The size of the US specialty jewelry market is almost 10-percent smaller than previously reported, according to new revised data from the US Department of Commerce. Here is the relevant information from the newly released government databases:

 

Specialty jewelers, retail merchants who generate most of their revenue from the sale of jewelry, generated about $30.5 billion in sales in 2014, down from $33.6 billion which was originally reported by the Department of Commerce. This indicates that the market is 9.3-percent smaller than earlier estimates.

 

New data indicates that the US specialty jewelry industry has not recovered to sales levels in the pre-recession period. Specialty jewelers’ sales peaked in 2007 at $30.8 billion, and have not recovered to that level since.

 

With their revised 2014 sales of $30.5 billion, specialty jewelers now hold only a 39.1 percent market share of the estimated $78.1 billion total market for jewelry in the US, down from the previous level of 43.0 percent, based on earlier data. This is a sharp decline for the specialty jewelry market; four decades ago, specialty jewelers sold nearly three-fourths of all jewelry in the US market.

 

Jewelry sales during the Holiday Selling Season (November-December) for both 2013 and 2014 were down; previously, data showed that sales declined only in the 2014 November-December period. Holiday jewelry sales in 2013 were down 1.5 percent, while holiday jewelry sales in 2014 were down 4.4 percent.

 

Revisions in the sales data were made back to January 2008, an unusually long period. Normally, the Department of Commerce makes minor revisions annually which affect only three or four years; this revision goes back seven years.

 

The graph below summarizes the market size in billions of dollars for US specialty jewelers since 2000. The government revised data for the seven-year period 2008-2014. In 2008, specialty jewelers’ sales were roughly 1 percent less than earlier data had indicated, with progressively greater declines until 2014 when sales were 9.3 percent less than prior government figures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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