Cathy Elward, vice president of Tiffany's Central Region, said Tiffany has been eyeing the Cleveland market for years, but couldn't find a space it liked until this one, at Eton Chagrin Boulevard in Woodmere.
WOODMERE, Ohio -- Tiffany & Co., the world's second-largest luxury jewelry retailer, will open its first Cleveland-area store on Wednesday at Eton Chagrin Boulevard, inside a space formerly occupied by family-owned Berger & Silver Jewelers in Woodmere.
The extensively remodeled space, featuring floor-to-ceiling windows, trademark Tiffany Blue awnings and the company's latest store designs, is between Menchie's Frozen Yogurt and Michael Symon's B-Spot.
Tiffany won't say how much it invested in the store, but said it opens new locations with the intention of staying long-term in the community.
The Eton store, at 28699 Chagrin Boulevard in Woodmere, will be Tiffany's 93rd U.S. store and its third in Ohio. It will employ 15 people.
It will feature an edited assortment of what's available at its five-story flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York, from diamond engagement rings and leather handbags to sunglasses and fragrances.
Cathy Elward, vice president of Tiffany's Central Region, which includes 12 stores and stretches from Colorado to Pennsylvania, said Tiffany has been eyeing the Cleveland market for years, but couldn't find a space it liked until this one.
She said the company liked Eton Chagrin Boulevard because it's a premier shopping center and because the local community is vibrant and growing. The Berger & Silver store became available when the family running it retired from the jewelry business, and Tiffany signed the lease a year ago.
Tiffany opened its first Ohio store at Fountain Place in Cincinnati in 1997, followed by locations at Easton Town Center in Columbus and at Ross Park Mall in Pittsburgh in 2008. All three were drawing customers from the Cleveland area that Tiffany expects will shop at its Eton store.
"We like that we have a robust customer base in Cleveland already," Elward said.
Tiffany & Co., which reported its second-quarter earnings on Tuesday, both operates jewelry stores and manufactures products through subsidiaries. It had worldwide sales of $3.8 billion in the retail year that ended Jan. 31, up 4 percent from the previous fiscal year. Sales at stores open at least a year, a key retail metric, slipped 2 percent (3 percent at its New York flagship).
Its net income for the second quarter that ended July 31 rose 16 percent to $106.8 million, boosted by lower costs for precious materials and because Tiffany raised its retail prices. But sales in the Americas were lower than expected, because of softer purchases of its mid-priced fashion jewelry and increased competition.
As of April, Tiffany operated 275 stores and boutiques in 24 countries, including 115 in the Americas (91 in the U.S.), 66 in Asia-Pacific, 55 in Japan, 34 in Europe and five in the United Arab Emirates. The company plans to open 14 stores in fiscal 2013, including the one at Eton.
Retail consultant Robert Antall of Consumer Centric Consulting in Shaker Heights said he expects Tiffany will pick up business from Berger & Silver's former clients as well as other competitors, mostly on Cleveland's East Side."The location is good and the demographics within a 10- to 15-mile radius are excellent," he said via email. "Since few people have a 'regular jeweler,' if Tiffany markets the store well, they should have little problem obtaining new customers.
"This means in all likelihood, the local mom-and-pops and chains will feel a bit of a decline, although not huge. Sterling (Jewelers in Akron) will probably see a small impact, but when you consider how many stores they operate, this will be insignificant." Sterling, the nation's largest specialty jewelry retailer, is the parent company of Kay Jewelers, Jared the Galleria of Jewelry, J.B. Robinson and other retailers.
"I was in a Tiffany last Christmas season," Antall said. "It seems to me that Tiffany has morphed into two stores within one storefront. There is the traditional Tiffany that caters to the carriage trade and the other Tiffany that has more mass appeal (and lower prices)."
The first thing you see when you step through the heavy double-glass doors of the Eton store is the fine jewelry display salon, including an adjacent private viewing room for customers shopping for engagement rings. The private room has a full-length mirror and adjustable lights, so buyers can see how their diamonds look in candlelight, office light and direct sunshine.
Off to the left of the main salon is the fashion jewelry and accessories salon.
James Alperin, owner of the 31-year-old James Alperin Jewelers in Pepper Pike and a graduate gemologist from the Gemological Institute of America, worries that Tiffany will cut into mom-and-pop jewelry stores like his that are already losing customers to online retailers.
"I'm concerned that I'm going to be hit in the $100 to $500 gift range, the necklaces or bracelets, and that's a major part of my business," he said. "People will want to get that Tiffany blue box instead of my yellow box."
But he's less worried about losing customers for higher-priced jewelry, pointing out that smaller businesses like his don't have as much overhead or spend as much on marketing. He said that customers who compare prices will see a difference.
"I don't have huge ads in The New York Times that somebody has to pay for," he said.