After you have made up your mind and decided to start your own jewelry business you will need to start sourcing for inventory. Prior to making any firm decisions there are a few key things that you will need to take into consideration.
The first question that has to be addressed is will you be customizing the diamonds themselves or will you purchase them already set. There are jewelry companies that employ experts who take rough diamonds and style them to whatever format they want but that is not always the case.
If you do not want to hire someone to take rough diamonds and modify them then you will need to target organizations that can provide you with diamonds that are finished and already set in jewelry. There are a few action items you will need to take into consideration.
- How will you be financing the purchase? There are vendors that will provide financing while others offer deferred payment, it would be smart to shop around and weigh your options.
- How often will you rotate your inventory? If you are planning on rotating your inventory for specific events i.e. Valentine’s Day, then you will need to start sourcing as soon as possible to make sure the vendors can meet your needs.
Identifying the Right Diamond Suppliers
There is a significant number of companies out there that will supply diamonds but you have to screen them in detail to make sure they do not deal with “conflict diamonds”. These are diamonds sold to fund civil wars in Africa and are quite common.
Make a conscious effort to remove the companies that could possibly deal with conflict diamonds, political reasons aside there will be customers you come across that are sensitive to this. The next step is finding out whether the company that is supplying the diamonds has all of the relevant licenses to import these jewels.
While all of these items may seem like “common sense” they are necessary, the last thing you want to do is hand over vast sums of cash only to realize the jewel are restricted and cannot come into the country. There should be documentation provided by the vendor in advance of any payments being made, make it a top priority to always confirm the legitimacy of the documents before you proceed to the next step in the process.
Getting the Best Possible Pricing for Your Diamond Jewelry
You will need to reach out to each of the individual organizations and find out what they are going to charge you for the diamond jewelry you think your customers will want. This is one of the most important steps in the entire process since the price you pay for your diamond jewelry will have a direct impact on the total amount of profit you can generate.
What you might consider doing is trying to purchase jewelry with other companies, by dealing in larger volumes you may be able to secure a more substantial discount but make sure the company you are dealing with has a pristine reputation or you could be setting yourself up for major disappointment.
A very effective way to substantiate the reputation of the companies that are selling the diamond jewelry is by looking for recommendations from other diamond jewelry companies that have dealt with the organization in the past. While reviewing the comments that were made by them it will give you the insight needed to make the right decision on who to buy your diamond jewelry inventory from.
