Inventory Aging Reports: When To Mark Down Expensive Jewelry

How long has that $15,000 engagement ring been sitting in your showcase?

You know the one: the beautiful piece you know will be perfect for the right customer. But in the meantime, thousands of dollars of capital are tied up in a piece that won’t sell.

Every industry deals with aging inventory, but in the jewelry business, the stakes are higher. Individual pieces are massive investments, and worse, there’s a risk of becoming emotionally attached to those pieces in a way that leads to less-than-wise business decisions.

Understanding when and how to mark down expensive pieces can free up cash flow for the inventory your customers want. You just need the right strategy.

This blog covers inventory aging reports and how to use them to make better decisions when it comes to discounting key inventory.

What Are Inventory Aging Reports? Here’s Why Jewelry Stores Need Them

An inventory aging report helps you track exactly how long each piece in your store has been sitting in inventory. You can use this report to identify the pieces that perform well and the ones that drain your resources.

These reports typically organize your inventory into aging buckets (0–90 days, 91–180 days, 181–365 days, and the dreaded 365+ days category), giving you a clear snapshot of what's moving and what's not.

Jewelry retailers face a few unique challenges that make inventory aging reports even more essential:

Expensive individual pieces: Unlike a store selling $30 t-shirts, you have individual items worth tens of thousands of dollars. Each piece in your case represents significant capital that could work harder elsewhere.
Carrying costs: When pieces don’t sell, you still pay to protect them with insurance premiums, security systems, and safe deposit costs, in addition to the opportunity cost.
Fast-moving trends: What looked fresh and contemporary six months ago can feel dated today. Certain gemstone cuts fall in and out of favor. Your inventory needs to move before trends do.

The real cost of aged inventory is lost buying power. Every dollar trapped in a piece that doesn’t sell is a dollar you can't invest in the fresh, trending inventory your customers actually want.

Jewelry-Specific Aging Benchmarks

Not all jewelry ages at the same rate, and understanding category-specific benchmarks is essential for making informed decisions about when to take action. Here’s what “normal” aging looks like across major jewelry categories:

Engagement rings and bridal jewelry: These high-ticket items naturally take longer to sell; 12–18 months is normal in this category.

Fashion jewelry: This category moves fast or not at all. Six months is your maximum window before trends shift and pieces lose their appeal.

Fine jewelry with classic designs: Timeless solitaire pendants, diamond studs, and traditional pieces can sit comfortably for 12–24 months, depending on price point and your market.

Seasonal pieces: Valentine's Day hearts, Mother's Day jewelry, and holiday-themed items must clear before the end of the season, or you'll be stuck holding them for a full year.

Estate and vintage jewelry: This category plays by entirely different rules. Some pieces actually appreciate with age and rarity, while others were overvalued from the start and need immediate attention. This is a case-by-case category.

Understanding these benchmarks helps you spot problems early and discount strategically before pieces become dead stock.

The Emotional Trap

Jewelry store owners can sometimes get passionate about a specific piece. That passion is a crucial part of your role in some areas, but in this one, it can be your biggest obstacle to smart inventory management.

The trick is to recognize the emotional traps and set yourself up to break free of them. The most common emotional barriers look like this:

Pride of ownership: Some pieces, you just love. If you picked up a stunning piece at a trade show but customers aren't responding after 12–18 months, your personal opinion of its beauty doesn't matter.

The sunk-cost fallacy: "I paid $8,000 wholesale, so I can't possibly take a loss on this." Holding onto the piece doesn't make that investment better — it just compounds the loss through carrying costs and lost opportunity.

Fear of appearing desperate: You worry that markdowns damage your brand perception or make customers think you're struggling. In reality, strategic sales and promotions are standard retail practice.

Personal attachment to your selections: You may have an emotional connection to the memory of selecting a specific piece and choosing it for your stock. That emotional connection can cloud your judgment of its actual performance.

Waiting for the "right customer": You keep telling yourself, "The perfect customer for this piece just hasn't walked in yet." After 18 months, it's time to accept that the customer may never come.

Every single day a piece sits unsold, you lose money in carrying costs, insurance, opportunity costs, and dead capital. The loss you're trying to avoid by holding out for full price is happening right now, every day — whether you acknowledge it or not.

Reading Your Inventory Aging Reports

Your inventory aging report is only helpful if you know how to read it. When reviewing your reports, check for early warning signs of larger problems. Then, take steps to address them before they snowball.

Start by understanding what your aging categories actually mean. Pieces in the 0–90-day range are your fresh inventory and should be your largest category. The 91–180-day bucket is your "watch closely" zone. This is inventory that's been around long enough to establish a pattern.

Once pieces hit 181–365 days, you're in action-required territory. And finally, anything beyond 365 days needs immediate intervention, unless it falls into one of the exception categories we discussed earlier.

You also want to look for patterns in your reports. If you have multiple similar pieces that are aging together, you might have a systematic buying error, resulting in the consistent overbuying of pieces and styles that the market doesn’t want.

Next, you need to understand your carrying costs so you can appropriately assess the risk of hanging onto a piece at full price for another month. Calculate your true carrying costs by factoring in insurance premiums, security expenses, the physical space the piece occupies, and most importantly, the opportunity cost of capital.

Strategic Markdown Approaches for High-Value Jewelry

Once you identify the pieces you need to take action on, you need to know what action to take. Let’s discuss the best approach to jewelry store sales. The key is to use data and create a tiered approach that moves your aging inventory without killing your profit margins. Consider the following:

First markdown (10–15%) at 12–18 months: A modest discount can test your customers’ price sensitivity to see if a small nudge moves the piece. For many fine jewelry items, this is enough.
Second markdown (20–30%) at 18–24 months: If the first markdown doesn’t work, it's time to get serious. A 25% discount can feel drastic, but it’s better than holding onto that expensive piece for another six months earning nothing.

Final clearance (40%+ discount) after 24 months: This is dead stock, and dead stock needs to go. Yes, the markdown hurts, but continuing to carry it hurts more. Clear the space, recover what capital you can, and invest in inventory that actually sells.

You also want to time your markdowns as strategically as possible. Spend time in October and November running discounts to free up capital for your holiday inventory. Customers expect sales during these periods, so your promotions will fit right in. You can use quarterly goals as motivation to clear aging inventory, too. Set targets and make a plan to move old pieces at the end of each quarter.

If you don’t want to go with a traditional markdown, you can take an alternative approach. Here are some options to consider:

Bundle slow movers with bestsellers. Bundling an aging wedding band with a killer engagement ring is a great way to move the older piece without a direct discount.

Negotiate consignment or return options with vendors. Some vendors will take back slow-moving inventory, especially if you're a good customer.

VIP private sales or jewelry parties. Invite your best customers to a private event where you offer special pricing on your aging inventory. They feel special, and you get to move some older pieces. Win-win.

Whatever approach you choose, be sure to track the results of different markdown strategies. This way, you learn what works best for your market and can improve your approach over time.

How Inventory Aging Reports Help You Make Better Markdown Decisions

Aging inventory is inevitable across retail categories, but using these strategies and tips, you can make better markdown decisions and clear your older inventory. The key to implementing these tips and managing your inventory more effectively is having access to the right data.

Jewel360's inventory aging reports give you the information you need to make the best decisions about your aging inventory.

Our automated tracking system flags slow-moving inventory before it becomes a crisis, so you're always ahead of problems rather than reacting to them. You'll see true cost analysis that factors in carrying, insurance, and opportunity costs, sales velocity insights, and markdown ROI. Using our advanced reporting, you can make the best markdown decisions and take control of your inventory.

Schedule a demo to see how Jewel360's automated inventory aging reports help you move old inventory and protect your margins.

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Inventory Aging Reports: When To Mark Down Expensive Jewelry