Moving inventory

Jewelry Discussion
1

Dear All, A short while ago, we decided to focus entirely on creating
one of a kind designs for our customers. A good portion of our
business was based on this already, so we removed the “distractions”
of our gallery showroom and our repair and appraisal business. We
ran a sale (the only sale we ever ran during our 15 years) and moved
a lot of jewelry. We have been left, however, with an amount of
inventory that we do not wish to directly market in our area. As we
are looking to cement our image as a custom designer, it would be
counter productive to try to sell these items locally at retail. We
carried medium to high end jewelry; consequently we are left with a
variety of merchandise totaling approximately $70,000 cost, with
everything from blank Stuller mountings of the bread and butter
variety, to a dozen designer lines such as John Bagley, Susan
Pasdera, etc. We are looking for some advice on turning this
inventory into cash. Any one out there have a good idea? We have
considered E-Bay, but most we have spoken with have had less than
great experiences with that venue. Higher end items seem hard to
move. There is also a sight called www.jewelersdump.com that we have
visited. Does anyone have experience with this website? At first
glance, it did not inspire confidence, though it is the sort of
thing we are looking for- a place to connect with other jewelry
people who are in need of inventory at a good price. I know that
there are “close-out” companies, but by the time everyone makes a
little profit in those deals, no-one is really coming out ahead.
Also, the ones we have talked to only want merchandise with stones
set, and we have a variety of unset mountings as well as all gold
rings, earrings, etc.

The blank mountings we could scrap, but many of the pieces are very
nicely crafted and current styles, and I hate to see that happen. If
we could move these pieces for somewhere between scrape price and
cost, we would be happy.

Ideas anyone?

Thanks so much and take care.
Brenda
david lee jeweler, formerly Golden Touch Jewelry
Mason City, Iowa

2

Dear M. Osada and All, We don’t mind selling our inventory in smaller
lots, especially if it would benefit someone here on orchid in
addition to helping us out. I will look through the mountings and
e-mail M. Osada off list as to anything pertinent for a .40ct
diamond. If anyone else is interested, please let me know on or off
list, and I will see if we can accommodate the requests. I think
Karen Goeller had a good idea about posting the inventory on a web
site. We currently have a site and I will see about getting these
items on there. We can not post things ourselves, but rely on a
webmaster to do it for us, so there maybe a time lag. I will keep
you all posted. As I said before, some of this is really quite nice
merchandise; I don’t think I could bear to scrap the Avalon chain or
the Samuel Jewels bands.

Thank you all for the advice.

Brenda
david lee jeweler
Mason City, Iowa, where we have had a beautiful, if somewhat dry, spring.