, CA
A MATTER
OF SCALE
I wish you could scale
the scope of your articles
down to those under
$500,000 in sales. It seems
that all your contributors
are from major markets
or major corporations.
They see the world from
the second-story executive
office, not from the
broom-handle end of the
business. They always
assume we have 10 to 12
staff members to train
and assign duties for. Not
all of us have a 2 to 5 million
population to draw
from either. Scalability
is the challenge reading
most of the articles. It
would be neat to have a
section of downsized ideas
matching the big ideas
from your writers. —
Bill
Longnecker, Longnecker
Jewelry, McCook, NE
Send your letter to INSTORE’s editors at editor@instoremag.com.