Southern Jewelry News
  • Featured
    • All
    • Featured
    • Featured Retailers
    • Retailer Roundtable
    • Sponsored Content
    • Supplier Spotlight
    Lambrecht’s Jewelers, 130-years-old and counting
    Celebrate with Gold®
    Tracing Diamond’s Origin
    Pickens, Inc.: Steady pace wins the race
  • Latest News
    • All
    • COVID-19
    • Furry Friends
    • Industry Awards
    • Industry Events
    • NRF
    • On The Move
    • Other News
    • Tradeshow News
    • Video
    • What's New
    Stuller introduces several new offerings at JCK Las Vegas
    JSA reports crimes against U.S. jewelry firms in 2021 exceeded pre-Covid levels
    GCAL partners with VDB to add 8X® Cut Grade search filter
    Registration opens for HardRock Summit 2022
  • Podcast
  • Columnists
    The Retailer’s Perspective: With great power comes great fails
    The Retailer’s Perspective
    The Story Behind the Stone: Yearning for Kazakhstan
    10 Cybersecurity Questions small and medium businesses should ask in 2022
    Motivating your sales staff
    IAS Training’s Keys to Effective Communication – Part III
    Kate’s star-studded style. What will the next trend be?
    Motivating your sales staff
    IAS Training’s Keys to Effective Communication – Part II
    Retailing in a post-PC world
    Motivating your sales staff
    IAS Training’s Keys to Communication
  • Classifieds
  • Subscriptions
    • Newsletter Signup
    • Print Subscription
No Result
View All Result
Southern Jewelry News
  • Featured
    • All
    • Featured
    • Featured Retailers
    • Retailer Roundtable
    • Sponsored Content
    • Supplier Spotlight
    Lambrecht’s Jewelers, 130-years-old and counting
    Celebrate with Gold®
    Tracing Diamond’s Origin
    Pickens, Inc.: Steady pace wins the race
  • Latest News
    • All
    • COVID-19
    • Furry Friends
    • Industry Awards
    • Industry Events
    • NRF
    • On The Move
    • Other News
    • Tradeshow News
    • Video
    • What's New
    Stuller introduces several new offerings at JCK Las Vegas
    JSA reports crimes against U.S. jewelry firms in 2021 exceeded pre-Covid levels
    GCAL partners with VDB to add 8X® Cut Grade search filter
    Registration opens for HardRock Summit 2022
  • Podcast
  • Columnists
    The Retailer’s Perspective: With great power comes great fails
    The Retailer’s Perspective
    The Story Behind the Stone: Yearning for Kazakhstan
    10 Cybersecurity Questions small and medium businesses should ask in 2022
    Motivating your sales staff
    IAS Training’s Keys to Effective Communication – Part III
    Kate’s star-studded style. What will the next trend be?
    Motivating your sales staff
    IAS Training’s Keys to Effective Communication – Part II
    Retailing in a post-PC world
    Motivating your sales staff
    IAS Training’s Keys to Communication
  • Classifieds
  • Subscriptions
    • Newsletter Signup
    • Print Subscription
No Result
View All Result
Southern Jewelry News
No Result
View All Result
Home Columnists

Applied Marketing 101: How to improve your supplier network

George Prout by George Prout
May 1, 2017
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

For the past several years, I’ve been seeing evidence of a strong bifurcation (a fancy way of saying a split into two halves) that’s taking place in the independent jewelry sector. Increasingly, while many stores are doing extremely well, there are others that are doing pretty poorly. I’ve recently been working on a project designed to identify the causative agents that are producing this split, and among the most important appears to be the “Ecosystem” that has been created by the store owner(s) in which the store operates. So this month, let’s take a look at some of the moves you can take to improve your Operational Ecosystem (OE).

First, let’s define the term.

A store’s Operational Ecosystem is comprised of the suppliers and consumers that are linked to its revenue stream, as well as the physical plant in which it operates, and the market in which that plant is located. The caliber of each element is likely to have a significant impact on the quality of your store’s OE, so anything you can do to improve these elements will necessarily have a beneficial impact.

Some things are harder to change than others. For example, if you’re located in a dying community, you’re going to have a much harder time – all other things being equal – than if you’re in a robust micro-economic environment.

Without question, the easiest element to improve is the supplier element. One thing I’ve definitely noticed over the years is the direct relationship between a given store’s annual sales volume and its list of primary suppliers. Five million dollar stores generally have a totally different set of suppliers versus five hundred thousand dollar stores. And if you plot the two groups of suppliers, you’ll generally find:

a) The larger store suppliers are closer to the apex of the food chain, and generally have better prices;

b) The larger store suppliers generally offer a wealth of support, in part to ensure sell through;

c) The larger store suppliers generally operate on sound business principles, and treat their customers like rational business people, as opposed to irrational consumers;

d) The larger store suppliers generally have shelf stock of key items, because larger stores generally reorder fast sellers on an ongoing basis;

e) The larger store suppliers are generally willing to have a lop-sided relationship, in which the benefits of the relationship are slanted towards the retailer, but are unwilling to have a one-sided relationship, where the retailer is getting all of the benefits;

f) The larger store suppliers generally have the best sales people, because higher sales volume generally means higher income levels, so the best paid reps are working at the best companies.

So, as you consider your own supplier list, are there some that you should consider replacing? And if so, how do you know which new ones to approach? Of course, you can often learn a lot about who’s doing a good job by speaking with other jewelers to see who they have found to be helpful. But in a quantitative way, you can actually get an excellent sense of who you should be working with by connecting with the Edge Retail Academy, and reviewing a report titled the KPI (Key Performance Indicator) Report.

You’re probably familiar with the Edge, the company that makes arguably the best Point of Sale software system for independent jewelers. But you may not know about the Edge Retail Academy, a consultancy that is tied to the Edge as a “sister” company. I have attended at least ten Edge Retail Academy Seminars, first as a student (in order to better understand the challenges that retailers face), and then as a lecturer, on the topics of Marketing and Trend Identification. ERA personnel are among the most knowledgeable in the industry in their respective fields, and I learn something new every time I’m with them. But they also do something amazing with data – something so extraordinary that from my viewpoint as a Marketing Statistician, it possibly represents the single most valuable information set available in the jewelry business.

You see, one key methodology the Edge Retail Academy employs to assist its clients is Data Aggregation. They accumulate all of the sales data from over 700 American independent jewelry stores every month, and then compile a 29-page report that is invaluable if you want to improve your store’s performance, as well as if you want to understand who are the best suppliers, and what are the best products for you to carry. The last 4 pages of the KPI report identify the top 20 suppliers by both sales volume, as well as by units sold, and then also identifies the actual items, both in a 30 day as well as a 12-month cycle, that were the best-selling in the 700 stores! 

So, if you knew which companies were the top 20 suppliers to over 700 stores, would you perhaps consider talking to them to see what they do that produces such excellent sales results? And if you knew the top 15 selling skus in over 700 stores, by both quantity as well as by gross profit produced, might you want to at least consider stocking those?

The Edge Retail Academy data can help you identify the best suppliers, so you can adjust your store’s supplier pool to improve your company’s OE. But you can take an additional step to further refine your supplier network. Recognize that just as we’re seeing a general reduction in the number of independent jewelry stores (I suspect we’ll lose between seven and eight thousand stores over the next decade), we’re also seeing a significant restructuring in the supplier community. When you choose to buy from a specific supplier, you’re not just increasing the probability that they will be among the survivors. You’re also providing them with the potential opportunity to invest in additional services that will ultimately help you become better at what you do.

So, when you look at the supplier portion of your ecosystem, I encourage you to evaluate each existing supplier in terms of their capacity, as well as their willingness, to invest in your future. Are they the kind of company that’s all about maximizing today’s sale, or do they take your long term best interests to heart? And do you see them investing in new ways to help you increase your sales and profits? Remember, you have the power to help them do good things for you, because your purchases will determine which suppliers survive and thrive.

Choose wisely! Your store’s future success depends on it.

Class dismissed!

George Prout is Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Gems One Corporation, and can be reached via e-mail at info@gemsone.com , or at Gems One’s New York office at 800-436-7787.

 

George Prout

George Prout

George Prout is President of the Independent Division of Craft Diamonds, and can be reached at george@craftdiamonds.co.

Related Posts

The Retailer’s Perspective: With great power comes great fails

The Retailer’s Perspective

June 30, 2022

The Story Behind the Stone: Yearning for Kazakhstan

June 30, 2022

10 Cybersecurity Questions small and medium businesses should ask in 2022

June 27, 2022
Motivating your sales staff

IAS Training’s Keys to Effective Communication – Part III

June 22, 2022

Latest News

Industry Events

Stuller introduces several new offerings at JCK Las Vegas

July 4, 2022
Other News

JSA reports crimes against U.S. jewelry firms in 2021 exceeded pre-Covid levels

July 4, 2022
On The Move

GCAL partners with VDB to add 8X® Cut Grade search filter

July 4, 2022

Other News

Registration opens for HardRock Summit 2022

NRF says economy is slowing but recession is unlikely in near term

American Gem Society targets negotiation skills for Confluence 2022

Lambrecht’s Jewelers, 130-years-old and counting

Celebrate with Gold®

Tracing Diamond’s Origin

Southern Jewelry News

© 2022 Southern Jewelry News.

Additional Information

  • About
  • 2022 Trade Shows
  • Media Kit
  • Contact

Get Social with Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Featured Articles
    • Featured
    • Featured Retailers
    • Retailer Roundtable
    • Supplier Spotlight
    • Sponsored Content
  • Latest News
    • What’s New
    • Industry Events
    • Tradeshow News
    • On The Move
    • Other News
    • Furry Friends
  • Columnists
  • Classifieds
  • Subscriptions
    • Newsletter Signup
    • Print Subscription

© 2022 Southern Jewelry News.