Overall sales dollars increased by 6 per cent ($18 million) from 1 to 15 December compared with $17.1 million for the same period last year and a significant increase by 34 per cent ($13.4 million) when measured against 2019.
While the uptrend was mainly driven by a 10 per cent increase on average retail based on inventory, sales volume declined by 4.5 per cent compared with last year.
The top-performing category based on average sale was colour gemstone-set precious metal jewellery, which increased by 31 per cent, followed by silver and alternative metal jewellery which saw an increase by 21 per cent.
Trailing closely was non-stone precious jewellery with 20 per cent.
Surprisingly, diamond precious metal jewellery was the bottom performer based on average sales, which declined by 4.3 per cent ($2.6 million) compared with the same period last year at $2.8 million.
In November, diamond-set jewellery sales performed significantly and became the factor in driving average sales for the month due to strong consumer demand.
According to Mike Dyer, sales manager, Retail Edge, “It’s a pleasantly surprising result given that there was such an outstanding growth result in November and I wondered if in fact some of the December sales had been ‘dragged’ forward and happened in November.”
Dyer explained that, “At this early point, that does not appear to be the case so bring on the second half of December when historically a store would have around 50 per cent of December's sales dollars between the 16th and the 24th.
“Whatever the result is, there will be some stores up and some stores flat or down. It’s in your hands now as to which group you end up in,” he added.
Retail Edge’s data is gathered from its POS software across more than 400 Australian independent retail jewellery stores. It is intended to present a representative sample of the wider jewellery industry.
2021 Jewellery Retail Sales mid-December Results
Charts published with permission courtesy of Retail Edge
The charts below are based on data collected via Retail Edge POS software
at more than 400 independent Australian jewellery stores.
More reading
Consumer demand for jewellery seen to drive strong December trading
Positive outlook in jewellery sales expected for Christmas