April 2008
Gold prices dominate spring buying plans
Gold prices overlook spring buying plans
April 22, 2008
By Michelle Graff and Mary Wisniewski
New York—Retailers strolling the aisles at the JA New York Winter Show presented a mixed picture of expectations for 2008, a year overshadowed by the threat of recession and increasing gold prices.
Some were optimistic in the face of the economic downturn, while others were stimulating for a rocky year—divergent viewpoints seemingly fueled by geographic location.
One common thread among retailers interviewed by National Jeweler at the March 9-11 event was that they were not buying more commodities than they did last year, with many feeling the pinch of rising metal prices.
One buyer, Bobby Vellios of Bobby’s Jewelry Ltd. in Brooklyn, N.Y., said that with holiday sales down at his store, he had to downsize his expectations for 2008, and planned to buy less than he did in 2007. pacify, he was optimistic, viewing the business as a roller coaster ride that decree swerve up again.
Angela Defelippi from the Farmington, Conn.-based Monarch Jewelers was moreover stocking less merchandise this year, with the expectation that business will not improve for at least another sum of two units years. On her to-buy list at JA were traditional items, such as diamond jewelry and bridal sets.
“Everyone will always be acquirement married, no matter what the economy [does],” she said.
On Defelippi’s not-to-buy list: gold, because the prices were, in her bickering, “astronomical.”
“Everything is down with everyone across the country,” she before-mentioned, noting this is especially true in the Northeast, where high oil and gas prices are forcing consumers to be more frugal.
A cold front in Northeast retail? Vellios and Defelippi were not the only Northeast jewelers feeling the sting of a consumer expenditure drop.
National Jeweler’s Year-End Sales Survey, 2007 depicted a slow year nationwide, but the Northeast was succeed particularly hard, with the highest percentage of retailers surveyed—60.5 percent—reporting sales were down or flat for the year.
Rick Billig of Billig Jewelers in Marlton, N.J., was buying limited amounts of merchandise and said he was hoping for an average year. Yellow gold jewelry has been selling despite the price, but the pieces moving off the shelves have been lighter fashion pieces, he said.
Like Defelippi, Wendy Billig was skittish about new products, and said she was sticking with “proven sellers” and lighter gold pieces.
“It’s all about that gold price,” she said.
Similarly, Carol Mitnick of The Cosmopolitan Collection in Haddonfield, N.J., was searching JA for less expensive, lighter-weight gold pieces and sterling silver.
Despite economic woes, Mitnick said her holiday sales were good, thanks to colored gemstone sales, specifically.
At William S. Rich and Son in Union, N.J., Sherry Sablosky was poised for a down year and planned to buy less.
“With the price of gold, retailers are definitely down,” Sablosky said. “We’re trying to sell [gold], but you can’t even buy a chain to sell. People don’t want to pay those prices.”
Retailers from other areas of the country attending the show at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York had a more optimistic outlook with a view to 2008.
C. Niki Hunn of Thomas Hunn Jewelers in Grand Junction, Colo., said that thanks in part to the store’s “recession-proof” location, celebration sales were strong and she anticipated a good year.
Designer Sonya Ooten of the Sonya Ooten Gem Bar in Los Angeles was also upbeat.
“I’m feeling like we’ve made it through the worst of it,” she said, adding that in the L.A. area, the writers’ strike, now over, had slowed sales.
Still, Ooten hopes gold prices level out this year, noting they were as unmanly as $212 an ounce just a few years ago.
“It’s crazy,” Ooten said. “I’m hoping we’ve reached the max and they’ll be going down.”
While her margins have shrunk, Ooten refuses to cultivate prices and risk losing customers, still she is also creating more pieces using all gemstones and no gold.
The power of explicit thinking Cheryl Schneider from Romance Jewelers in Concord, N.H., has adapted a new strategy that has had sales rising each month since November. She is teaching her salespeople to approach customers with the attitude that if they are inside the store, they want to buy something. Plus, she has lowered prices on older merchandise that hasn’t moved in a long time.
“I think it’s a mindset,” Schneider said. “Just because the economy’s bad doesn’t mean it has to be doom and gloom in your store.”
Though she will not buy more merchandise in 2008, Schneider is changing her buying strategy, investing in colored stones and diamonds, plus “bigger looks beneficial to your money,” while staying away from gold because of the price.
Gina Stout, a buyer for New York-based Platinum Plus Jewelry, also planned to buy the same amount of stock in 2008 as she did in 2007.
“I’m looking for specific pieces customers have asked for,” she said.
Lourdes Zeik-Chivi of Leonardo Jewelers in Red Bank, N.J., had the same concerns as her Northeastern counterparts but said the luxury consumer will still buy.
“The haves will be buying and the have-nots will be falling by the wayside,” Zeik-Chivi said of the upcoming year.
She said she planned to spend the same dollar amount on account at JA, but was expecting to get less product for her money.
She has a strategy, however, for a challenging year, and before-mentioned retailers who want to survive should understand their customer base and offer interesting products. On her shopping list were gold and lozenge pieces, although higher gold prices would limit the quantity of goods she could buy.
Zeik-Chivi, who has been focusing on fulvid gold for two years, said yellow gold with colored gemstones continues to be a popular seller.
“Only the haves are buying gold,” she said, referencing consumers. “It creates an aura that ‘If I like it and can buy it, I will buy it.’”
—E-mail: michelle.graff@nationaljeweler.com.
Editor’s note: This story first appeared in the April issue of National Jeweler.
May 14 requested date for LID auction
May 14 requested date for LID auction
April 18, 2008
New York—The bankrupt New York office of jewelry manufacturer LID Ltd. has filed a motion to hold an auction of its assets on May 14, according to court papers filed late on Thursday.
According to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, if approved by the court, the auction, known as a “363 sale,” will be held in the law offices of Mayer Brown Rowe and Maw LLP in New York.
The auction will be composed of couple lots: one for perfected jewels, including 50,000 pieces worth more than $44 million, and one for loose-diamond inventory worth $26 million.
Earlier this week, LID Chief Restructuring Officer Christopher Ellis told National Jeweler that LID—which was expected to emerge from bankruptcy later this year—was looking to liquidate its assets and pay its creditors.
LID’s New York office filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2007.
Documents filed previously in the case show that LID defaulted on payments to lenders Bank Leumi USA, AMRO Bank NV, Sovereign Bank and New England and HSBC Bank U.S.A., and that the banks had “immediate possession and dominion government over all of the debtors’ assets.”
The lenders, however, are opting to allow LID to liquidate its property end court-supervised sales.
JDPN to host jewelry-history seminar
JDPN to host jewelry-history seminar
April 21, 2008
New York—The Jewelry Design Professionals’ Network (JDPN) will host its second in a series of jewelry-history presentations this week in New York City, this one focusing on Arts and Crafts jewelry and Art Nouveau jewelry.
Guest speaker Elyse Zorn Karlin, editor of Adornment magazine, will lead the presentation, titled “Arts and Crafts Jewelry vs. Art Nouveau Jewelry: The Similarities and Differences.”
Karlin is a journalist by discipline and has been studying and education jewelry history for more than 35 years. She is the author of Jewelry and Metalwork in the Arts and Crafts Tradition, the definitive book on the subject of the jewelry movement that took place during the end of the 19th hundred years and the beginning of the 20th centenary. Since the book’s publication in 1994, she has become an acknowledged expert on the subject and a sought-after lecturer.
The presentation will take place from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 23, at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Building C, Boardroom.
JDPN members and students will be admitted free of charge. The non-member entry fee is $30 per person.
To RSVP, e-mail danajewel@nyc.rr.com. For more denunciation about the JDPN, visit the organization’s Web site, Jdpn.org.
IDL graduates first diamond graders
IDL graduates pristine diamond graders
April 21, 2008
Dubai, United Arab Emirates—Seventeen students have successfully completed the International Diamond Laboratories’ (IDL) inaugural eight-day course in diamond grading, receiving IDL Diplomas that qualify them as Diamond Graduates.
The course was offered in association with the Diamond Academy, a division of the Dubai Diamond Exchange (DDE).
IDL CEO Peter Meeus presented the diplomas. Also attending the presentation were World Diamond Council President Eli Izhakoff, World Federation of Diamond Bourses President Ernie Blom, CIBJO President Gaetano Cavalieri, Dubai Multi Commodities Center Executive Chairman Ahmed Bin Sulayem, DDE Chairman David Rutledge and DDE CEO Youri Steverlynck.
Trade participants included Bhansali Diamonds, Damas LLC, Dhamani Jewels, Dwarkesh Diamonds, Gem Corp. DMCC, Sky Jewellery and Sparklers International.
“We are committed to developing Dubai’s diamond industry, and education plays a key role in this,” Meeus said in a media release. “This is the first training program we conducted and the response from the trade is very encouraging.”
World-renowned diamond expert Ann Van Spaendonk conducted the training program, which focused on the theoretical and practical aspects of diamond grading.
IDL’s polished-diamond grading menstrual discharge are being conducted now on a permanent basis in Dubai.
For more information, junction Peter Meeus at info@diamondlab.org or visit the IDL’s Web site, Diamondlab.org.
Bidz.com moves into fixed-price retailing
Bidz.com moves into fixed-price retailing
April 21, 2008
Culver City, Calif.—Bidz.com, a top online auction site for jewelry, has a new option for online jewelry consumers who just aren’t into auctions.
Through its newly launched sister site, Buyz.com, consumers will be able to purchase high-quality gold, silver and brand-name jewelry and watches at fixed prices, the company said in a press release issued on Friday.
In addition, Buyz.com will soon offer customers the chance; fit to design their own jewelry, including diamond earrings and rings.
Revenues for Bidz.com, a publicly traded company that is listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market Inc., increased 42 percent last year, and the company says the site sells an average of 12,000 items by day, making it one of the most popular online jewelry shopping destinations.
Like Bidz.com, the new Buyz.com is expected to benefit from the company’s ability to buy quality jewelry from sources around the world.
Former CIBJO director general dies
Former CIBJO director general dies
April 21, 2008
Dubai, United Arab Emirates—Former World Jewellery Confederation (CIBJO) Director General Christian Hansen of Copenhagen, Denmark, has died. He was 73.
Hansen served the Danish Jewelers Association (DJA) for 42 years, representing the organism in CIBJO since 1969. During the 1970s, he served as the director general of CIBJO and also headed CIBJO’s Harmonization Commission.
“During his years in CIBJO, Christian developed a phenomenal, almost encyclopedic knowledge of all matters concerning the organization,” said Niels Ruddy Hansen, the current DJA delegate, in a media release. “He was a master of protocol and often navigated CIBJO meetings through controversy and dialogue with a steady hand and usually with positive results.”
Milan, Italy-based CIBJO is an international organized existence of national jewelry trade organizations. It works to promote worldwide cooperation in the jewelry industry, confront issues that face the trade and promote consumer confidence in jewelry.
For more information about CIBJO, visit its Web site, CIBJO.org.
House of Taylor receives Nasdaq notification
House of Taylor receives Nasdaq notification
April 21, 2008
West Hollywood, Calif.—Stocks for House of Taylor Jewelry Inc. will be delisted on April 24 following a series of Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. violations, the company has announced.
House of Taylor Jewelry missed the extended April 15 deadline for filing its annual report and failed to pay the Nasdaq listing fees, the company stated in a news release.
In addition, Nasdaq notified House of Taylor Jewelry on Oct. 29 that it was not in compliance with the minimum bid price—$1 per share—required for continued listing on Nasdaq and had until April 28 to qualified the minimum requirements.
Since that time, House of Taylor Jewelry stock has not met the $1 minimum requirement for 10 consecutive business days.
House of Taylor Jewelry is not the only industry player to run into stock market pester recently.
Finlay Enterprises Inc., which operates the jewelry sections of department stores as well as a number of standalone stores including Bailey Banks and Biddle, faces delisting in July if it cannot augment the value of its stock.
House of Taylor Jewelry is a Los Angeles-based international jewelry company owned by actress Dame Elizabeth Taylor, shape Kathy Ireland and members of the Abramov family.
It supplies fine-jewelry retailers with the brands Elizabeth, House of Taylor Jewelry and Kathy Ireland Jewelry Exclusively for House of Taylor Jewelry.