(Editor's Note: this blog post was written and provided to us by Cindy Edelstein, widely know as the Jewelry Business Guru. Cindy also posted it on her own blog site, http://jewelrybusinessguru.typepad.com/blog/, where she blogs regularly.) Will we ever shop full...

Going into its second year of breakfast peer-to-peer jeweler discussion panels at Couture, National Jeweler's America's Best Jewelers program has put together a set of excellent topics. Each morning at the Wynn, prior to the Couture show floor opening, we'll...

Exhausted enough from JA New York show week to feel a bit like crying on bad news. One of my favorite independent retailers has closed its doors for good. Since I was three, living in Yellowstone National Park, where my...

Warren Buffet is forecasting that 25 percent of all fine jewelry companies, across the distribution pipeline, will be out of business within 12 months. I received this information on deep background from a very trustworthy source. As you're probably aware,...

Yesterday, Friday morning, was the first in our series of four breakfast educational sessions at the 2009 Couture show. Held at the opulent Wynn Hotel, the breakfasts are part of our America's Best Jewelers program, which not only recognizes top-performing...

Not to get our expectations out of proportion, but the indicators keep lining up in suggestion of an improving market. After good news recently from Signet--parent of the Kay and Jared chains--and an upgrade by analysts of its stock from...

I've been writing about growing momentum in the good news category of late--finally. Today, more to add. Signet, parent of Sterling Jewelers, the largest U.S. jewelry-specific retailer and operator of the Kay Jewelers and Jared chains, has had its stock...

My father was a naturalist for the National Park Service, intimately involved in the birth and growth of the primacy of the discipline of ecology in our nation's approach to its natural resources and heritage that began in the 1950s....

No secret that there's a nasty economic undertow dragging on our industry. Many are hoping simply to keep their heads above water until the heavy surf subsides. Finally, several items have surfaced that I see as positive. The first came...

The following blog entry was written and sent to us by Antoinette Matlins. So what happens now...and in the future? The manner in which Collectors Universe closed the doors on AGL on March 2 was unprecedented in this field and...

A very bad day yesterday, when I learned that Penny Proddow, jewelry editor for InStyle, lost her battle with ovarian cancer. I'm looking at two small sketches that rest on the base of my computer monitor. Three saguaro cactuses tower...

Our in-house New York Times aficionado, Jewelry Group Vice President Bailey Beeken, brought the following to my attention. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/14/opinion/14martin.html?_r=1 Looks like it appeared on the Web on Valentine's Eve and was picked up elsewhere, including the New York edition, on...

February 24 will mark the first working meeting of the high-level diamond industry companies' effort to develop generic diamond advertising sponsored cooperatively across the supply chain. We're very eagerly awaiting the results of this new project, which could significantly affect...

We received the following from Joseph I. Szweda in response to our January 29 article, "GIA explains pink zones in Mozambique tourmaline." You can find the original article at: http://www.nationaljewelernetwork.com/njn/cc/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003936212 Dear Editor, I recently read your January 29th article regarding...

Hi all. We've launched an online social network purely for retail jewelers. You'll find it at www.abjnetwork.com. "ABJ" stands for America's Best Jewelers, a program we launched last year to determine operationally strong retail jewelers around the nation and bring...

Thanksgiving weekend and some head's up retailing proved jewelry can still pull them in. Brothers David and Jeffrey Harrison, owners of the Cartersville Jewelry Exchange in Cartersville, Ga., offered shoppers a chance to strike it rich while benefiting wounded soldiers....

Like yours, probably, my inbox has been swamped by retail holiday e-mails the past few weeks. Most are from my favorite retailers for personal consumption, while others are from companies I like to watch professionally for trending. Free shipping, the...

We were very happy on Monday as we rolled up the first weekend sales report. Taken as a whole, the industry followed general retail to exceed expectations, according to those we interviewed. Talks I've had with retailers throughout the week...

It's the Monday before Thanksgiving, and the Christmas tree has shown up in the office lobby. Carols are jingling. I always wonder how many times the security guards can stomach the loop tape without going barmy. The weather's certainly cooperating....

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. Nor am I a whiz financier. So it's tough for me to fathom how we could go from paying nearly $5 a gallon for gas a month ago to under two bucks now. Our family's...

As jewelers head into the holiday selling season, it's the worst possible time to have to deal with a decline in consumer credit. If you've been struggling against tightened credit among your customers or with bad debt issues or have...

Focus grasshopper. We're a week out from the big Thanksgiving weekend, the official kickoff of the holiday retail saga. But the data and reports all tell us shoppers have begun early this year, bargain- and discount-seeking in the quest to...

OK. It's a bit before 7:00 a.m. on a cold late-November morning in New York City. Winter's here too darn early this year. I live on top of a small mountain in extreme western New Jersey, and we've already had...

The Diamond Trading Co. (DTC) is stepping back into its old role, somewhat like the pre-morph De Beers. Its newly announced consumer ad campaign, planned at double the spend of last year, will be one of the best drivers we...

I had fun and got credit for taking my wife out to boot Saturday night thanks to Roman Jewelers, a Flemington, N.J.-based independent that's one of my favorites. Roman is a fantastic pro-active marketer. In the past, they've solicited me,...