Why Do people on PS help big chains ?

[treasurehunter]

Why do PS's help for free not getting paid ( I assume) people and direct them to big dealers like James allen,White flash ,brian gavin etc , meanwhile destroying all the small jewellery business out there who are unable to compete with drop shipped diamond or mass websites ?

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Actually, Good Gold Gold and High Performance diamonds/Winfield's were local family owned jewelry stores long before they had a website. Whiteflash is a company that has a brick and mortar store in the Houston area with an internet presence and they have their inventory custom cut for them. Brian Gavin and his wife own their own small diamond jewelry business and primarily sell their custom cut stones on the internet.

I generally DO favor these small jewelers who specialize in the best cut stones and carry most of the stones they sell in-house. I rarely recommend the huge companies with websites that have mainly virtual stones and sales people on the phones who know less about diamonds than I do. And none of us who participate here as consumers get paid. Most of us love jewelry as a hobby and stick around here for that reason (plus we have made friends here).

Any local jeweler can do what Jonathan of Good Old Gold and Wink of Winfields/HPD did. They were just very smart early on!

(And I will add that I tried many local jewelers at the time I first came to PS and learned about diamond quality and NONE of them carried a decent selection of GIA Excellent and AGS Ideal cut stones! It was a combination of very good cut and EGL even at the nicer independent jewelry stores.)

 

[Rhea]

It's difficult to recommend local businesses when people who post are spread out across the globe. What's local to you won't be local to me.

There's also the problem of lack of information or good fit for the customer from some local stores. When jewellery shopping the local stores their selection is limited and they want to sell solely what they have in stock at the moment. Some of us want lower colours to get higher carats within our budget. I recently shared a story on here where a local store wanted to sell me an I colour with very low clarity and poor cut. I wanted a lower colour, higher clarity, and better cut. The store didn't have that in and tried to dissuade me saying that under an I colour would be yellow. It's not too yellow for me, the store couldn't or wouldn't get it for me and I won't be shopping there again.

PS jewellers aren't necessarily big chains, just local to someone jewellers who sell on the internet and are ahead of the curve with the ability to provide a better match for customers to the diamond they want. As per my above example with colour, that type of experience doesn't make me change my mind about what I want, it just encourages me back into the arms of jewellers I know can get what I want. I don't care a bit about H&A but if someone does and a local store can't provide that information or deliver that style of diamond why compromise and shop there?

I've shopped with Wink at HPD and Images Jewellers. Both are small, local to someone businesses, neither is a large chain. www.highperformancediamonds.com and www.imagesjewelers.com

Look! K to N coloured diamonds without the dribble from some local jeweller about how below an I is too yellow, http://highperformancediamonds.com/shop/?hpd_search=&min_price=0&max_price=91396&orderby=carats&min_caret=&max_caret=&min_color=k&max_color=n&min_clarity=&max_clarity= And all while sitting half a world away, drinking coffee. And because there's no judgement about lower coloured diamonds implied, if I were currently in the market I'd feel comfortable calling up and asking for something in the size and price range I wanted. Much better match for me than my local jeweller!

 

[Niel]

Why is this accusatory statement posed as a question?

As others have stated, most places recommended here aren't drop shippers or big chain stores? When was the last time anyone says "go shop at Jared's!" ?

Also I'm fairly certain any business with an internet presents and good customer service gets a chance here. Look at Quest jewelers, or Pearlmans, or all the small colored stone vendors people suggest, or small antique business owners and Etsy vendors people find.

As for vendors without an internet presents. I dont know where you live or who good vendors are in your area. That makes it hard to recommend them.

 

[danielxlin]

Why do PS's help for free not getting paid ( I assume) people and direct them to big dealers like James allen,White flash ,brian gavin etc , meanwhile destroying all the small jewellery business out there who are unable to compete with drop shipped diamond or mass websites ?

None of the dealers you've named drop ship. All of these dealers have a relatively small volume of business compared with actual chain jewelers (Zales, etc).

 

[ame]

What an OBNOXIOUS "question" you're asking. First off: none of them are chains. Not one. Good Old Gold and Winfields (HPD) are and were small family owned brick and mortar stores long before they had a web presence. They still are, in fact. I've been to GOG, and to the pizza shop next door. It's like heaven on earth with Pizza. And a Bread Co right next door, in case you want soup and a coffee instead of pizza, for whatever insane reason.

The reason we repeatedly recommend these particular vendors is because they have repeatedly proven to provide stellar quality diamonds and jewelry with exceptional service. The people who post here value cut above all things in most cases. MOST shoppers don't care about that. They want a deal. We would rather get the best for our money. Many "small jewelry businesses" that these vendors are NOT destroying and that compete just fine (they're still in business and making plenty of money!), don't offer the same quality items, don't value cut in the same manner, and don't operate on the same 24/7 mentality. Example: If I went in to a local jeweler here, save for the two I know post on here regularly, and asked for anything, I might hear back within a week. MIGHT. If I even heard back. And what I'd hear back about would be such included, poorly cut industrial-grade garbage that I'd be offended and it would never move forward. There's no value for high cut quality for most brick and mortars in the way that PS posters value.

 

[denverappraiser]

Each jeweler, including the ones you've named deserved to be praised or disparaged on their own merits, not as part of a category. For the most part that's what happens here. If you've got a local store that deserves kudos, by all means recommend them.

 

[Mayk]

Why do PS's help for free not getting paid ( I assume) people and direct them to big dealers like James allen,White flash ,brian gavin etc , meanwhile destroying all the small jewellery business out there who are unable to compete with drop shipped diamond or mass websites ?

As for me I've attempted to shop locally. I'm not impressed with what they have to offer or the prices. Additionally, many of the local sales people know less about diamonds than I do and that's just sad since I'm not one of the experts by any stretch. I've also worked with a number of PS sponsored and recommended vendors and I've had great experiences. People share those great experiences with others because they are happy and feel like they got what they paid for be it a great diamond or a wonderfully created custom piece.

Having worked with Victor Canera, Whiteflash, Jewels by Grace, Diamonds by Lauren, Eriak Winters and BE (formerly ERD) I would recommend them to anyone and I have even done so with my local friends telling them to do their research on line as well as locally. I can also say I've worked with several other online vendors not often used on PS and I was also equally happy... Sareen Jewelry and Emma Parker Jewelry.

I also find your question to be a bit off putting... based on how ofter consumers come her looking for direction. I still see some consumers choose to buy locally but they often know much more than they did when they started their search because of this website and it's many contributors both the trade and the prosumers.

 

[denverappraiser]

With the exception of James Allen, every single jeweler mentioned/recommended in this thread is a single location local jewelry store. They're just not in your neighborhood. JA is a bit of an outlier in that they don't have a showroom (that I know of), but even they are using the same basic business model as your local jeweler. They all are big time online advertisers and most, although not all, even advertise here. Given that this is an internet based discussion forum, are you really surprised that people promoting their internet business are popular?

 

[luv2sparkle]

.....not to mention the fact that many of us have been to small local stores where the sales people give inaccurate information, or generally don't know what the heck they are talking about. It is definitely not every small store but enough to make people want to do business with someone who can accurately show us what we are spending thousand of dollars on.

You can find dozens of people here who have bought their stones from small local shops who were able to find a fabulous diamond at a great price-but those shops are not available to everyone because of their local and internet presence. You question/statement is offensive.

 

[arkieb1]

Is your question out of jealousy? Why do so many smaller jewellers (and some large businesses too might I add), sell EGL stones and badly cut overpriced rubbish and rip consumers off? The reason we recommend tried and true trusted vendors is because they give outstanding service and quality for money time and time again. If you know a small business that does this feel free to recommend them as well.

 

[WinkHPD]

Actually, Good Gold Gold and High Performance diamonds/Winfield's were local family owned jewelry stores long before they had a website. Whiteflash is a company that has a brick and mortar store in the Houston area with an internet presence and they have their inventory custom cut for them. Brian Gavin and his wife own their own small diamond jewelry business and primarily sell their custom cut stones on the internet.

I generally DO favor these small jewelers who specialize in the best cut stones and carry most of the stones they sell in-house. I rarely recommend the huge companies with websites that have mainly virtual stones and sales people on the phones who know less about diamonds than I do. And none of us who participate here as consumers get paid. Most of us love jewelry as a hobby and stick around here for that reason (plus we have made friends here).

Any local jeweler can do what Jonathan of Good Old Gold and Wink of Winfields/HPD did. They were just very smart early on!

(And I will add that I tried many local jewelers at the time I first came to PS and learned about diamond quality and NONE of them carried a decent selection of GIA Excellent and AGS Ideal cut stones! It was a combination of very good cut and EGL even at the nicer independent jewelry stores.)

Dang! I was working on an answer to your post Treasurehunter and just about everything I intended to say was in DiamondSeeker's post above.

I was going to add the component of service that we small etailers bring to the table as well, since some of us love the internet for the ability to pay more attention to those that contact us. That is perhaps one of the most important areas in which we small etailers can run circles around the 300 (3000) lb gorillas in the room, since we can specialize in one niche and work our tails off to serve that niche with all our energies.

We are doing what we love and will continue to do it and God Bless America for not regulating us out of business. Oh, and thank you for all the small retailers that do not believe they can compete with us, they are right. They choose to believe that, so they can't. If they ever realize how easy and fun it is, I will have work even harder to keep doing what I do.

In the old days there was the railroad, which believed it was in the railroad business and ignored the automobile business when they had too much money and could easily have joined in. Believing they were in the railroad business instead of the transportation business doomed them to a long slide into a shadow of their former selves.

Me personally, I am in the service business and loving every minute of it!

Wink

 

[crans223]

Personal experience: I have been to about 15-20 small / local shops and diamond exchanges (bunch of sellers in one location) and as of yet I have found maybe 1 or 2 reputable or knowledgeable places. I like the references the users on here give because they help me determine if the price I'm getting is fair enough and if I have any negotiating power. I plan on spening slightly more than on these online sellers purely because I want to instant gratification of knowing what it looks like in person but every person has a different taste and preference.

I don't think any of the users list "big chains" but the sites they do use are ones they, or someone they know, has used from personal experience and that's better than going to any small chain and hoping for the best. Most of the time people will refer you to a small retailer / jeweler and you find out later on that they probably got ripped off anyway, but they never did their research. These sites eliminate the middle man because there are users and enthusiasts that are willing to back it up and the prices beat anything you'll find in small retailers. I actually even ask the one guy I am working with in person to try and get a few of the stones available to buy it from him.

 

[Karl_K]

Why do PS's help for free not getting paid ( I assume)
First off there is no need to assume, anyone who is paid and not marked as trade is quickly found out and booted. It is easy to tell after a few posts which is why it takes time to be trusted. As to why people do it there are several reasons, its fun, its interesting, likes to help others, payback those that help them, and yes some do it for ego.

people and direct them to big dealers like James allen,White flash ,brian gavin etc , meanwhile destroying all the small jewellery business out there who are unable to compete with drop shipped diamond or mass websites ?

JA is the front end of a large wholesaler these days but started out as a small one man shop.
The rest you mentioned are all small shops and not chains.
Drop shippers are rarely recommended here.

 

[Rockdiamond]

Hi Karl, what is your definition of "drop shipper"?

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Just wanted to add that excellent service and TRUST in the vendors above is why I recommend them in addition to outstanding diamond quality at competitive prices.

There are several others that I feel the same way about...I was just mainly using those above as a reponse to the OP. I have also bought from Victor Canera, Pearlman's, Caysie van Bebber, and there are other great vendors such as Love Affair Diamonds and Jewels by Grace, and I have to give special mention to John Pollard (Infinity) who has given so much to this forum over the years! I am sure there are others but I think I have covered all the ones I have personally bought from or at least talked to about items.

 

[AprilBaby]

My local small businesses sell garbage diamonds and are uneducated about cut. Better quality and price online!

 

[partgypsy]

Pricescopers can recommend good local independent jewelers. This information is organized under Resources:local jeweler and search by state. I know I posted a recommendation for a local jeweler I had a very good experience with there.

 

[chikoo]

Why do PS's help for free not getting paid ( I assume) people and direct them to big dealers like James allen,White flash ,brian gavin etc , meanwhile destroying all the small jewellery business out there who are unable to compete with drop shipped diamond or mass websites ?

I'd rather go to a jeweler who can say he cannot give me what I want rather than go to one that shoves me what he has, at his prices. So if you have local jewelers (or even online ones), please spread their word.

 

[Karl_K]

Hi Karl, what is your definition of "drop shipper"?

Someone who ships or has shipped a diamond to a customer without having someone working for them inspect it.
Blue Nile is a drop shipper and gets recommended once in a while.