The good news: Most of our readers are flourishing with two out of three telling the 2024 INSTORE Big Survey that business has never been better. And it’s not just financially – a significant majority of the respondents, all jewelry store owners or managers, said they were feeling good about all aspects of their life.
In this year’s Big Survey, we sought to identify what these jewelers, who we called “Thrivers”, are doing right as well as the areas where their “Struggler” counterparts are underperforming. The results revealed a mix of the to-be expected – yes, bridal is still central to running a profitable jewelry business in the U.S. — as well as the surprising: a lot of shop-based jewelers, especially custom-design studios, are feeling the pressure owing to staffing and other issues.
The differences between our Thrivers and Strugglers in many areas were often quite small. But together they add up – 21% of our survey-takers told us they made less than $40,000 last year, while an almost equal amount, 18%, said they took home more than $250,000.
Moreover, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that when business is going well, the rest of life tends to go well too. Those who told us they felt they were flourishing “holistically” in 2024, invariably came from the higher ends of the earnings scale. Apart from this core investigation, the survey covered a wide range of areas from advertising and marketing, to operations to brand performance and our usual quirky inquiries into the behaviors of our readers. We will be releasing a few highlights of the 2024 INSTORE Big Survey online over the next few weeks ahead of the publication of the November edition of the magazine in early November. We sincerely thank everyone who took part in the lengthy survey. We trust you’ll enjoy – and possibly be able to profit from — the results!
NOTE: The INSTORE 2024 Big Survey was conducted via an anonymous online form from mid-August to late September, attracting more than 700 responses from American jewelry-store owners and managers. The full results will be published in the November edition of INSTORE.
