Department stores have highest retail gold prices

According to a recent survey, department stores carry the highest average retail price for gold jewellery items, IDEX reports.

Traditionally seen as fashion centres and stocking trend-setting lines of clothing and accessories in the United States, department stores are frequented by more casual retail customers than any other form of shop.

Out of town malls generally have at least one or two major department store names as their flagship stores and it seems this genre of outlet is cashing in on its general popularity in its gold jewellery ranges.

The latest figures suggest that the average price for an individual item of gold jewellery at department stores in the US in 2005 was around $135, almost double the industry average of $76.

Mass merchants worked out to be the cheapest stockists of gold items, with an average retail value of $35 per item, although the quality of these items tended to be slightly lower in general.