As the summer looms and I realize I can’t put off opening my shop any longer I am realizing the realities of inventory costs. However I believe I have a plan that seems like a good idea. Would it be a good idea if I took pictures of brass and copper pieces and use those pictures to represent gold and rose gold so as to not spend hundreds of dollars and risk the piece not selling? Here’s how it would go: make a ring in copper, Take a few pictures, calculate the cost it would be in 10/14/18 karat rose gold, list the ring, get the order, buy 10 grams 24K and alloy to desired karat it rose gold, make the rose gold piece and send it out.
Is there any problem I am not accounting for?
ArgentumMoon
I used to work for a large jewellery company here in Toronto. They had 20 salespeople on the selling circuit. All of their rings a composition of brass and? and the metal was soft for setting.
The stones were all cubic zirconia. If they could do it, why not you? It’ll save you thousands of dollars. Your method is the better and safer route!!!..
GO FOR IT and you’ll save loads of money for insurance!
Gerrysdiamondsettingessays
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Gerry, On my iPhone!
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This suggestion is only good if you know how to use PhotoShop or you have a friend who does. (This is good time to exchange goods for services.) Personally I think this is a better (and more ethical) manner of representing your jewelry while keeping your inventory costs manageable.
You could make one ring in each alloy of gold you will be using. Take good, high-quality photos; then in PhotoShop, sample the alloy color and save it as a swatch. You can then apply your swatches to photos of you other rings by replacing the color of the base metal. Retail companies use this feature all the time on their web-sites; it allows the customer to see all of the colors in a product line.
You need to be very careful about using the base metal rings as stand-ins for gold: there are strict rules on truth-in-advertising and you could find yourself on the wrong-end of the legal dispute if a customer takes issue with your work.
I do this for the jewelry store I work with. They sometimes will have 1 piece created and need me to 'shop them into a different alloy. Like you said, as long as the photo is high quality and on a clean background it works wonderfully.