Key takeaways
• Sales teams should pivot from focusing on high metal costs to “connection training,” which involves deep knowledge of inventory to match the right pieces with the right guests.
• Communicating a piece’s value is best achieved by sharing its unique story, craftsmanship, and human details rather than just its raw material components.
• Retailers can attract returning customers in a challenging market by offering value-added services like cleaning or repairs and using personal outreach when a piece matches a guest’s known preferences.
• Jewelry should be positioned as a lasting investment and the “antithesis of the culture of disposability,” emphasizing that its quality and legacy justify the higher price points.
While it may seem like a simple mantra, knowing your inventory is a superpower when you do it right! Getting to know the pieces in your case is the first step to strong sales in a challenging market and record-breaking sales in a good year.
Getting to know your own store’s inventory is a major part of all of my sales training, or as I like to call it, connection training. And to make a connection, your team needs to know their inventory! I encourage teams to go deep: What pieces are popular? Why? What pieces have been overlooked? What patterns do you see?
This background information will help you match pieces to guests. I like to call this process “the perfect match.” Pulling off a perfect match is a long-lasting win for your business. Salespeople get a burst of confidence, feel like heroes, and guests love the experience, often becoming lifelong customers and providing referrals.
Getting familiar with the details of your inventory will arm you with the information you need to make the perfect match. If you can explain how a piece is made, what it’s made from, and what imbues it with quality, it’s easier for guests to understand its value. With gold high, it’s more important now than ever to meet as a team and make sure we’re prepared to answer questions about a piece’s value. After all, what’s anything worth? You know the answer; it’s worth what the buyer says it’s worth, and that often comes from salespeople knowing their inventory. It’s the greatest confidence builder!
And of course, as a designer myself, I have to say: a piece is more than the sum of its parts. Many lines have an ethos, a story, or a deeper meaning that can help connect guests with pieces. Part of educating guests is talking about cut and clarity, but sharing the human details of these pieces is just as important. If you can help a guest truly connect to a piece, they’ll begin to see more than just the numbers.
All this knowledge combines to create a perfect storm of confidence and competence. Salespeople are the experts, and guests take their cues from us. If you’re certain of a piece’s value, they will be too.
Knowing Your Guests
Once your team has a firm grasp of their inventory, they’ll be better prepared to sell to guests. Jewelry is an investment in giving and makes people happy, and closing a sale can be an easy task with the right mindset. But the best sales teams know that making a sale is about matching the right person to the right piece, and this is where knowing your customer base becomes essential.
Attract Returning Guests
Often, going through the jewelry case results in inspiration – follow that spark! If you see a piece in the case that makes you think of a guest, take the opportunity to reach out. Maybe it reminds you of a piece they’ve purchased before, maybe it’s someone’s birthstone, maybe you know the story will connect. Whatever the reason, share it with the guest and invite them in to take a look.
You may even want to create a reason for guests to return to the store beyond a potential sale. Now is a great time to host events or offer services like cleaning, resizing, and repairs at a discount to help bring back returning guests. While they wait, the sales team has an opportunity to show them pieces that they know, from their diligent research, these guests will love.
Selling or Shopping for New Guests
In a market like this, acquiring a new customer is tricky but extremely valuable. I’ve seen many stores take this market as a sign to revisit their advertising strategy, investing in marketing that actually makes connections and cutting spending on ads that simply don’t deliver.
In my connection training, we often return to the word ‘invitation’. Everything, from the ads or social media posts we produce that catch a guest’s eye, to the store when they arrive, should invite guests and help them feel comfortable, curious, and confident.
In the store itself, this is a great time for some connection training, especially to help team members revisit how they approach new guests. How does your team gather information from new guests? How do they make them feel welcome? What priorities do they have when learning more?
When team members are prepared to listen to and understand guests’ needs, and match them to pieces that fit those needs, they’re one step closer to earning a customer and often a friend for life.
And don’t forget, you have more to offer guests than just jewelry and knowledge! Make sure each guest knows about how you’ll support them – things like repair policies, warranties, resizing policies, and care instructions help reinforce lasting relationships with repeat customers.
Knowing the Market
We know that obsessively refreshing our stocks app and checking the price of gold over and over isn’t helpful… You caught me, I’m guilty of this one! But having a sense of broader changes and shifts in customer demand can go a long way.
First, the practical. Everyone knows precious metals are worth more. I even like to joke that there have been so many former politicians, from senators to presidential runs, who are promoting gold! We are very lucky to be in an industry where consumers understand the value of jewelry even more than we realize.
Setting the price of gold aside for a moment, we’re living in a time where many major purchases are treated like commodities. But especially for engagement rings and precious gifts, the purchases a guest makes in your store are so much more significant than that!
A well-made piece has been imagined with care by a designer, crafted with skill by an artisan, and is made of quality materials. It will last for generations and stand up to day-to-day wear, repair, resizing, and even being reset and changed over time. I can’t be the only one who remembers the old AT&T commercial that said, “People will never regret buying the best quality.”
In a world where a major purchase like a sofa or cell phone only lasts a few years, and so many of the objects we rely on each day are made to be used and disposed of, fine jewelry is still a market where buyers can be sure that they’re investing in something that will stand the test of time.
Yes, gold is more expensive than it has been in the past. But almost everything is more expensive than it has been, and in jewelry at least, that purchase price goes to something beautiful, quality, legacy, and made to last.
In a way, the pieces we sell are the antithesis of the current culture of disposability, and that’s something that guests in your store are craving – it’s just a matter of showing them this simple truth.
Sales Strategies for a Challenging Market
While the price of gold, silver, and platinum may vary, the skills and strategies that make a sales team strong during challenging times are constant.
When a salesperson knows their inventory, they’re better able to communicate the value of pieces to new and existing guests alike. All the pieces we carry are a good match for a guest – it’s just a matter of finding the right fit! Knowing all the details, inspiration, and story behind a design also helps sales teams show the value of a piece as a whole, beyond the metal and stones.
As your team faces the current market, I encourage you to stay grounded in these unbeatable techniques – they’re the foundation of our selling strategies for a reason! At your next team meeting, I encourage you to make a plan for getting to know your inventory and how to show new and returning guests each piece’s true value. With the team focused on these fundamentals, you’ll be set up for an amazing year in 2026!
