Hi Orchidians and hello Daniel;
Actually repair work is not a commodity as there are a full
range of qualities of repair work available.
Well. thatās my point really. Being a GG, youād know that all VVS,
E colored 2 carat diamonds are not created equally too. But thatās
not what the RAPP sheet would have us believe. A price list for
repairs will give the customer the idea that he has the right to
expect the same charges from a jeweler in a prime location with a 25
dollar an hour master craftman doing the work and a massive jewelerās
block insurance bill as he would pay to have it done in some sweat
shop office on the 13th floor of a Dallas office building by some
poor schmuck hoping like hell that the INS isnāt closing in on him.
I don't think collecting data from the marketplace will
necessarily skew the rest of the marketplace.
Collecting isnāt the problem. Interpreting is the problem.
Somebody (many, I think) is going to think they are paying too much
and that makes opportunities for the unscrupulous. Iām talking about
large and less than scrupulous venues who will view this as an
opportunity. Hereās the scenario as I saw it happen with diamonds.
First, customerās started coming in with copies of RAPP sheets.
They donāt undertand make, table percentage, girdle thickness,
flourescence, etc. All they know is 1 carat SI2 G-H goes for $4,800
so why canāt you sell me it for that? You get to make the 20% under
RAPP you bought if for or get tough about it and send them packing.
Then came internet diamond sales, which were below RAPP in many
cases. Few customers understood the meaning of the on
the āsecond pageā of that cert (see above about flourescence, girdle
thickness, etc.). They just came in with printouts from their
internet searches and couldnāt understand why we had to make any
money on a diamond sale. Now suppose some organization, maybe MJSA,
starts selling the monthly updated ārepair price listā and your
customers start coming in with the bootleg copy they got from their
brother-in-law who worked for a time as a sales clerk in a commision
only mall jewelry store. They are now demanding to pay $6 to size
down that platinum eternity band. Or the very massive silver ring
with the intarsia inlay. Got laser, anybody? Well āMcJewelry Repair
Kioskā does, and the customer will never know that their 14K ring
was sized with 10K gold and repair solders by a minimum wage fluncky
who didnāt mention that he polished the facets off that tanzanite if
he did notice it or could have noticed it.
I don't change my salary or my employee's salaries based on
what I read in the JCK salary review, but it is extremely valuable
to see where in the picture we fit in
Well, why do you care where you āfit inā if youāre confident that
you are paying your employees according to their contribution to your
business? Most retailers would like to know that theyāre not paying
their employees too much (more than they have to) or paying them too
little (low enough for the competition to easily hire them away). I
could go into the ways in which, I think, JCK deliberately skewed the
but Iāve already done that on this forum and others have
agreed with me. They did this to keep their āconstituentsā happy and
it was obvious. Iām assuming youāve carefully considered what you
could afford to pay your people and are intent on keeping it that
way, but if you are, from my experience (which is extensive) you
arenāt in the majority. Call me a pessimist, but my entire point is
that things tend to descend to the lowest common denominator, so
letās not help it go that way if we donāt have to. What I see if
this happens is more jewelers leaving their bench to go retail and
more trade shops closing to open retail repair facilities.
Independant mom and pop venues will take it in the keister as they
did when J.C. Pennyās took their lower end watch sales and WalMart
took their gold chain market. But itās OK with me, Iāll just go
retail if I have to survive, and if I only made a keystone markup on
my repairs, I could whip the merchandizer and still double my income.
Iāll get inventory for cost of materials and cost of wages. Iāll
find an cheap office to sell out of. . . oops, forgot, I already have
one. Fries with that, sir?
David L. Huffman