Greetings and salutations! Here’s a question I hope someone can help
me with. I am just starting out professionally and am working on a
business plan. I’m having a tough time finding market analysis data,
especially forecasts, all I find are reports for sale. Can any of you
fabulous people point me in the right direction? It would be much
appreciated, thank you!!
Kind regards, Donna
I am just starting out professionally and am working on a business plan. I'm having a tough time finding market analysis data, especially forecasts, all I find are reports for sale. Can any of you fabulous people point me in the right direction?
That is because such data is a very valuable commodity and nobody is
going to make it available online for free. However, there are ways
of getting it through the back door.
There is a website ( I do not have link, but it is easy to find )
called EDGAR. It is a repository of quarterly and annual reports of
publicly registered companies. It’s maintain by SEC and the best
source of available for public. To get anything better,
one has to hire a research firm, which out of realm of possibility
for most goldsmiths. Reading Tiffany’s reports and others can give
you insight in what is going on in jewellery and what to expect in
the future.
Another source is Bureau of Economic Analysis of US Government. The
problem is that data needs to interpreted correctly because a lot of
it have political bias. One needs to know how to separate what is
real and what is not.
One can extrapolate from indirect sources, but it takes even more
work. For instance: if you have Home Depot in you area and quarterly
report predicts 4% growth, for jewelers in that area it is also
reasonable to expect growth in the same range. The logic is growth
in Home Depot business means recovery in home prices - means people
feel better of themselves - means jewelers can expect some business.
Leonid Surpin
I'm having a tough time finding market analysis data,especially forecasts, all I find are reports for sale.
Well, Donna if any of us could foresee the future we wouldn’t be
here, eh? When there’s a posting about the price of metsls either
soaring or tanking, I think that… That’s a bit of a joke with
some truth to it, BTW. I can’t exactly say, but the two places I
would look are the people who keep tabs on such things. I’m sure
Stuller has some data, but they’re not showing it to us. The
Jeweler’s Board of Trade is a fine organization. Anybody who’s
anybody should be listed with them, which is free. Actual membership
costs a fair amount and most members are larger companies who find
some benefit from it. Much of the info is members-only, but there’s
some things to be found on their website, too.
http://www.ganoksin.com/gnkurl/ux
Is their industry info page, most of it historical, not forward. I
find it interesting that California has around triple the business of
New York. Used to be the other way around, how times change…
Most of JBOT’s focus is on credit, not unlike Dun and Bradstreet,
though. The other is Jeweler’s Circular Keystone, the quintessential
trade mag. They have always felt a duty to keep track of the things
you are asking about. The trick will be finding the info in some
coherent form, as it’s a magazine, not a data-mining service. But
there is much there, if you look:
For example, one sentence copied off of today’s splash page: “A
survey released by Unity Marketing June 20 showed wealthy consumers
were more likely to shop at discounters like Target than at high-end
department stores.” Sorry, but last I heard what people like to call
“Art Jewelry” was something like 2% of the marketplace. You’re not
going to find stats about that anywhere, most likely.
Donna- Ben Janowski is the guy you want to hire. Just google him and
you’ll
find his site. Ben knows.
Have fun and make lots of jewelry.
Jo Haemer
timothywgreen.com
Jewelers of America’s “Annual Cost of Doing Business Survey” is THE
source for what you need. Yes, you must purchase it, but there are
times to be a tightwad (like me) and there are times when it makes
far more sense to pay for what you need. If you want to write a
serious, well researched, meaningful and useful business plan, you
are going to have to come up with some coin. If you can’t swing the
fifty or seventy five bucks, you might want to think very seriously
about whether you are going to be able to successfully start a
business in the first place. They are money hungry beasts, and will
go through unbelievable amounts of cash very quickly.
For demographics (population, income by age breakdowns, level of
education, etc) your own city will have everything you need.
I’m not sure that annual or quarterly reports from public companies
as posted by the SEC are going to be helpful, they are written by
large publicly owned corporations mainly to show profitability
numbers for stockholders, not for business planning purposes, and the
large size of those businesses won’t correspond with what a small
independent needs for planning anyway. The level of detail is also
not anywhere near what you are going to need. Another thing, each
quarterly report is for one quarter for one company, so to get enough
info to provide any meaningful analysis is going to take one heck of
a lot of reading and sifting.
As John said, there is no way to accurately forecast what will be
happening with any business next week, let alone a year or two in the
future. Be very wary of anyone that says they can forecast business
conditions, especially if they want money for it.
Dave Phelps
Hi Donna. I’m on the same search. I found some good info in a
magazine called Accessories although the was specific to
fashion and bridge (a.k.a entry) jewelry as opposed to fine or luxury
jewelry. The info was in-depth and useful whether you plan to mass
produce or produce one-off art jewelry, especially if you’re
producing in silver, gold vermeil and colored gemstones (bridge or
entry jewelry…the high-end of the fashion jewelry market). The info
will not be of much use if you’re in the fine or luxury jewelry
market (gold, platinum and diamonds). I did find a lot of info on
that market with key word searches in the top search engines but it
was not as up-to-date as you may need (2010 projections). The MJSA
Journal also contains some market info and leans a bit in favor of
the fine and luxury markets.
Best,
LoriA