Becoming A Jewelry Sherpa
“Sherpa originally meant the tribe in Nepal whose social custom was to provide humane and courageous mountain guides to outsiders.” Urban Dictionary
As a verb it means “To serve as a guide or porter for another.” Definitions.net
Here’s an idea: What if you could be a Sherpa to your ultimate retail customers? As a Sherpa, you would guide and educate customers, assisting them in finding the ideal piece of jewelry for their specific, distinctive and individual needs, style and price point. Your goal would be to help them find something reflecting who they are, and not just be part of the crowd. Just for today, think about discovering your inner Sherpa, the ultimate guide to the perfect piece of jewelry.
And how do you do this? By educating and offering your clientele a broader selection of jewelry – and not in just the usual categories of jewelry such as pins, rings, pendants, earrings, bracelets, etc.. You can offer and promote designer and art jewelry to your clients too. Think of your store and the merchandise you offer more as a curated collection of work, which reflects your store, business, brand and your differentiator from other jewelry stores. Think of yourself as a Sherpa, or as a retail curator.
Design Categories
Think about jewelry not by the predictable categories which of course are essential, but to also think about design categories such as basic classical jewelry, fashion jewelry, designer jewelry, and art jewelry. Here is how you should be defining these categories in your store and to your customers:
Designer Jewelry: These are pieces that are more avant garde, cutting-edge but still beautifully crafted, engineered to be wearable, often in gold and silver or alternative metals such as steel or processes such as mokume gane but always created with the ultimate customer in mind.
Art Jewelry: Uses materials that are not common to traditional jewelry makers such as plastic, glass, wood, paper or using found objects. These statement pieces are usually worn for special occasions and events.
Fashion Jewelry: In this trendy category, pieces often go in and out of style in a shorter time frame. The designers who create these pieces know that they might only last a season. They are created as ornamentation to complement a particular fashionable costume or garment unlike fine or designer jewelry which may be regarded primarily as collectibles, keepsakes, or investments.
Classical/Traditional/Fine Jewelry: These are pieces that are like old friends, you haven’t seen them for a while, but they are still smart looking and bring back wonderful memories.
A New Way To View Jewelry
This information will allow you to brand and present your merchandise in a whole new and exciting light. It also helps your customer to think about what they need, not only as something to fill their basic requirements, but to reflect their own individual senses, experiences, stories, spirit, style and preferences. The customer becomes an integral part of the process on a much deeper, profound and personal level. Provide your customer thoughtfully conceived and created jewelry. Jewelry that reflects who they are not just to themselves but a visual statement to the outside world. We all know that since the beginning of time jewelry has been about wearable art, and we want to carry on that tradition and philosophy. We encourage you to promote and honor this basic truth about jewelry.
You are their Sherpa in discovering their voice and vision. Be a more active participant in this deeply personal experience, instead of just going online and ordering an engagement ring. And if they want something that is simple, classic and clean, we have an extraordinary collection of that as well.
This is your opportunity to bring your knowledge, insights, passion and recommendations to the conversation thus taking it to a new level. And we are here to help you with this process. We are your Sherpas just as you are your customers’. We are all in this together, to ensure your customer has the jewelry and experience they want and deserve.