How to find a reliable jewelry supplier if i want to start a retail business

Many people put all their focus on finding the lowest-priced products before they start their business, which is not really a wise approach.
First of all, if you are going to start a retail business, I think you have already done a preliminary or detailed assessment of the market in advance, as to how to do the market assessment, which is not the focus of this blog, I will write a separate blog when I have a chance.
People at the beginning when looking for suppliers will contact a large number of suppliers, and let them quote for a large number of products while doing price comparisons among them to find out the lowest price one. The truth is that such an approach will not lead you to a truly suitable supplier, but only to the most disguised one, and I’ll analyze why.

I’ll use Van Cleef & Arpels Vintage Alhambra bracelet onyx as an example.

This bracelet is very classic and very hot, it is almost the best-selling model of Van Cleef & Arpels when you take the picture and ask different suppliers for the price, some of them have a higher price, some of them have a lower price, do you think the one with lower price is the good supplier? No, the real secret is that even with the same appearance, they have different gram versions, they are both 18K solid gold, so from the appearance, you can’t even tell which one will be better unless you put them both in your hand at the same time to compare. Many jewelry factories will deliberately lower the weight of all jewelry to capture market share at a lower market. So you think you’re getting the lowest price, but in reality, you’re just getting lighter-weight jewelry and a more expensive price.

So…how do you find a suitable and reliable jewelry factory instead of a middleman? Or how to determine if this is a supplier worthy of long-term cooperation?

1. first of all, jewelry factories have their own designers, they can provide custom jewelry service, because they usually have their own designers, but middlemen don’t, after all, middlemen only sell stock most of the time, while factories can customize jewelry for you at any time.
2. As I said, middlemen usually sell the stock so they don’t have the means to provide videos of the process, while factories will only produce after the order is placed, so this is a completely different place.
3. Regarding after-sales, if it is a quality problem, the factory can repair the jewelry for free, but the middleman can not, because he also needs to find a wholesaler responsible for after-sales, however, his wholesaler will not be responsible for after-sales, so a good supplier should take into account both pre-sales and after-sales.
4. A good supplier or jewelry manufacturer will make you more and more professional and knowledgeable in the process of doing business, but a middleman will not. If you are just starting a business, in addition to making money, you should have a good “teacher”, your professionalism will attract more and more customers for you.
5. good suppliers because of the variety of jewelry production, when you need a quote, they are often able to quickly assist you in making a variety of rough quotes to customers, but not the middleman.

These advantages above may not be reflected at the beginning, but I believe with these theories, you know better how to find the right supplier.