Jewelers Circular Keystone articles from September 2008

Jewelers Circular Keystone archives from September 2008

State of the Industry: 10 Ways to Revitalize the Jewelry Business.(Industry overview)
September 1, 2008... By Rob Bates, Senior Editor We have a powerful product. Richard Lennox, group account director for the De Beers account at JWT, puts it this way: 'A piece of diamond jewelry is something you give, and it will be remembered forever. I can...

What's the Value of Hedge Funds?
September 1, 2008... By Rob Bates, Senior Editor Private equity funds have taken a lot of interest in the jewelry industry lately, but they don't play by the industry's rules. Bankruptcies are never pleasant, but Whitehall's creditors got a particularly...

Best in Show 2008 [Part II].(Natural Colored Diamond Association's seminars)(Lecil Henderson's collection of jewelry)(jewelry exhibition)
September 1, 2008... Staff More trends, more products, more people, and more ideas from The JCK Show ~ Las Vegas. MOST INCREASED PROFILE With De Beers seriously rethinking its marketing, it wasn't surprising that the traditional breakfast presentation...

The JCK-Harrison Group Consumer Jewelry Study, Part II.
September 1, 2008... By Hedda T. Schupak, Editor-in-Chief Where do consumers shop for jewelry? The study brings more good news for retailers: Consumers prefer brick-and-mortar jewelry stores to the Internet by two to one. But the findings also show the...

5 Marketing Tips for a Successful Holiday Selling Season.
September 1, 2008... By Rosabel Tao Effective marketing can help you break through the message clutter that pervades the all-important Christmas selling season. Holiday sales results across the jewelry industry last year were mixed-retailers catering to...

Thriving in Troubled Times: 'You're Not Just Selling Jewelry' An Interview With Brook Ellis and Mink Stavenga.(Interview)
September 1, 2008... By William George Shuster, Senior Editor Two savvy jewelry business experts from GIA offer 10 tips for business success during an economic downturn. Running a successful business is always challenging, more so when soaring costs and...

Watch Out!
September 1, 2008... By Rick Bannerot The watch brands a jewelry store carries are an important indication of the kind of store it is. Yet, time and again, there's a disconnect between a store's fine-jewelry merchandise and the types of watches it sells. Other...

Gem Pricing Report.
September 1, 2008... Staff The U.S. wholesale market is slow. High prices for food and energy have cut into consumer spending on nonessentials. But a recent decline in gold and oil prices as the dollar firmed may mean the commodity bubble has burst. This could...

Attentive Selling Equals Good Security.
September 1, 2008... By Leonard Zell With a little help from an ex-thief, an expert sales trainer explains how to protect your business from bad guys. Not long ago, I met a former armed robber at a jewelry convention in the United Kingdom. During a lecture...

Exclusively Diamonds.
September 1, 2008... By Jean Bentley It wasn't the usual tailgating party. For starters, the line was mostly women. Instead of beer and burgers in the afternoon, it was coffee and mimosas in the morning. The crowd wasn't looking forward to a kickoff or a...

Whitehall Liquidates.
September 1, 2008... By Rob Bates Whitehall Jewelers, a jewelry chain with nearly 400 stores and more than a century of history behind it, is liquidating less than two months after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It's the second major jewelry...

Mervyn's, Boscov's File Chapter 11.
September 1, 2008... Staff Two regional department store chains, Mervyn's and Boscov's, both recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Mervyn's, based in Hayward, Calif., filed in July. It operates more than 177 stores in seven states located...

FTC Allows 'Cultured'.
September 1, 2008... By Rob Bates In a setback for jewelry associations, the Federal Trade Commission said qualified use of the term cultured diamonds should be allowed to describe lab-created stones. A petition submitted to the FTC by Jewelers Vigilance...

Inventor of First Synthetic Diamond Dies.
September 1, 2008... Staff H. Tracy Hall , the General Electric scientist who became the first person to produce a diamond, died recently at 88. In 1948, after earning a doctoral degree from the University of Utah, Hall joined General Electric's Project...

Burma Rubies Banned.
September 1, 2008... By Gary Roskin President Bush has signed the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE Act of 2008, designed to punish Burma's brutal ruling regime by banning the importation of rubies and jade from that country into the United States. Congress...

Colibri Gets New Financing.(The Colibri Group )(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Staff The Colibri Group said it has completed financing that includes an equity investment by the company's major shareholder and simultaneous recapitalization of the company's bank lines. 'This transaction affords the company the...

Zale Appoints New President.
September 1, 2008... Staff Zale Corp. recently appointed a new president, Theo Killion, one of a string of executives at the company who come from outside the jewelry industry. Killion reports to chief executive officer Neal Goldberg, who has relinquished...

Richard Hughes Leaves AGTA GTC.(American Gem Trade Association 's Gemological Testing Center)(Richard Hughes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... By Gary Roskin Gemologist and author Richard Hughes has resigned as senior staff gemologist for the American Gem Trade Association 's Gemological Testing Center. Hughes worked at GTC for four years in the West Coast laboratory. Hughes...

Newswire.
September 1, 2008... Staff JCK editors Jennifer Heebner and Carrie Soucy [pictured below] won the American Gem Society 's Richard T. Liddicoat Journalism Award in the Industry/Trade Reporting category for 'Seal of Disapproval,' which appeared in the Winter...

Genender, Skagen File Counter Lawsuits.
September 1, 2008... By William George Shuster Two U.S. watch companies-Genender International and Skagen Designs-have filed legal actions against each other over the design of Genender's Hamlin watch line. Skagen Designs' suit alleges that Genender's...

From the Blogs.(Conference notes)
September 1, 2008... Staff Are You Selling Watches Over Jewelry? At least one to two people a week come into my store asking for watches. It may be that there are not too many jewelry stores that sell watches in my area. It may be because watches serve a...

The State of the Business.
September 1, 2008... By Frank Dallahan The only way to describe the state of the business at this point is to use words like worry , concern , and yet hopeful . It seems there is nothing on the industry scoreboard that provides much of anything positive....

Independents Forever.
September 1, 2008... By Ben Janowski Much has been said the last few years about the declining number of jewelry operations in the United States, especially among independent jewelers. I noted Jewelers Board of Trade figures last month. Some take this to mean...

Anna Ruth Henriques.
September 1, 2008... By Bacilio Mendez II Painter, sculptor, author, and jewelry designer Anna Ruth Henriques was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, daughter of a Jamaican mother and an Afro-Caribbean Jewish father. Inspired by the tension between her...

Consumer Confidence Holds Steady, Still Low.
September 1, 2008... Staff After declining in June, the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index held fairly steady in July, rising from 51 to 51.9. The Conference Board's Present Situation Index was 65.3 versus 65.4 last month. The Expectations Index was up...

Foreclosure Activity Increases in Second Quarter 2008.
September 1, 2008... Staff Nationwide foreclosure activity increased 14 percent in the second quarter of 2008, and 121 percent over Q2 2007, according to the Q2 2008 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report by RealtyTrac, Irvine, Calif. RealtyTrac is a national database...

Appointments.
September 1, 2008... Staff Frederick Goldman Inc. has appointed Tom Tanner vice president of marketing. Tanner, who has more than 15 years of marketing experience, will be responsible for marketing strategy, brand management, communications, and sales support....

Watchmaker Severin Wunderman.
September 1, 2008... By William George Shuster Watchmaker and philanthropist Severin Wunderman, former maker of Gucci watches and owner of Corum luxury watches, died suddenly of a stroke June 25 while vacationing in Nice, France. He was 69. Wunderman was...

Dee Congress.
September 1, 2008... Staff Dee Congress, who founded southwest Florida's Congress Jewelers with her husband in 1983, died on Sanibel Island, Fla., Aug. 5. She was 65 and had battled cancer for more than three decades. Dee and her husband, Larry, began the...

Do We Need the Mall Jewelers?
September 1, 2008... By Hedda T. Schupak Why hasn't the jewelry industry experienced the kind of consolidation that wiped out most other independent retailers? Why hasn't jewelry gone the way of hardware, books, appliances, and stationery, devolving into a...

Time to Enter the JCK Jewelers Choice Awards!
September 1, 2008... By Mark Smelzer Hard to believe, but it has been a full year since our inaugural JCK Jewelers Choice Awards! As I've mentioned before, last year's awards were a tremendous success, with 430 entries and 11,054 retailer votes. We're...