On this day before Christmas 2015, I am cogitating over the seeming mountains of flyers that have arrived in the mail, the paper kind, in the last few weeks. I do not recall it ever having been that intense, and I can only attribute it to a soft season that pushed so many retailers to offer big discounts so early in December, even in November. I recall that years ago, no discounts showed up until January. Long gone, those days. In all of it, jewelry was almost entirely missing. Yes, I received flyers from Macy's that included jewelry, but they do that all year round. Signet had plenty of ads on TV for Jared and Kay Jewelers. And there were a few promos via e-mail. After that, zip, at least as I can recall. Worse yet, as I have noted before, the big fashion magazine issues were nearly devoid of jewelry. The apparel ads were great, but almost none showed a model wearing jewelry. Oh yes, and Forevermark showed up in some magazines ...
Observations on trends and events in the gem and fine jewelry business.