Peridot Fine Jewelry finds it challenging to constantly evolve its digital strategy, but knows that brick-and-mortar will always be essential to selling fine jewelry.
Larchmont, N.Y.--In 50 Jewelers/50 States, National Jeweler interviews one retailer in each of the 50 U.S. states to find out how they are meeting the challenges of the changing retail environment.
Since opening in 2002, Peridot Fine Jewelry has made a name for itself by championing independent design.
Owner Dawn Hendricks knows that her client in Larchmont, New York, a suburb of New York City, is an individual who embraces uniqueness, and therefore appreciates the many one-of-a-kind pieces Hendricks stocks from designers like Cathy Waterman and Polly Wales.
Hendricks spoke to National Jeweler about striving to keep up with an ever-evolving digital strategy and why brick-and-mortar will always be the most essential channel to sell fine jewelry.
Dawn Hendricks founded Peridot Fine Jewelry in 2002 in Larchmont, New York, a suburb of New York City. She has six total employees who work a combination of full-time and part-time hours, and her store is 1,200 square feet. National Jeweler: What’s the biggest challenge your store is facing?
Dawn Hendricks: In general, the biggest challenge is constantly being able to tap into what is currently working in the digital environment and the brick-and-mortar environment.
The web is something we’re continuously working on. We’re seeing a lot of growth in our web business, and we’re continuing to put a lot of emphasis on how to grow that business. It’s challenging in that there are a lot of ways to do it, and you have to use your best judgment on what the most successful ways are.
The landscape is changing every day, so what works one day might not work the next day, which makes it a little complicated. It’s the same with every way we reach out to clients--print advertising seemed to be dead for a little while and now it seems to be on the upswing. When we send print pieces out we get good feedback.
We’re also always trying to attract new clients. We are in the suburbs so we tend to have a lot of repeat clients, which is great, but you always need to get new people interested and excited about the jewelry. We’ve been successful with that locally, but it’s always a challenge to bring people in--people who maybe aren’t jewelry people but who we can make jewelry people once they see how wonderful the work is and how unique the pieces we carry are.
There’s a lot of available income in the area we live in, so we’re always trying to make sure we can expose as many people as we can to what we offer and the services we offer.
NJ: Do you have e-commerce?
DH: We’ve had it for many years. Last year we changed to a new platform, which has been very successful for us. It’s been a much easier website for us to work with internally, and I think that has been responsible for a huge amount of web growth.
It also supports the brick-and-mortar clients who definitely do go on the web to pre-shop before they come in.
NJ: What’s the top-selling category at your store?
DH: It really does change. Probably rings, stacking rings for the self-purchasing customers--people who buy rings for themselves as opposed to bridal, which is a different category. And earrings also; we do a lot of business in earrings.
NJ: What’s your top-selling brand?
DH: We have a few. We do really well with Cathy Waterman, and we do really well with Caroline Ellen, who is a smaller designer who has been with us quite a long time and has a very big following. We do really well with Jamie Joseph as well. In the designer world she’s very well known for her colored gemstone rings.
NJ: Describe your customer for me.
Dawn Hendricks
DH: It’s a lot of women. Over the course of the year it’s always more women than men. Men will be shopping for holidays or birthdays or anniversaries.
On average I would say the women are in their 40s. They are very conscious of having their unique, individual look. They don’t want necessarily what everyone else has. They may like the idea of a stacking ring set, but they want to have their own stacking ring set, not what their friend has. They want to make sure it’s different, which is nice because our store is all designer based so a lot of the work we have is one-of-a-kind and can’t be duplicated, and that tends to feed well into the population that we serve.
They like to spend money on things that they will wear every day; they’re practical. They’re not women who tend to wear showy pieces, so they’ll go for something more petite often that is understated but elegant.
It’s probably similar for the men who shop with us as well. They’re very appreciative of the work that goes into the pieces that we carry and the designers. When we have trunk shows--especially around the holidays--men come in and spend time looking at the work of the designers and talking with them, so they’re a very educated client and appreciate the amount of labor that goes into handmade work and are happy to support that. I think they feel good about supporting a small business like us and supporting artisans who are passionate about their work. We’re very lucky to have an amazing, loyal clientele.
NJ: What’s the most popular style of engagement ring with your clientele now?
DH: It seems like the last few brides have been going back to prongs, which is so funny because for years nobody wanted a prong. I changed my prong-set ring out when we opened the store and we were doing bezel upon bezel and then bezels with halos, and now the last couple of brides have expressed interest in prongs and even when they’re not doing prongs they seem to prefer a bezel without a halo.
I feel like for years we did a lot of halos. Everyone still loves a halo and I still do, but I think people are interested now in the simplicity of the stone and maybe adding some different rings, stacking the stone with some rings when they get their band or adding a band for an anniversary. I think for us it’s almost gotten a little simpler, more classic and maybe retro feeling.
NJ: Which social media accounts are important to your business?
DH: I’d say that’s something that’s always changing, but right now it’s Instagram. We tend to have a lot of looks there, and we’re definitely getting some purchases through Instagram.
Facebook as well as a communication tool--a little less product based, but more to let people know what’s going on in the store and events and things.
We do a fair amount of e-blasts that are very efficient for us, and we do direct mail pieces twice a year that I think also work very well for us.
Hendricks’ daughter, Jessica Hendricks Yee, is the designer of jewelry line The Brave Collection, which is handmade in Cambodia. This particular limited-edition Mount Kilimanjaro bracelet benefits The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.
NJ: What’s the best piece of advice you’d offer to other independent jewelry stores?
DH: I think you have to stay confident about brick-and-mortar. There’s a lot of negativity out there about brick-and-mortar survival, but especially in jewelry there’s every reason to believe that we can succeed as retail stores.
It’s great to be able to sell online as well, but no one can compare dealing with jewelry on someone’s hand and putting it on their neck and actually having a person be able to see the diamonds or stones in person. It’s an emotional purchase and I think if you can create an environment where people want to come into your store and be part of the energy in the store and share in the beauty of what we have to offer, then we have every reason to believe that we can continue to succeed as brick-and-mortar stores.
Service is critical. You have to have incredible, impeccable service. You have to really meet the needs of your clients and that has to come first in every way, but I don’t think that’s difficult to do. I really feel that, more than ever, because the internet is so huge, people do really want to connect on a personal level with another person with a product and certainly in our area our local residents want to support local businesses. So if you’re a store in a smaller area I think you have every reason to hope that that will happen for you. Also the product that we’re selling is just not as easy to pick up online as a pair of sneakers for your kids.
NJ: What’s a fun fact about you we can share with our readers?
DH: My husband and I just climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania two weeks ago. We did it as a fundraiser for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. We raised $57,000 thus far for the fund.
We sell a collection called The Brave Collection, founded by my daughter and handmade in Cambodia. My daughter created a limited-edition bracelet for the hike and the foundation, and we’re selling those, so we sort of made a jewelry connection to the hike as well. We’ve really been able to incorporate our fundraising and something that’s important to us personally with our store and our client base, and that’s been wonderful and great to see the clients who have come out to support us.
Ashley Davisis the senior editor, fashion at National Jeweler, covering all things related to design, style and trends.
