In-House VS Outsourced; The Illusion of In-Store Custom Design
It’s time to shop for your engagement ring so you and your soon-to-be fiancée are running the gamut of your local jewelry stores together while scrolling endlessly for inspiration online. Your Pinterest board is already pretty honed in to a specific design, but nothing you see in the showcases is fitting the bill. All the stores seem to have the same cookie-cutter offerings. You remember that a friend who got married a couple of years ago said her engagement ring was custom-made, so you decide to explore that route. As you weigh your options, it seems that the local stores in your area all advertise custom jewelry, but you continue to end up talking to a salesperson at each store instead of a jeweler. Such begs the question, where is the custom designing actually taking place?
The reality is that the easier way for most independent retailers to operate is to rely on the cheaper option of outsourcing their custom work, rather than employing a custom jeweler full-time. Many shop owners are not master jewelers to begin with; instead they are business owners or gemologists who may employ bench jewelers or, as mentioned, outsource the actual labour to a conglomerate. Large jewelry manufacturers are paid by smaller retailers to handle the actual labor for them.
You may be reading this and asking yourself, what is the point of the store I’m going to then, if they don’t even make the jewelry? You’re paying for a custom jeweler, but are you really receiving that service? In actuality, you’re paying for a liaison between you and a large manufacturer, while only feeling like you’re supporting a local jeweler and having a unique and personalized experience. Many of these retailers simply act as a kind of middleman. They employ the customer service specialists and salespeople to draw you in, sell you on the idea of a custom piece, make the sale, and pour the celebratory bottom-shelf prosecco. Then they send off your design to a regional or national manufacturer who never even hears your name.
Soon they’ll receive your piece, at an excellent wholesale price to them, tack on their markup, and sell it to you for a premium. The manufacturer makes money producing thousands of pieces for their network of retailer clientele, the store owner saves on the costs of producing the piece themselves: owning the necessary tools and equipment, electricity costs of operating said equipment, time spent acquiring metal and stones, and paying a master jeweler’s wage. Many of these large companies employ inexperienced bench jewelers who are new to the industry and need to cut their teeth. The shortage of experienced tradesmen and the higher cost of employing them makes this the most economic choice for big firms who are focused on profit, not quality.
When you find a store actually owned and operated by a master jeweler, such as Design Jewelers in Santa Rosa, California, the experience is completely different. You discuss and refine your design with the actual jeweler who possesses decades of knowledge and experience, not a salesperson who has never sat at a bench or set a stone in their life. Your unique piece is made by the same hands you shake. The design rendering, casting, stone setting, and finishing is all done in-house at Design Jewelers by the owner master jeweler Ken Gray; you can even see his jeweler’s bench right in the shop. Your stones are hand-selected for you and no two pieces are ever identical, making your custom jewelry completely one-of-a-kind. There is no hidden retail markup because you are purchasing from the actual craftsman, thus avoiding the unnecessary middleman fees.
Your engagement ring should be as unique and personal to you as the relationship it celebrates. Why then, go to a store that will offer you the impersonal experience of having your piece made by someone you will never meet? At master jeweler-owned Design Jewelers, you experience the unique pleasure of learning about the art of jewelrymaking and having a true say in how your piece is made.
