Jewelry a low price item? Not anymore!

Jewelry Market is Moving Towards Higher Price and Quality.

Beauty supplies carry tens of thousands of products. If you divide them into three categories, you have hair products, chemicals, and accessories. Each category further divides into sub-categories, but in this issue we will only cover the jewelry that belongs to the accessories.

It terms of the sales revenue, jewelry typically is not a substantial category for beauty supplies. However, as the average price of jewelry items increases due to demand for higher quality, higher priced jewelries, many beauty supplies now make a substantial portion of their sales in the jewelry department. In the past, it was easy to find items that cost a dollar or two at beauty supplies, but a few major brands are introducing more expensive jewelry items with price tags north of $10.

Director Sungsik Choi of jewelry company C&L USA says, “chain necklaces and bracelets and high quality products from the premium jewelry line LUXE are making quite an impact on our sales revenue with positive feedback from the customers.” Manager Soonjong Choi agrees in saying, “LUXE products sell despite the hefty price tag because they are good quality and look pretty, and I am receiving so many orders from many business personally.” Kim, a sales associate from another company, also agrees in saying “it is a matter of fact that a broader price range of jewelry products is boosting the sales revenue compared to the past.”

Do the beauty supply business owners and managers agree too? Executive manager Park running five beauty supply stores in Texas says there has been a change in the status of jewelry in the beauty supply industry. In old days, they moved a small number of jewelry items, so they would place an order in a few hundred dollars when sales associates make a monthly visit. Today, they make an order in thousands of dollars. Business owner Kim who runs two beauty supply stores in New Jersey says, “though the order for jewelry falls far short of the orders for hair and chemical products, we still make an order in thousands of dollars every month, which is not so small. When you open a new store, you would place an order that exceeds ten thousand dollars in amount.”

The consensus among those interviewed is that the share of jewelry department, although it varies from a store to a store, is getting bigger and bigger. One of the reasons is that many companies keep releasing new products and that the post-pandemic inflation is boosting the per-piece cost.

LUXE products from C&L USA

In addition to the diversification of jewelry products, jewelry display is evolving. Although it may be up to the size of the retail floor, many beauty supplies prefer wall display nowadays. According to an industrial analysis, jewelry sales largely depend on the display. In terms of revenue, counter top displays promote higher inventory turnover for increased revenue. Floor display, or tower display, comes in next with relatively good accessibility. Wall display is great in terms of store interior design, but it is not a substantial help in boosting sales.

After the pandemic business boom and ever as we enter the endemic, the sales revenue of beauty supplies across the regions are decreasing. Business owners all agree that it is not easy to increase your revenue nowadays because customers are low on cash. As the business is slowing, they are reducing the order size for everything but chemicals that sell constantly. However, there are businesses that are beating the recession by pushing accessories with higher margin over the chemicals with low profit margin.

Beauty supply business owner Mohamed in Alabama says, “when the business is slow, we rather make bigger orders for accessories that offer higher profit margin to ever expand the range of merchandise that keeps the customer traffic. We try as much as we can to bring in new products.” As such, a beauty supply business owner should know that making changes to the items you carry can be a way to improve sales and your profit margin as different categories offer different margin.

Used to be a minor player in the beauty supplies, jewelry is assuming a bigger role for increasing the range of product offering in business’s effort to bring new customers. From necklaces to earrings, bracelets, and body jewelries, you should order a wide variety of items to meet the customer demand and beautify your retail floor in order to cope with the seasonal slow of your business in summer.