IDEX Online Research: U.S. Jewelry Census Shows Fewer Doors

(IDEX Online) - The number of jewelry stores in the U.S. has declined by about 900 over the past year, according to data from three separate government sources. This represents a 4 percent decline in total jewelry stores in the market. At the end of 2010, there were about 22,800 retail jewelry stores with employees in the U.S. market; in the prior year, three were about 23,700 stores.

The number of jewelry stores in the U.S. market has declined by about 15 percent from its peak in 2004 of more than 26,600 stores with employees.

At the end of 2010, the census of sellers of jewelry to retail consumers was as follows, based on new data from the government:

Here is more information about each category of retailer:

·         Specialty Jewelers (with employees) – Jewelry sales represent the majority of the total sales of these merchants. They operate stores in retail locations across the U.S., and they have one or more employees, besides the owner/operator. These are traditional jewelry stores like Tiffany, Kay, and others. The average sales per store in this category is about $1.2 million annually.

·         Other Jewelry Sellers – These merchants generate a majority of their revenues from the sale of jewelry to consumers. However, they do not have employees, though they may have contract workers. They represent a wide variety of retail merchants, including jewelry designers, jewelry repair shops, home sales, online sellers (typically selling via e-Bay), and other owner/operator merchants without traditional employees. Because the data for this subset of jewelry merchants comes mostly from the IRS, the owner/operators could be a husband and wife team who file their taxes jointly. While this universe is huge, it generates just under 3 percent of total jewelry industry revenues in the U.S. The average annual retail sales per “other jewelry seller” is about $40,000; this is not a meaningful level of sales per unit.

·         Multi-Line and Other Retailers – This universe of retailers is represented by any retailer who sells jewelry along with other products. Jewelry typically represents a minority of their revenues. These merchants operate stores, and have employees. Wal-Mart, J.C. Penney and others are included in this census subset. The average jewelry sales per store of retailers in this category is about $285,000 annually, a meaningful level of sales.

Reconciliation with JBT Data

Earlier this year, IDEX Online Research reported that the number of jewelry firms in the U.S. barely declined during 2010, based on data from the Jewelers Board of Trade. The JBT data shows a total of 22,164 jewelry firms at the end of 2010.

The JBT census includes both firms with employees as well as some firms without employees. The JBT’s definition of a “jewelry firm” includes some data related to a retail firm’s jewelry buying activity from vendors who use the JBT as their credit bureau. Thus, the reported census data from JBT differs slightly from the census data reported by the government.

Vendors: Use JBT Data

If you are a jewelry vendor, the JBT data base is the one you will want to use. The 22,164 firms in the JBT census database are actively involved in the jewelry industry, and do enough business to cause multiple vendors to seek credit information about them. The other 40,000 or so jewelry firms simply aren’t important for most jewelry vendors; their annual sales are miniscule, and they probably aren’t involved in the business on a day-to-day basis.