Avedis “Avo” Guerboian, a sixth-generation jeweler, posted a scathing open letter on the website of his family's business, Readers Fine Jewelers in Santa Monica, Calif., blaming the shopping habits of the millennial generation for his family's decision to close the store.
A report in
The Centurion,
an online publication for the jewelry industry, said that Guerboian's father, Eddie, is a fifth-generation jeweler who immigrated to Santa Monica from Egypt in 1967 and worked for Readers before buying it from the owners. The store, which boasted that it was Santa Monica's largest family-owned jewelry store, underwent an extensive remodeling in 2009. It closed on June 25, 2016.
Avedis Guerboian's open letter blamed millennial customers for shopping online rather than buying from brick-and-mortar, family-owned jewelry stores. “Every day, at least 5 times a day, people [are] walking in or calling the store after buying jewelry online and asking for our trustworthy service,” he wrote. “Clearly, they are weary of purchasing online, but they don't want to spend the extra money to buy from a reputable long time family business.”
Guerboian himself, at 33, is a member of the millennial generation. “This is where I get angry,” he wrote, “when I see the next generation, my generation, not understand the value of what our parents built.”
The Centurion
article said the business will continue as a custom jeweler and will sell its Edward Avedis collection. The work will be marketed online and through social media, the article said.
“We spent months, almost a full year analyzing the direction of our business model before making this tough decision,” Guerboian's open letter said. “It is time for us to evolve with the trend of how consumers purchase products…. This is not the end of our family business, but a passing of the torch, as we move onto a new chapter.”
Read the open letter
here.
(Source:
The Centurion,
June 30, 2016.)
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