One of the latest crazes to surface in the United States are ‘sample sales’, during which retail businesses sell off their excess merchandise, samples, or slow-selling goods, at seemingly spur-of-the-moment one-off sales sessions, www.israelidiamond.co.il reports. According to the portal, products are typically sold at heavily-discounted prices.
Sample sales typically focus on the fashion industry, though jewelry sample sales are quite common, offering discounted high-end diamond jewelry. Due to the huge popularity of sample sales, product offerings have naturally expanded beyond fashion items to household goods, wines, and even travel.
Each sample sale tends to run for about 24 to 48 hours, or until all the goods are sold out. Since inventory is often limited and some sales are extremely popular, some items sell out in a matter of minutes or even seconds.
The trend is taking off online as well, with numerous websites offering sample sales, or offering information on upcoming sample sales. Many of the sample sales are touted as being by invite only or by exclusive membership of a club or group. For example, JewelClub, run by www.jewelry.com, specifies that it is a ‘member only website’, serving its employees and their invited friends and family.
The JewelClub website explains that its products change on a daily basis and that the availability of certain items is limited. The exclusive membership or ‘by invite only’ nature of sample sales, coupled with the not-so-subtle message of ‘if you don’t buy it now, there might not be any left’, encourages consumers to part ways quickly with their hard-earned cash.
JewelClub offers diamond jewelry to its members at prices significantly reduced from the retail price. For example, a 1 carat diamond heart pendant, with a retail price of $1,679.00 is being sold at the reduced price of $508.69. On top of that, the website offers a daily deal, reducing prices of goods even further. The 1 carat diamond heart pendant specified above was being offered for $399.92 as a one-time only offer.
The ‘daily deal’ works in the same manner as another trend that has hit the United States (and the rest of the world, including Israel) – group buying at huge discounts. Websites such as groupon.com in the United States, or coupona.co.il or groupa.co.il in Israel, negotiate massive discounts with merchandisers and are thus able to entice thousands of purchases by consumers.
The popularity of this trend should not be underestimated – the Groupon website was launched in November 2008, and current rumors suggest that Google is offering billions of dollars to buy the company.
So, is this good news or bad news for the diamond jewelry sector? On one hand, discounting reduces both the profit margin and may cheapen the emotional values associated with diamonds. On the other hand, such methods allow retailers to dispense of goods that might be impossible to sell otherwise, even at a monetary loss. It also encourages consumers to spend their money – which can only be regarded as a positive sign in these times of financial uncertainty.
Whatever of these two scenarios holds to be truer, one thing is certain: the growing concept of consumer sales online, and the phenomenon of discount buying, powered by group buying, is here to stay.
