WHAT IF a loupe is a better parting gift than a brochure? What if your store’s playlist should be built around 2009? And what happens when a jeweler writes a profanity-laced book — and it becomes his best closing tool? The August edition of INSTORE features a deep dive into boomerang bridal selling, a preview of America’s Coolest Stores 2026, columns on AI deployment and the natural-vs.-lab sales training gap, and a Real Deal that will make you rethink your custom-order paperwork. Here are 13 of our favorite takeaways.

BRIDAL SALES

1. Give them the book, not the brochure.

When an engagement ring shopper says “I need to think about it” and heads for the door, most jewelers hand them a 4Cs brochure. Andy Koehn of Koehn & Koehn in West Bend, WI, hands them a book — his own The Inappropriate Guide to Buying an Engagement Ring. Amazon’s description warns about “raw language” and notes it’s “not recommended for those who faint at four-letter words.” The book wasn’t conceived as a sales tool, but that’s what it became. Shoppers who walked out clutching it came back at a dramatically higher rate — Koehn is closing those sales about 10 days later with a close rate above 85 percent. He’s since developed a starter pack for other jewelers. “Most people who come back never mention the book,” Koehn says. “They just come back.”

BRIDAL SALES

2. Hand them a loupe on the way out.

Alan Perry at Perry’s Emporium in Wilmington, NC, gives departing engagement ring shoppers a loupe, teaches them how to use it, and tells them to keep it. “We get a 90% return on them coming back in,” Perry reports. It costs almost nothing. It signals expertise. And it gives them a reason to come back that has nothing to do with a sales pitch.

BRIDAL SALES

3. Tell them to visit your competitors.

Mary Jo Chanski, a manager at Hannoush Jewelers in Rutland, VT, tells engagement ring shoppers outright to go visit her competitors. “I remind them that no matter what they’re spending, it’s a big decision and they need to feel good about it.” She puts her cell phone number on her card and tells them to reach out with questions about any store they visit. It’s a move that communicates confidence and generosity at the same time — and it works because most customers don’t expect it.

BRIDAL SALES

4. Stop steering. Start asking.

Sherry Smith says too many salespeople enter the bridal conversation with a predetermined recommendation. Some immediately steer customers toward natural diamonds. Others quickly move them into lab-grown because it feels easier or offers a larger look for the money. Both approaches fall short. Great bridal selling has never been about leading customers to your preferred answer — it’s about asking enough questions to discover theirs. Is it budget? Size? Tradition? Perceived value? And don’t leave dollars on the table: if a customer walks in prepared to spend $10,000 or $20,000, your team shouldn’t immediately redirect them to a lower-ticket lab-grown sale. Show them what their budget can accomplish in both categories.

STRATEGY

5. Set your store’s playlist to 2009–2016.

Peter Smith heard the head of Octopus Energy UK describe how they overcame their biggest customer complaint: on-hold music. The fix? They programmed the hold music to play the number one song from the year each customer was 14 years old — the sweet spot of when music makes its biggest imprint on us. Smith says jewelers can steal the principle. If your average bridal customer is 28 or 29, reverse-engineer the playlist to when they were most impressionable to music: roughly 2009 through 2016. ChatGPT can build the soundtrack. Keep the volume below 70 decibels.

BRIDAL SALES

6. The walkout is step one — not a lost sale.

For decades, the conventional wisdom was that a shopper who walked out without buying was a lost sale. That theory demands an update. According to the 2026 Knot Survey, most engagement ring shoppers visit at least two stores over four months and consider 10 rings before committing. Marc Friedant, CEO of Robbins Brothers, estimates eight out of 10 come in one to three months before they’re ready to buy — and that first interaction, if you’re going for the close, will very often turn them off. “Our goal is to make them feel they have found the right partner to go through the journey with rather than to close a transaction,” he says.

COMMUNICATION

7. Ban “just” from your store.

“I’m just calling to check in.” “It’s just a little pendant.” “I just wanted to see if you were interested.” Every time your staff uses “just,” they’re minimizing — themselves, the product, or the customer’s decision. Former Google executive Ellen Petry Leanse wrote about banning the word at work and watching her team’s communication become noticeably more direct and confident. Try it for two weeks. Same sentences. Entirely different energy. Your customers won’t consciously notice the change. But they’ll feel it.

CLIENTELING

8. Text the thank-you the same day — and build a wish list during the visit.

Janelle Mead of Harris Jewelers in Rio Rancho, NM, creates customer accounts with wish lists during the visit itself, capturing ring preferences and finger sizes. Then she texts — not emails — a thank-you the same day, with a follow-up a week later. “It’s nice having the wish list because they don’t always remember what they looked at, and we can get the ball rolling again pretty quickly when they come back or ask questions.”

TECHNOLOGY

9. Answer five questions before you deploy AI.

Jennifer Shaheen says the first question most jewelers ask about AI is “What tools should I use?” — and it’s the wrong first question. Before deploying any AI agent in your business, answer these five: Do I have a current backup? Do I understand how the system functions well enough to guide the AI? Do I know exactly what the agent can access? Have I clearly written down what I want it to do? Is there a review step before changes are implemented? If you can say yes to all five, you’re ready. If not, an agent set up to update 200 product listings overnight might also create 200 new products you don’t have in stock by morning.

MARKETING

10. Give every teacher a $100 gift card.

Chae Carter of Carter’s Collective Fine Jewelry in Hattiesburg, MS, calls herself “a marketer with a jewelry store, not a jeweler trying to market.” Her boldest campaign: giving $100 gift cards to every teacher at local schools — no exclusions, no minimums, no expiration dates. The gesture moved some teachers to tears and brought in 3,000 new clients averaging $650 per purchase. She’s just as inventive with slow seasons, refunding purchases during local college football games based on unpredictable events like a punt-return touchdown — a promotion that doubled year-over-year sales in its first year and tripled them the next.

SALES

11. Place the favorite on your right.

Customer torn between two items? Place their favorite on your right. Shane Decker says this simple trick increases closing ratios by 50 percent. When calling another salesperson over for reassurance, everyone must know: preferred item always goes right. “You’re not setting anyone up for failure,” Decker says. Make it store policy today.

BRIDAL SALES

12. Sketch the celebrity ring by Monday morning.

Courtney Sivard, director of marketing at BC Clark Jewelers in Oklahoma City, describes her team’s response when Taylor Swift’s engagement ring hit the news: “We had our in-house graphic designer sketch out the ring, had a CAD made of it, and we were able to say, ‘Look, we can get this for you.'” Then she posted the sketches and CAD on Instagram. Gen Z shoppers walk in with opinions formed by what they’ve been watching on TikTok for months. “One of the simplest things retailers can do is equip their sales team with talking points,” Sivard says. If a client mentions a celebrity ring, your associates should be able to explain the diamond shape, setting style, and customization options — and show comparable pieces in the showcase.

BRIDAL SALES

13. Think of the first visit as a first date — not a closing opportunity.

This one runs against a lot of classic sales advice printed in the pages of this very magazine — that you should always ask for the sale, always close, and that a customer who walks out without buying is a customer you’ve lost forever. But a growing number of bridal specialists are finding that the...

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