28 November 2023

It is sometimes difficult to assess how much profit to make on certain jewelry. There are pricing books, as there are in many industries, which give an idea of the prices to be charged for certain services or repairs. But what about raw materials like colored stones?

The Edge Retail Academy consulting firm, which specializes in jewelry, provided data collected from 1,200 independent US retail jewelers. These data were published in the Gemguide JULY / AUGUST 2021 / Vol. 40 / Issue 4 and reviewed by author Scott Gordon.

This guide is an essential tool in order to know the market prices for stones such as diamonds, colored stones, pearls and opals. It is published six times a year and always contains interesting and relevant articles in our industry and we would like to thank them for letting us share some of the data and findings with you.

Many industries, including the jewelry industry, use a fundamental principle called "Keystone markup" where we make a profit equal to our cost. So if the cost of a product is $ 1 and you use this principle you will want to make $ 1 profit and you will sell it for $ 2.

This technique can be very useful in giving you an idea of the selling price and seems to be the general rule when looking at the data but it is also important to consider several other factors like overhead, type of production (custom jewellery, mass production, etc.) and many others. It is also essential to take into consideration that the price or value of these materials can change over time.

Higher value stones or jewelry (ex: Colored stones> $ 10,000) will have a lower profit margin but a higher net profit. Less valuable stones will have a much higher profit margin (ex: Colored stones <$ 500). We can also observe that the same phenomenon applies for diamonds.

It is also important to consider the turnover rate and the types of products. You can thus decide to make less profit on an item but that this lower price allows you to sell more of it. In which case this technique can be more profitable in the long run and is often used in the case of mass jewellery. Unique pieces will tend to have a higher profit margin and require more time.

We missed you !

After a year and a half of the pandemic, we are happy to announce that we will finally come to see you in early fall! However, this pandemic made us think about our way of traveling. For safety reasons, we will now travel more lightly. 

We used to bring a lot of boxes and parcels of stones to show the variety available and we now want to bring only the new stuff but also what you need. We will be visiting Toronto, Halifax, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary and Vancouver and will be in touch shortly to discuss what you would like to see. We can also send you stones on memo in advance and pick them up when we visit you.

We will not be able to visit the schools this time around due to the logistics behind group sales. On the other hand, we want you to know that we are very attentive to the needs of the students or of all those who come see us during these sales and want to serve you as best as possible.

As we announced in our previous newsletter, we have created a website that contains a variety of cabochon and faceted stones to suit all budgets. You will find quartz with inclusions, topaz, garnets, citrines, amethysts, white opals and much more.