I am starting this thread, as the season approaches we need to examine what these ultra-high commodities will do for/against consumers this winter.

Surely this will be no more than educated guesses, but might be helpful to all, especially those that can remember what happened in similar occasions in the past.

1. Heavy gold chain sales will be non-existent.


2. There will be a lot of "trade in" deals, scrap gold for new ring etc.


3. Sterling with gold accents will be "on fire!"


4. People may be interested in heavy gold 2nd hand jewelry as an investment?


5. Customers may know what a gram of scrap 14K is worth, decreasing margins.


6. ANY larger gold fashion jewelry sales will suffer dramatically. I haven't sold a nice 6mm gold Omega since I don't know when.


7. All sterling will be strong, not just sterling/gold accents. We presently stock about 300 pair of silver earrings
8. Jeweler inventories will decrease. While we do continue to buy merchandise, I am much more cautious about buying more than I need, especially in gold
   
   
9. Appraisals should be UP


10. Estate sales should be up


11. Savvy salespeople will need to do an even better job of selling ADD-ONs to the customer. We will need to sell 3 pieces of better silver jewelry to equal what we may have sold in a single piece of gold jewelry. Our customers are not too likely to buy more often through the year just because individual pieces cost less in silver.

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