Tom Shane's World

I have been in Bangkok more weeks this year than ever in my life. Things there are really exciting. I use that word cautiously, as a ruby and sapphire buyer. ‘Exciting’ means, in reality, that the wholesale precious stone markets are in a bit of a chaotic state. There is a real shortage of fine quality stones. Demand is very strong, and prices are rising dramatically. This makes my job particularly difficult. Not only do I struggle to find top quality stones, but I then need to be sure that I am not overpaying for them. The only way to find out is to hold firm on my offering prices, and see if the sellers actually refuse my offers. If they do, then I have wasted time and not purchased the parcel that I like; but at the same time I will have educated myself on the reality of the price increases. I guess most people don’t consider that ‘exciting’, but then most people don’t enjoy the hassle of bargaining. (That’s why Shane Co. offers the right price to begin with, and we don’t bargain with our customers.)

Meanwhile, I also have been busy with our jewelry factory here in Bangkok. We are designing a new line of pendants, which will be out in a few months. I have been personally actively working on this line, and it will be unique. I am putting a French flair to it; and expect to generate a lot of excitement when this collection debuts.

We are also busy expanding my Couples Collection, as the demand for these unique styles of bridal and wedding jewelry has exceeded our expectations. We have an entire collection where the lady’s ring (or rings) is unique and feminine, and a man’s wedding band compliments it so people can see the similarities; yet at the same time the man’s ring is masculine and handsome. Finding the right balance is really tricky, and our customers love the tie-in between his and hers, yet don’t feel foolish like they are wearing matching outfits!

One of the unique sets from our Couples Collection.

We continue to expand our fashion jewelry business at Shane Co., and I have been busy in Bangkok creating new products for that purpose. Our buying team just returned from Hong Kong, where they were at the world’s largest jewelry show. Besides the product that our own Bangkok factory produces, they buy most of our styles from the leading jewelry manufactures throughout the world. The styles we have in stock now demonstrate the fact that all of this travel and extra effort really does pay off, as our customers keep supporting our family business. And for that, my son Rordan (who runs things in America while I am in Asia) and I remain grateful.

Happy 2012!  I am pleased that another year has gone by where I feel good about the work that we’ve been performing at Shane Co.  It has been a very busy year for us.  I have visited 17 of our 20 stores in the past 10 weeks, and feel like I have the strongest grip on our company that I’ve ever had.  As I’ve mentioned in the past, my job technically lands me a desk in our Home Office, but in the retail business, the only action that exists is at the stores.  Therefore, my travels as of late really gave me perspective on the course that we spent the first three quarters charting.

In last year’s blog around this time I mentioned the economy.  I cited that I believed that although newspaper and television headlines had continued to be grim and negative in nature with regards to economic data, I thought that consumer sentiment was on the uptick.  Speaking to our customers around the country these past few months, I finally stopped hearing negative comments with regards to everyday, real-life stories.  The past few years, we’d see, for example, customers coming into our store to return a product.  Although our return policy is a hassle-free 60 day money-back guarantee, we still always ask the reason for a returned product.  The main reason is to ensure that we didn’t fall short of consumer expectations with pricing, quality of the merchandise, or the like.  At any rate, the percentage of returns that were being brought back for economic reasons (recently lost a job, buyer’s remorse over purchasing jewelry, etc…) has almost completely been eliminated.  I am not naïve, and do know that economic times are less than easy, to put it lightly, but my anecdotal ‘research’ is being supported by world newspapers regarding the state of the US economy, which was not the case 12 months ago in my blog reflecting back on 2010.  Good news, and continued progress, in my opinion.

As for our focus at Shane Co. this past year, we have been focused more than anything on the caliber of our team members.  My father Tom and I have always felt like strong employees is the only true differentiation a company can have that someone else can’t copy.  Our free lifetime warranty can be copied by others (it hasn’t been yet), our merchandise trade-in policy, our return policy, and our low-pricing, high volume strategy are all things that can easily be copied should someone desire to someday do so.  In the end, our true advantage is our people, and customer service is our upper hand which can only be gained through hard work and a company culture that is constantly being molded, monitored, and I believe improved upon.  I view this never-ending charge as 80% of my job as company Executive Vice President.  After all, it is said that people may not remember what they paid for something, what occasion it was purchased for, or even what the product was exactly, but they’ll always remember how you made them feel during their experience.  This is true with a vacation, a restaurant, or when buying jewelry.

We are very excited for our prospects in the upcoming year ahead.  Our technical advances this past year have taken us from 2005 to 2013 in a 12 month span, and we look forward to continuing to advance ourselves to remain the best place to buy jewelry in the country.

Wishing everybody a happy, and most important healthy, New Year ahead in 2012.

I am writing this, sitting on a short flight from Salt Lake City, UT to Sacramento, CA.  Actually, had the captain’s seat not broken causing our delay, it would have been an even shorter flight…but those of you that fly often can certainly relate to this situation.  Last week, I was in four of our stores, and this week I will be in three more.  Visiting the stores is one of the more fun parts of my job, and also one of the most important.

When I visit our stores I get to renew acquaintances with the staff, many of whom have been with us for years.  I also get to meet the new members of our team.  Besides keeping the important feeling of a family owned business engrained on everyone’s mind, I evaluate the judgment of those doing the hiring of our newest team members.  They are our Company’s future, after all.

I also mingle with a few of the customers.  I sort of interject myself, deliberately selecting those situations where I can then discuss, after hours with the whole team, what I saw and why I wanted to get involved.  To me, these opportunities both allow me to learn how our customers are thinking, and allow me to teach our team, via demonstrations, how I want these situations handled in the future.

But the real benefit I gain from visiting the stores is to see how we are performing, from the customers’ perspective.  I love to understand why customers react as they do, to our products.  Also, how they truly feel about our policies, and all other things that are within our control, as well.  After each store visit, I go out to dinner with the management team of that store.  That way, we can discuss with specificity all of the things I observed.  I love to challenge them on why they did or did not suggest a particular item to the ‘lady in the red sweater’.  Of course, my real issue is to be sure that they are using proper logic in dealing with each customer.

We firmly believe that the customer’s experience is what they will use to determine whether they buy from us or not.  It is also what they will remember over the years, as they have future jewelry needs and as they choose to recommend our company to their friends or not.  In addition to my son and me, we have 5 other executives that are constantly traveling to our 20 stores.  This may seem excessive to some…but when the customer compares their experience with us to other stores, we feel it more than pays for itself.