Amazon announced the grand opening of its new Jewelry Store. According to the announcement, jewelry product margins are traditionally high in order to cover the costs of holding inventory, renting store space, and providing display cases, a professional sales force and security. "Because Amazon.com does not incur many of these costs, the company is able to significantly reduce the margin on its products. While the average margin in jewelry retailing is approximately 45 to 50 percent, Amazon.com targets substantially lower margins on jewelry sales, and lower still - about 13 percent - on diamond jewelry."
Amazon said it is providing a Web site feature that makes it easy for customers to inform Amazon if they find a lower price on a comparable product from another reputable seller. If a lower price is verified, Amazon will reduce its price on its Web site to benefit all customers, not just the customer reporting the lower price.
Each piece of jewelry sold by Amazon.com is inspected by jewelry professionals to verify quality attributes and ensure an excellent product. Customers will find detailed product specifications about the gemstones, settings and metal stamps. Amazon.com also offers a "Create a Diamond Ring" feature with which customers can find the right diamond engagement ring based on their choices of diamond shape, carat size, color/clarity and setting style. A Learning Center provides buying guides for pearls, diamonds, precious metals and watches. Many of the diamonds and gemstones in the store are independently certified to be a specific cut, clarity, color, shape and weight. The store also provides Amazon features like Customer Reviews, Top Sellers, So You'd Like To and Listmania.
The Amazon.com Jewelry Store offers a selection of more than 75,000 unique items. To provide this large breadth of selection, Amazon.com has teamed with jewelry merchants and designers to offer fine jewelry, fashion jewelry, designer jewelry, casual watches, sport watches, luxury timepieces and accessories.
