Sam's Clubs and Diamonds

Beginning Feb. 1, 2001, Sam's Club's will take over the jewelry counters in its 450 warehouse stores. For eight years, the counters have been operated by JBM Retail (Sunrise, Fla.), a division of Mayor's Jewelers, Inc. As Mayor's liquidates the JBM division, created for the sole purpose of running the Sam's Club jewelry counters, the jewelry products will be sold at deep discounts.

Mayor's, a division of its parent – Jan-Bell Marketing Inc. — operates 34 jewelry stores in Florida and Georgia, under the Mayor's and Maier and Berkele nameplates. Sam's Club, a division of Wal-Mart Stores (Bentonville, Ark.) reported 39 million members and $24.8 million in sales in 1999.