UK high street jewellery chain H Samuel has ordered its staff to bump up the price of gold jewellery for one month to make future sale cuts look more dramatic, a leaked memo has revealed.
Prices are being increased and will stay high until a planned 'Gold Price Crash' salethat will start in time for Mother's Day at the end of March.
Products that have gone up in price include a gold St Christopher's pendant, which has risen from 95.99 pounds to 129 pounds and a gold cubic zirconia entwined heart pendant - up from 71.99 pounds to 129 pounds.
The email, dated February 17 and sent by Victoria Salisbury-Scott, store operations co-ordinator of H Samuel's parent firm Signet, read: 'Due to the success and significant lift in sales that you saw last year from the Gold Price Crash activity we would like to repeat this during spring/summer 2014.
"In order to do this we have to offer our products at a higher gold price for four weeks in accordance with trading standards regulations."
The tactic is not illegal and is repeated by retailers across the high street. However, this is the first time the details have been explicitly revealed.
Trading rules mean that a product must be advertised at a higher 'original' price for at least 28 days before this can be used as a reference figure for subsequent cuts.
H Samuel is the UK's largest jewellers, with 318 stores and sales of 243 million pounds a year. David Bouffard, spokesman for Signet which also owns Ernest Jones, said: "Signet has policies and procedures to ensure its pricing practices meet government standards in all respects."
