Poll: Western US Jewelry Sales Suffered Most in 2009

May 3, 2010 - PRLog -- A recent National Jeweler’s survey exploring holiday and year-end jewelry sales' performance in the United States, found that jewelry sales in the country's western states suffered the sharpest decline.  



The survey named Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming, as its "Western US bloc".



According to the poll, 32.2% of western-US jewelers said their holiday and year-end sales dropped by more than 20%, compared with only 6.5% of northeast jewelers, 15.1% of southern jewelers and 10.5% of the jewelers in the midwest.



Stuart Benjamin, President of the California Jewelers Association (CJA) said the Western states’ waning sales in 2009 were not surprising. Benjamin's own store, San Diego-based Stuart Benjamin and Co. Jewelry, suffered a 23% drop in sales, a figure he said was average among CJA members, although others fared worse, noting a 30% or higher sales dip.  



Benjamin pointed to a number of different culpable factors, including the state of California's own budget crisis, the continued competition from online jewelry vendors and low-price chains and, most notably, the housing crisis' impact on the US in general and Western states in particular.



According to data published in late January by RealtyTrac, a company specializing in the foreclosed properties market, cities in the western United States accounted for 6 of the top 10 metropolitan areas that suffered the nation’s highest foreclosure rates in 2009. RealtyTrac's data suggested that Las Vegas took the top spot, with 12.04% of the metropolitan's  housing units foreclosed, followed by Merced, California, where one in 10 homes was foreclosed.



“The housing market gave us a big, big hit. It really hurt the higher-end retailers,” Benjamin said. According to the San Diego jeweler, there are a rising number of consumers who may live in beautiful houses but are stretched to make their monthly mortgage payments and they have no expendable budget. The problem, he added, is that Americans like to live beyond their means – a factor often cited as a key cause in the economic crisis.



Another problem, he added, is that in the current economical climate in the US, consumers who can afford to buy jewelry and other high-end goods are suffering from what has become known as "luxury shame" – they feel guilty about splurging on non-essential items amid the misfortunes of others.



“This is the first recession that I’ve seen that happen,” he said. “In other recessions, people still went out and spent money. This recession, people with the money are holding on to it.”



Jon Bridge, Co-CEO of Ben Bridge Jeweler, told National Jeweler that the 73-store retail chain’s holiday sales figures were weaker in certain Western states, including California and Arizona. Holiday sales at the chain’s Texas stores were altogether flat, but they were up in Minnesota, a relatively new market for the company, Bridge said.



Bridge also believes that the depressed housing market bears much of the responsibility for slumping sales. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), nationwide unemployment in the US reached 9.7% in February 2010. State-by-state segmentation found that two Western states – Nevada and California – were in the top 10 for unemployment rankings, with jobless rates reaching 13% and 12.4% respectively.



Other states suffering high unemployment rates in February were Oregon (11%), Washington (9.5%) and Idaho (9.1%), while Midwest states seemed to be suffering the least with North Dakota's jobless rates being the lowest, at 4.4%.

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