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How Cindi Earl, Nashville’s ‘Pearl Girl,’ Wins With Wearable Fashion Jewelry | April 08, 2015 (0 comments)
Nashville, TN—Cindi Earl of Cindi Earl Fine Jewelry loves jewelry. All sorts of jewelry. But most of all, she loves pearls.
“Pearls are my favorite,” says Earl. “I’m a pearl girl; there’s not a pearl created that I don’t like. When I go off to a show, my sisters says, ‘Don’t buy any more pearls.’ And then when I return, she asks, ‘How many pearls did you buy?’ I come in with bags of them. They are everywhere. They never go out of style. They can be funky and classic. They are affordable. You can make pearls be hip hop or couture.”
Of course, pearls are not the only jewelry category that Earl sells in her Nashville store. Her 1,650 square foot store specializes in wearable jewels in a wide variety of price points. “When I started in jewelry 24 years ago, we had some wonderful stores here in Nashville. But none of them had fashion jewelry that you could wear. That was my main focus then and still is today. A piece you can buy for yourself.”
Earl always made sure that she had plenty of $200 fine jewelry items for the female self-purchaser. However, with the price of gold today, that perfect price point is hard to find; a minor roadblock that does not deter Earl. “It’s harder to find now, but that doesn’t mean we don’t look for it,” she says. “As a retailer, if you come into my store, I want to you have something real; real gold, real silver. Not vermeil, plated or overlay.” Earl is a purist, pointing out that many fashion bloggers today say things are gold when they are only gold colored.
Earls merchandise mix is primarily fashion-forward fine jewelry. “I carry lots of diamonds and larger diamond rings, but I’m not a bridal house." Her customers fall into two general categories, according to Earl: female self-purchasers and the ones who say ‘this is what I want, honey,' to their significant others.
Cindi Earl inside her store.
Earl, like most jewelers, has had her own ups and downs. “In 2007, my business was cut in half, almost to the penny. I prayed a lot. Sometimes I just sat and breathed; it was a tough year. That year, I didn’t go to shows or anywhere. I spent all the money I had paying vendors.”
Earls says she has an old fashioned sense of responsibility, especially about money. “You owe it, you pay it when you said you would,” she says. Her diligence paid off. She emerged from that time with her vendor business relationships intact. “I need them as much as they need me. I have wonderful relationships. I wouldn’t have made it without them.”
This past Christmas was the best Earl had ever had, although not the best year. Why? Perhaps part of it was that Earl had changed her overall business pattern, doing almost the opposite of years past.
“I bought differently,” admits Earl. “I bought heavy coming out of the previous Christmas, since I had a little money left over. I bought heavy at Centurion and skipped the mid-year shows. Since I started in business, if I had inventory it was on display in the case. I did not do that last year. I took my bit of extra Christmas money and bought from the people I’d always wanted to buy from. And then I paid for it and put it away. It didn’t come out until after our annual summer sale. And it sold. I went into last November not owing a soul.”
Earl says being debt-free made all the difference. “I found I was a much better owner, a better employer, a better salesperson, all because that sword was not hanging over my head.” The experience has made Earl a better buyer. “I used to buy one pair of earrings in each color when I found a style I like. Now I pick a few. I edit my choices.”
Cindi Earl Fine Jewelry holds an annual sale. “It’s in summer, a one time sale in July. Everything is on sale. The store is 20% off and old jewelry is 75% off.” The sale is always a hit. For Earl, the biggest difference after the sale last year was the openness in the showcases. “It was amazing what sold last fall,” said Earl. “Customers could actually see it because our cases were less full than usual.” Earl put in the inventory she had kept back and it sold.
Earl isn’t advertising too much these days. She prefers to contact her customers directly and through mailed invitations to the store’s various trunk shows. (Click here to read how Earl gets her customer’s attention with her mailings.) She also works her email list, although she is careful not to overload clients with emails. “It’s amazing if they get four emails a year from us,” says Earl. She’s also experimenting with social media, although she admits she’s not always doing such a great job.
Earl runs a small, efficient store. “There are always two people in the store, and two days a week there are three.” The third is Earl’s sister and those are the days she can come in late or leave early. The small staff has a great time together. “We laugh a lot and have a great time.”
Earl came into jewelry in her 30’s. “I had several life-changing events in my own life,” says Earl. “In a short period of time, my father, my brother and then my mother died. I had to decide what to do next. It was time to grow up and get a real job. I knew I still loved jewelry and for some reason, I knew about GIA. One day I made the decision to call them and do the program. I thought I’d work for someone else, but realized the pay wasn’t that great. So I opened my own place inside a ladies’ designer clothing store.” Earl and her eight jewelry cases were there for 11 years.
She opened her own freestanding location after that in an old bank building that is now split into two parts; Earl is in one (below). She’s been in that same spot for the last 13 years with plenty of parking out the front or back door.
So what is Earl’s favorite part about the jewelry business? “Remembering the reason you did it in the first place,” laughs Earl. “I love jewelry and everyone once in a while I get reminded of that. I love it all.” And especially those pearls.