(IDEX Online News) – American retail jewelry prices rose in June from the month before, while producer prices slipped slightly.

 

While retail prices of jewelry are still well below last year's levels, jewelry merchants raised prices in June, a seasonal trend. In part, they are trying to recapture costs that their suppliers have pushed onto them; in part, they are trying to raise prices now (a slow time of the year) so they can discount those high prices as we move into the 2014 holiday selling season.  

 

U.S. laws affecting retailers' markdowns require that the goods are offered at the high price for a period of time; that way, retailers can claim, correctly, that they have discounted the price of the goods.

 

The graph below indicates the changes in the JCPI over the past two years. There was a great deal of volatility for most of the period, with a low point reached in May 2014.

 

 

For June 2014, the Jewelry Producer Price Index (JPPI) came in at 212.4 compared with 214.3 for the month before.

 

The graph below summarizes monthly JPPI over the past two years.

 

 

Looking at producer prices, they have been essentially flat since October 2013.

 

The graph below shows very clearly the directions and trends of the JCPI and JPPI during the past two years. The blue line represents retail prices of jewelry in the U.S. market and the increase last month, while the red line shows wholesale prices declining in May. 

 

 

Outlook – Inflation Seen Staying Modest

As mentioned, retail jewelers are acting in line with the usual cyclical trends: raising prices in the summer months which are, in any case, a slow period in order to give themselves room to ‘discount’ prices later in the year ahead of the holiday sales season.