From Oliver Reichenstein:
If your offer is exceptional, your price can and should be. If you offer an exceptional product at low price it will be perceived and treated as a low value product, no matter how amazing it is.
Every now and again, my two favorite worlds of luxury and geekery collide. It is nearly impossible to draw a straight line between a Mac writing tool and the world of fine jewelry, however this quote from ia Writer owner Oliver Reichenstein seems so relevant to a growing challenge facing jewelers today. The ever present issue of price.
As information continues to become easily available on the web, price quickly becomes the center of many jewelry counter conversations. More often than not, we focus on the inherent value of the metals, the rarity of the stone, the quality of the craftsmanship. What we neglect to emphasize is the service and the in store experience. I’ve always believed that finding the cross roads between luxury product and luxury service is what is going to set retailers apart.
Great service from a company selling great products deserves a reasonable premium. In fact, it requires it. If you are charging bottom dollar, chances are that your experience is suffering and service is costly. On the other hand As Reichenstein reminds us at the end of his post, that premium has a limit:
The right price for a product is the highest price you can ask for, but with one condition: that your customers remain happy after they buy it.
Finding the right balance of price, premium and experience is no easy feat, but it is what it is going to take for brick and mortar jewelers to maintain their dominance in the face of emerging e-tailers and wired in consumers.
