As we close out another holiday season, we at the Jeweler Website Advisory Group hope that all our readers experienced a successful holiday season.
How were your bridal sales this season? A recent study shows that only 51% of Americans are married, and that number is declining. The study also shows that other countries around the world are seeing a decline in the number of married couples. Visit this Bitly link to read more about this study: http://bit.ly/vR22pz
With this marriage study in mind we took a close look at trends for "engagement rings" this season to see if we could find any correlation of online interest that agrees with the study.
Online interest in engagement rings shows a slight rise in from October 2011 to December 22, 2011, and there's certainly more interest than Q2 and Q3 of 2011. When looking at all online Google data back through 2004, we see that 2011 did have a higher search volume than the past few years.
Stepping back from Google for a moment, we then looked at what BlueNile did during this holiday season. They sent out 19 emails spanning from November 14th to December 22nd and only 2 of those emails were specifically advertising engagement rings. Five of their emails were general ads, four were showing various jewelry items (non rings), and three emails were specifically showing earrings. The BlueNile website also heavily advertised general jewelry this season.
Perhaps BlueNile's presentation is a hint at a change in the coming years. They are probably advertising to their greatest sales potential. During this recent Great Recession, many jewelers had to diversify into lower price point jewelry. If this decline in marriage continues, many jewelers who specialize in bridal may need to think about diversifying again.
It's food for thought and perhaps reasons enough to closely examine your website's visitor trends from the last 12 months. Listen to your customers and answer the online requests that you find hidden in your website traffic.
And to all, a good night!
