Economic Indicators: Karl Sachs, Sachs Jewelers
Who are your customers?
It’s two-fold. We’re very heavily involved in the bridal business, so young professionals are really the meat and potatoes of our business. We also have an established clientele of business people and professionals in the area, ranging from blue collar to white collar corporate officials. Customers come from the Blackstone Valley, Westborough, Southborough, Marlborough, Berlin, Hudson, the Wachusett area, and even Sturbridge. But the majority of our customers are in Shrewsbury, Northborough, Boylston and Worcester.
How do you expect to close out 2010 in terms of revenues?
We’ve actually been having a good year. This year, we should end up 20 to 25 percent over 2009. Of course, 2009 wasn’t a banner year. But we’re ahead of the curve.
What are your projections for 2011?
You know I’m actually very optimistic about 2011 because I think the recession actually helped our business because it made us redefine who we are and reposition ourselves for today’s marketplace. It forced us to overhaul our business, take a closer look, and make a lot of changes in our business. As the business climate gets better, we’re in a better, stronger position.
Are you planning to do anything different in 2011 to help drive revenues?
We’re going to focus more on corporate business, corporate gifts, while staying true to the bridal market. As far as how we plan to grow the business, we’re going to shift more of our advertising dollars toward more development of website and e-commerce. We’ve spent a lot on our website, but we can’t leave it static. It needs to be constantly updated.
How did the recession impact your business?
The recession made our business stronger because it made us take a closer look at how we do business. We’ve taken a closer look at our buying and what we stock as merchants and how we merchandise. Even with gold at an all-time high, we’ve reined in our pricing structure. We’ve also refined our merchandise mix. For example, silver is so much more popular today, we’ve retooled our merchandising mix to reflect today’s consumer.
The interesting thing is that people want the best quality more so than ever before. Consumers are wiser than ever before and they really don’t need me to get a piece of jewelry. So we need to provide them a service over and above what they expect to find. An area that we’ve really developed a niche is custom creations — people want it their way more than ever before.
How are you feeling about 2011?
I’m optimistic and happy because we’re getting farther away from 2009!
WBJ Web Partners
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