It’s All Happening at The Plumb Club

The Plumb Club is always a must-see neighborhood at the JCK show, and 2022 is certainly no exception. Aside from having some of the most comfortable carpet to set your weary feet on, it offers a stellar list of exhibiting brands and a wealth of learning experiences.

This year, the new Retail Innovations section (located within the pavilion) showcases cutting-edge platforms and new products and services, all intended to help retailers run their businesses better. Walk through for a chance to see three companies demonstrate important innovations: Leslie McGwire & Associates, an interior design company; Glass-Media, which creates innovative, high-tech display elements for jewelry stores, such as 3D holograms and projection-based illumination; and Picup Media, a company that offers solutions for creative jewelry images and videos to help retailers connect with their customers in the digital landscape. 

In addition, the Plumb Club pavilion will offer demonstrations on its TPC-365 platform, with a virtual tour of the Jewelers Resource Center.

We talked with Michael O’Connor, marketing director for the Plumb Club, and Lawrence Hess, its executive director, about what to expect from the Plumb Club at the JCK show in Las Vegas this year and beyond.

The Plumb Club has some very exciting offerings planned for this year! The Retail Innovation Center at the show seems to focus a lot on in-store operations. After two years of high focus on online sales, how important do you foresee the in-store experience to be post-COVID?

Lawrence Hess: As you know, the Plumb Club’s mission is to help educate and innovate within the industry. We feel it’s essential to expose jewelry retailers to the newest and the best, whether that is in information and research, our member’s products, or other outside resources that can help them do better business in today’s environment. These new innovations will be housed in the Retail Innovation Center within the Plumb Club pavilion, at booth PC-240.

Post-COVID, whether that is in-store or online, we see multiple opportunities for the retailer to “wow” the customer, so we focused on bringing a few of the most important retail tools together. Whether that is creating desire pre-store visit via virtual try-on, in-store with cutting-edge digital display, enticing and effective store design, or ensuring that a jeweler has resources at the click of a mouse to aid in training, knowledge, reference materials, or sourcing. 

COVID-19 has certainly been a catalyst for many changes in our industry. In fact, in the Plumb Club research study that we conducted in 2021, we learned a lot about what was changing. We are planning another research study for 2022 and will be delving further into the impact and consumer mind shift and what that means for the retailer.

Tell us a bit about the offerings in the Retail Innovation Center. It’s intriguing to hear about things like 3D projections on jewelry displays and holograms (via Glass-Media), and so vital for business owners to learn about photography and putting their best digital feet forward (via Picup Media).

Michael O’Connor: We tried to approach the Retail Innovation Center with a 360-degree view of what a retailer needs to satisfy consumer desire, how they might trigger consumer response and create an impact, and how to keep abreast of the newest information and training. 

We started with finding solutions for a retailer to put their best foot forward during the consumer research quest even before a customer sets foot in the store. We know from our own Plumb Club research that consumers do a lot of preliminary research when looking for jewelry, and we learned that a retailer’s website was one of the highest influences. Therefore, we looked for the most innovative company that could help retailers impress a customer even before they got in the door. We decided upon Picup Media, a company that helps retailers connect and tell stories with creative images and videos that sell. They also have a GemLightbox that creates images with no special equipment and image retouching through the cloud. We were also hugely impressed by their Augmented Reality Virtual Try-On software that allows consumers to view jewelry either on a model or on themselves.

We then went on to how a retailer can put their best foot forward in person, in the retail environment. We found Leslie McGwire & Associates, an award-winning designing firm that has won 25 national design awards. She specializes in helping retailers best support a positive image and reputation through their store design. She also provides turn-key interior design assistance for both new and remodeled spaces. 

Once in store, we wanted to seek the most innovative ideas in visual displays. This led us to Glass-Media who brings together movement, technology, and design. They have groundbreaking digital display elements that include 3D holograms and digital projection into jewelry displays and onto glass.

For those who aren’t already familiar, give us a quick overview of the Jewelers Resource Center. How can retailers take advantage of this free tool?

Hess: The Jewelers Resource Center is part of TPC-365 and a legacy gift to the industry at large from the Plumb Club. It’s being provided free of charge and open to the entire industry for the purposes of shaping the future of the industry via education supplied by a variety of reputable and expert sources. Within the Jewelers Resource Center, visitors will discover myriad jewelry education and reference material in a variety of learning formats, such as auditory, written, and visual. In addition, news headlines, reference materials (charts/tables, articles, helpful links), and jewelry-related service providers can be accessed and sourced. (Get a quick tour explaining all of the benefits here: plumbclub.com/jewelers-resource-ctr/.)

TPC-365 is still a new offering from the Plumb Club. Can you describe it a bit for the retailers who don’t know about it? Will you be offering a demonstration at the show?

Hess: TPC-365 is a groundbreaking and innovative platform that had been on the Plumb Club’s strategic agenda for a number of years. The purpose was to provide retailers access to our membership of world-class suppliers 365 days a year, allowing them to explore our members, learn about their companies, view company product offerings, and learn about that company’s retail support tools and programs. Additionally, we wanted it to be a revolutionary virtual product meeting platform that gave the retailer total control over how they shop and view pieces, just as if it were an in-person meeting. TPC-365 was customized exclusively for the Plumb Club by BOSS Logics, a leading provider of web-based business solutions, on their Together platform. The result goes far beyond the videoconferencing and screen-sharing platforms that are currently being used. And best of all is, the retailer does not need to download anything. They simply request a meeting and click on the link that is sent to them.

Retailers looking to learn more can receive a demonstration at the JCK show.

Tell us about the graduating students that will be taking part in the JCK show this year, as a part of your Plumb Club/Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) “Shaping the Future” program.

O’Connor: A few years ago, the Plumb Club began a program with FIT called “Shaping the Future,” which is one of our vision statements. Most of the students who enroll in the jewelry program at FIT have the desire to make their career in the industry, but often they have very little knowledge of the industry and in many cases very little experience. There are various components to the program such as mentoring, which partners students with experienced jewelry professionals for the purpose of guiding them; internships, which help students gain experience; highlighting the newest talent coming into the industry; and exposure, providing three top students with the ability to actually experience the jewelry industry (often for the first time) at the most important jewelry show in the United States, JCK.

This year, three top students from the program were chosen to come to the show, meet retailers and manufacturers, and explore their jewelry passion. They will be helping us in the Plumb Club Pavilion by providing tours of the Jewelers Resource Center at the Retail Innovation Center at PC-240.

It’s a big year for JCK—its 30th anniversary! How will the Plumb Club be celebrating?

Hess: The Plumb Club will be helping JCK celebrate its incredible 30-year milestone with a cocktail party throughout the pavilion on Saturday, June 11 from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. We will have wine and cheese, a cake-cutting ceremony, and a toast to JCK. All retailers are welcome!