I know I didn't mention anything to most of you, but I finally went & did it. I am now a business owner! I'm still in the setup stages of it & waiting on getting some vendors to get going with me, but hopefully I'll be 100% ready to go in a few weeks. If you all need any jewelry let me know
how does one go about starting a jewelry business. Do vendors just give you the merch on credit and you can pay later or do you have to front everything?
It depends on the vendor, & who you are. Luckily I'm in the "in". I've done this for 12 years, and in that time I've made some good contacts. If you don't know people (and can prove it), other people won't deal with you. It can be pretty hard / frustrating getting started. As many people that I know, it can still be hard getting in with some vendors. My main focus is diamonds, but I will do other things as well. I'm basically a diamond broker that is working my way to a full jewelry store. If anyone needs a stone I can usually source it within 24 hours.
Right now, I'm the only employee. So, hopefully I have to do a little less bending over that way, hah. Btw - I got my first sales today
i hated negotiating for a diamond b/c it seemed no one wanted to , they said this is the price and that is that, finaly found somone who deal and got an okay 2K for 5K i know he still made money but when i shoped around it seemed that everyone else wanted 10k for it. I had it appraised and it was appraised at 11k so i was happy but, it def. was not a fun purchase
Well it all depends on the company. The major companies you can't really deal with them. The privately owned companies are more likely to deal with things. Me personally, I'm not a big wheeler-dealer. I know what the market is & I price my product accordingly so that I beat all of my competition by a pretty large margin.So, to negotiate on price isn't worth it because they can't go anywhere else & get a better deal. That's just me though, I'm in the good position to do that right now though. Every company is different.
Where was you 5 years ago? I ended up having to buy at one place for price, then swap the diamond at the Tampa Diamon Exchange for a slightly larger and one level less clear diamond. ended up with a $1100-$1200 appraised ring for $900, but it was a bitch and a half and took a lot of shopping around.
Take appraisals with a grain of salt. They're basically opinions on quality & there are different pricing you can come up with too. As far as quality goes, when a stone is being certified it is given to between 3 to 5 gemologists & they each grade that diamond. From there it is given to a master gemologist & he compiles those 3 to 5 appraisals & writes up the final papers on the diamond. So basically a scientific opinion. With pricing, when someone appraises it they can give you the high end value or a low end value on it. What I mean by that is they can give you the "retail" (high end) price, or they can give you what it can actually be replaced for on sale. The train of thought for this is, if something happens to it & it's appraised for a high amount then you'll get more money from insurance. If it's appraised for a lower amount, then you have to pay less money on insurance a month. A little long winded, but there ya go.
just like anything the closer you get to the source the better the price. Companies with no brick and motar can always afford a way smaller margin. but with gains there is losses. I wish you good luck, and use every option to gain customer epecially direct mailing around holidays
That's why I'm going to be able to be alot more effective. I know alot of peeps up the chain, so I can get diamonds for a good bit less than alot of people. I appreciate the well wishes from you & everyone else. It's scary doing a start up business.
