As retail operations come back online, there will be a new reality. In-person jewelry sales are going to be down and will take some time to get back to levels that were enjoyed earlier this year. This year’s industry trade shows, like JCK Vegas, have been either postponed or cancelled altogether and jewelry vendors will need to be creative to get their merchandize in front of customers.
Many predictors are saying that online orders will almost surely surpass traditional retail orders for the rest of 2020 and the blessing of online-based selling will provide that opportunity. There will surely be new and unique ways to participate in online initiatives as retail players start to think out of the box for ways to serve those looking to buy.
Jewelry providers with the most robust and flexible information management and fulfillment operations will be able to adapt and take advantage of those opportunities most easily because those new opportunities will be online and virtual in nature.
How to be ready?
The first step for any jewelry vendor is to insure that there is a very strong fulfillment operation in place. Minimally, this requires an ability to accept digital orders from any source should they be from 3rd parties or through direct online efforts. Procedures for interacting with managed online services such as CommerceHub, ChannelAdvisor, and Valigara should be consolidated and organized. Collecting orders and fulfilling them quickly by interacting directly with internal accounting and fulfillment systems like DiaSpark, RightClick, QuickBooks, NetSuite, Sage, and Navision will be key. Coupled with an efficient picking and packing of goods, these basics of fulfillment need to be at their best to react quickly and take advantage of new opportunities.
Take your future into your own hands.
The operative phrase lately is “new normal” and that sense of new normalcy will take time to be established. In the meantime, jewelry vendors can either devise their own new and novel selling schemes or be positioned to quickly participate and monopolize on someone else’s. This is a time to think and act out of the box – way out of the box because “the box” is not what it once was and we’re not entirely sure what it will end up being. Not unlike building a boat when you are already traveling in the water, the jewelry business is transitioning and those fastest to transition will be the first to benefit.
What are the options?
For almost 30 years, EDI Options has been helping the jewelry industry adapt to changing business circumstances. Adversity often creates opportunity and we work directly with jewelry business owners to help them identify and address areas for improved efficiency or outright automation. We bring our years of jewelry experience to help solve the toughest data management problems and always bring our custom toolkit because we do not believe in one-size-fits-all solutions.
