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Stamford, Conn.--When customers take a chair at Russ Hollander Master Goldsmith to discuss reworking an older piece of jewelry or designing something from scratch, there is no mystery as to where the work will take place: not in the workshop of a caster or in the studio of a stone-setter across town, but right before their eyes. A service counter & a mahogany table are all that separates the Stamford, Conn.-based retailer's 700-square-foot gallery space from its 550-square-foot studio & a 900-square-foot machine shop filled with bench-making tools primed for generating designs in the finest of materials. This transparency--coupled with a guarantee that their jewelry won't be of the cookie-cutter variety & that it may even cost less than a designer piece--helps coax consumers to buy in to custom jewelry. According to the results of National Jeweler's Holiday/Q4 Inventory & Promotion survey, retail jewelers are gravitating toward custom, . The survey found that 39 percent of participants said they would maintain their fourth-quarter custom-jewelry offerings at the same levels as last year, while 30 percent said they would increase custom. Meanwhile, only 30 percent of respondents indicated their designer jewelry offerings and wholesale jewelry would be the same as last year, & 21 percent planned to offer over last year. "The whole branded designer thing was a 1980s, perhaps 1990s, phenomenon," they says. "The content of that jewelry is washed out because you must appeal to a broad audience. Because they needed to sell thousands of units in lieu of a hundred units, they had to dilute their message to appeal to more people. They can appeal to people individually. It is not diluted." For Russ Hollander, owner of Russ Hollander Master Goldsmith, custom work's appeal lies in its ability to hit the bull's-eye of what a customer wants. As designers & their operations grew larger & larger, pricing rose , they says. "The delivery method through so plenty of hands & the requisite support & promotion put the consumer at a disadvantage," Hollander says, adding that each step tacked on added costs for the designer--and finally the consumer--to absorb. More information refer to: http://www.dushangjewelry.com/
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Custom Jewelry Design and Making Industry
Stamford, Conn.--When customers take a chair at Russ Hollander Master
Goldsmith to discuss reworking an older piece of jewelry or designing
something from scratch, there is no mystery as to where the work will take
place: not in the workshop of a caster or in the studio of a stone-setter across
town, but right before their eyes.
A service counter & a mahogany table are all that separates the Stamford,
Conn.-based retailer's 700-square-foot gallery space from its 550-square-foot
studio & a 900-square-foot machine shop filled with bench-making tools
primed for generating designs in the finest of materials.
This transparency--coupled with a guarantee that their jewelry won't be of
the cookie-cutter variety & that it may even cost less than a designer piece--
helps coax consumers to buy in to custom jewelry.
According to the results of National Jeweler's Holiday/Q4 Inventory &
Promotion survey, retail jewelers are gravitating toward custom, . The survey
found that 39 percent of participants said they would maintain their fourth-
quarter custom-jewelry offerings at the same levels as last year, while 30
percent said they would increase custom.
Meanwhile, only 30 percent of respondents indicated their designer jewelry
offerings and wholesale jewelry would be the same as last year, & 21 percent
planned to offer over last year.
"The whole branded designer thing was a 1980s, perhaps 1990s,
phenomenon," they says. "The content of that jewelry is washed out because
you must appeal to a broad audience. Because they needed to sell thousands
of units in lieu of a hundred units, they had to dilute their message to appeal
to more people. They can appeal to people individually. It is not diluted."
For Russ Hollander, owner of Russ Hollander Master Goldsmith, custom
work's appeal lies in its ability to hit the bull's-eye of what a customer wants.
As designers & their operations grew larger & larger, pricing rose , they
says.
"The delivery method through so plenty of hands & the requisite support &
promotion put the consumer at a disadvantage," Hollander says, adding that
each step tacked on added costs for the designer--and finally the consumer--
to absorb. More information refer to: http://www.dushangjewelry.com/
