A Second Month of Decline for US Watch and Jewelry Sales
January 05, 23
(IDEX Online) - Watch and jewelry sales in the US for November were down 3.8 per cent year-on-year. October's figure, initially reported as a fall of 1.9 per cent, has since been revised down, based on actual through-the-till transactions rather than estimates, to 3.4 per cent, according to the latest figures from the Department of Commerce. Likewise September has been revised from a 1.3 per cent increase down to 0.7 per cent.
To put this in perspective, sales of watches and jewelry plunged in the first months of the Covid pandemic, but grew every month from June 2020, despite ongoing lockdowns. They peaked in April 2021 with a flurry of revenge purchases from a low base the previous year.
And they kept growing, albeit more and more slowly, until October, and now November, when they dipped below zero.
Growth in sales has been slow - below six per cent for every month since May 2022 - but has always managed to stay just about positive.
The last time sales growth reached a low point like this was as we emerged from the initial Covid lockdowns. It was 1.1 per cent in June 2020, on its way up after hitting a record -55.9 per cent in April of that year.
Jewelry sales fell by 4.0 per cent and watch sales fell by 2.5 per cent during November, an average fall of 3.8 per cent.
The U.S. Department of Commerce has, for all practical purposes, ceased reporting sales by Specialty Jewelers. The last figures it released were for February 2021. In May it published its first set of revisions in almost a year - revising down sales for virtually all months from January 2019 to February 2021 - but we've heard nothing since. IDEX Research will publish any new updates on specialty jewelers as and when they become available.
Assessment
When the crunch comes, fuel bills and food bills come first. Consumers tighten their belts and stop buying jewelry. Or spend less. In August, the year-on-year spend was up 17.5 per cent, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which measures retail sales across all payment types. In September it was up 6.9 per cent, in
October it fell by 3.8 per cent and over the November/December holiday season it was down 5.4 per cent. Our figures tell a very similar story. October was the month when sales growth dipped below zero (further below than initially reported) and November was the month when they dipped a little more below. There is a mood of cautious optimism, apparently, in the industry. Possibly with an emphasis more on the "cautious" than the "optimism".