selling price wholesale to a store is $210.00. The store
will now mark the price up 100% or one keystone. A keystone is
the retail jewelers price code for one mark up.
Hello,
This brings up a question I’m not totally clear on; Can someone
please tell me exactly what the formula for triple keystone
pricing is and when it is used? The above post states that the
gallery retail 100% markup is 1 keystone, so what’s 2? I
purchased a catalog from Rio Grande about 5 years ago that listed
everything in triple keystone. This was supposedly to show
customers. The prices seemed outrageously high and there was no
explanation as to how they were formulated.
I usually set my prices and know the galleries will double them,
when doing retail shows I double my set price. Am I missing
something?
Amy, Triple keystone means the wholesale cost is one third the
marked price. There is no “double” keystone since keystone is
twice the retail price. Jerry in Kodiak
Keystone is found by multiplying the cost by 2, triple keystone
is multiplying by 3. An interesting point you make about twice
keystone. I never really thought about it. Rio Grande and
Stuller(among others) list their catalog prices at thripe key to
allow you to show the customer the catalog and assure them you
can offer a better price. Just a little "sticker shock"
treatment. Customary markup on items of less than 500.00 is
keystone and it’s less on more expensive things. Some very
expensive stones are sold with a very thin profit margin as the
competition for them is keen. To some retailers, a big ticket
sale, even though little, if any profit was made, is a prestige
thing for them. I’ve heard stories of “high rollers” who will
hammer a retailer to the point of almost no profit and then want
them to meet at an out-of-state location to avoid sales tax as
well!
Amy, I believe the term" keystone" originated in the mid 1890’s
by Keystone magazine, later to become Jewelers Circular
Keystone. The subscribers to the magazine complaned to the
editors that customers , while paging through magazines on their
counters, were able to see dealer costs.
The term keystone was easily recognized by those in the jewelry
trade and came to mean that the price quoted was twice the
wholesale cost. “Triple keystone”, therefore, meant that the
quoted price was 3 times the wholesale cost.
Now the reasons retailers use triple key pricing are many and
varied, but thats another story - which can actually lead back
around to the discussionsabout “gold pricing”. Johann in mpls
Jewelry Dept.
Minneapolis Community & Technical College
www.mctc.mnscu.edu/acad/academic/programs/tech/jewelman/index.html