IDEX Online Research: Strong U.S. Jewelry Sales in May, But Not At Specialty Jewelers

Jewelry sales in the U.S. market strengthened during May, driven by Mother’s Day demand. Mother’s Day is one of the three key seasonal sales events for the U.S. jewelry industry.

However, many specialty jewelers reported soft sales for the month, a surprise in the face of strong overall demand for jewelry. Unfortunately, consumers shopped for their Mother’s Day jewelry purchases in multi-line merchants such as Wal-Mart, Kohl’s, J.C. Penney and other non-traditional jewelry outlets.

Total jewelry sales were up by 11 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Jewelry sales by specialty jewelers rose by a modest 7 percent while jewelry sales at “other” merchants rose by nearly 15 percent. Clearly, bargain-hunting American consumers do not perceive that specialty jewelers offer a value.  

Jewelers continue to report that sales are being driven by fashion jewelry demand and gold buying activities, along with bridal and beads. Further, they report that demand is at retail price points which are lower this year than in prior years for all of these categories.

Two other important trends emerged from the May jewelry sales data:

·        Jewelry sales were much stronger than total retail sales (all categories of retail merchandise). This was probably due to demand for jewelry for Mother’s Day. For most merchants, Mother’s Day is not a major sales event.

·        Watch sales gains were slightly stronger than the gain for jewelry (only) sales. In part, this may be due to easy comparisons to extremely weak watch sales in 2009.

Here’s the scoreboard for May U.S. retail and jewelry sales:

Click here for an in-depth analysis and additional information on U.S. jewelry sales trends in May.