U.S. Retailers Go Green

At this year's JCK Las Vegas, U/S/ retailers did some window shopping but many of them kept their wallets closed.  Some dealers looked at their well-stocked display cases and opted out of even going.  Why is that?

One retailer, John Nichols, sales manager at Huntington Jewelers in Las Vegas said "We're not ready to spend more money yet.  We're buying from the public, so we're recycling a lot.  That doesn't make our vendors happy, but that's what you have to do in this economy."

Nichols isn't the only one recycling either.  Tara Silderberg, co-owner of The Clay Pot in Brooklyn, New York said "We are implementing a gold recycling program for our customers to scrap old pieces for credit and we are very excited about it."

Wink Jones offers similar programs, the most notable of which is that he will buy back "Crafted by Infinity" Diamonds at 80% of what a customer purchased them for.  That is a stellar deal.  All other Diamonds he has a separate program for which depends greatly on the cut and quality of the Diamond.  He will buy back various other Diamonds for up to 60% of the customers purchase price.  Why the difference, you ask?  Cut has a great deal to do with the quality of a Diamond and Infinity has the highest quality of cut, any other diamond would need to be sent to be re-cut to ensure that it meets Wink's impeccably high standards.  

According to Nichols who said "The show seems bigger and I'm not real big on big shows.  the bigger they are the less I do business.  I can't afford to spend half my day with one vendor-I'm afraid I wont see everything I need to."  It appears that it is too big to shop.  Which has me wondering if American retailers are over the "Ol' Razzle Dazzle".  Are they exchanging big show for practicality, and if so will we see that change should the U.S. economy pick up?"

I for one, am glad to see even the jewelry markets of America begin to go green, recycling old pieces and buying from the public.  I'm sure that our economy will recover in time, and when it does JCK Las Vegas will have swarms of happy retailers at their "over the top" show... but for now bravo retailers, bravo.  If the jewelry market ever slowed entirely down (which I highly doubt) perhaps you can all go into business giving lessons on financial planning and ingenuity to government run institutions.