YES, INDEED: INFLATION has hit the repair department.
I’m on several jewelers’ Facebook groups. The constant word is, “OMG diamond prices keep going up, we keep raising our diamond prices.”
The cost of the mountings are going up, mostly because of the melee that goes into the mounting, and the labor keeps going up. So, what do jewelers do? They raise their retail prices, just like you do because their cost has increased.
You wouldn’t believe how many jewelers are coming out of the woodwork updating their older Geller Blue Books, many of which are 5 to 10 years old! Can you believe it?
Many jewelers are afraid to raise their sizing price $5 to $10 from years ago — meanwhile, they have no problem raising a replacement diamond tennis bracelet $500.
It’s all over the news that every price on the planet has skyrocketed. Employees are quitting, and to keep employees, the store may have to increase salaries to keep good people.
Your repair cost and costs to keep the store open have increased, which includes:
- Jewelers’ wages
- Jewelers’ benefits and health insurance
- Tools and supplies for the shop
- Gold
- Advertising for the shop
- Salaries for sales staff
If you don’t have the latest release of our book but have your own repair pricing sheet, just increase all of your prices 10 percent right now. Three months later, do it again.
You’ll see that the shop is much more TRUST-sensitive than price-sensitive. It’s a numbers game. Think about these numbers:
10 people look in the showcase and you sell three or four out of 10. That means six or seven people leave the store without buying and leave you with hundreds of thousands of unsold, old, stale inventory.
If 10 people come in with a repair, typically nine out of 10 will leave the item to be repaired. That’s an 80- 90% win rate! One or two don’t like the price and leave, but look: eight or nine do make the repair sale for you. The shop usually has less than $20,000 of inventory, unlike the showroom.
If you haven’t raised your repair prices in a bunch of years, it’s time to do it now and learn how to sell it!
David Geller, Repair Department pricing Guru