Some or you, or maybe even most of you might not even think of your jewelry once it is sold and your check is cashed, but for those that are interested on the pipeline of what happens once you walk out of the door and Jonathan’s Diamond Buyer owns your jewelry, I thought you might be interested to hear about our process.
I know there are many people who think that I buy a piece of jewelry or a diamond for a low ball price and then turn around and sell it for a 1,000% profit the next day. If that were true, I would be long retired by now on an island in the Bahamas sipping a Mai Tai on the beach. If only it were that easy.
The Truth of The Jewelry Selling Process
After I get a piece of jewelry or a diamond, it is logged into our system and put into a manila envelope and moved into Jay Freedman’s office, where he then has to inspect it and log it into his book. Jay then moves it onto Jon’s cabinet, where it can sit for days or week, depending on how busy we are at the time.
Our priority in our showroom is diamond sales, custom engagement rings, custom diamond jewelry, watch sales and estate and diamond jewelry buying and selling.
Once Jon takes a look at it, he logs it in and then it comes back to my desk. On this envelope, we have the price that I paid you for it and the price that I think it is worth, Jay thinks it is worth and Jon thinks it is worth. This is based on market trends, the marketability of the piece, the age of the piece, and the style of piece, the weight in carats and karats and the condition of the piece.
I then take all of this into consideration and inspect this piece once again and send it to my guys to get it cleaned and polished and sometimes reset if needed. I then need to add any and all repairs to the original cost of the item and decide what I am going to sell it for.
By now, I could have had it for over 3 months, and not one single customer has looked at and I haven’t even shown it to another wholesaler. Now, if a customer or wholesaler asks about a piece that happens to match a description of an exact piece that I haven’t finished, then I will show it, but that doesn’t happen often.
Now that it’s ready and priced, I give it to Miryam, who is our office manager and she puts it into our system and tags it, and it goes into the safe to get ready to be put on eBay or to be put into a showcase. Either of those things can happen within 1 to 6 months, depending on what’s going on around here.
When it reaches the end of the pipeline to be ready to be sold, the jewelry could sit here for months. It’s not easy and it’s not a quick buck. It’s hard work and there’s never a guarantee that we make our money out of the deal, but the upside is that we are surrounded by beautiful things, we meet interesting and lovely people and we love our jobs.
