[Jewelry making - Article 00292] - Re: [Orchid] How to value customer's scrap on trade

[Daniel Ballard]

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    There are a few good ways to do this. Your math must be right, you
    can give more value in store credit than cash obviously. But I have
    an even better idea. Some refiners offer "small batch/same molecule"
    gold return. Let the customer pay the refining fee (usually a nominal
    % unless its a very small batch) and actually provide the close to or
    full value for the metal. Most of you make the real money on your
    work and the stones. Take advantage of that fact if it applies to
    you. 

    The point Gary made about insulting the customer or their goods is a
    great one- Avoid this by pointing out that fine jewelry has enough
    labor and design skill costs that when you remove those factors by
    melting the gold itself-The gold is not the biggest part of the
    price. Explain how pure gold coins have so little labor cost and
    essentially no design cost at all! That's why a Maple Leaf coin is a
    little over spot gold and a finished fine jewelry piece is far over
    the spot gold value. This properly stated does not diminish the value
    of the item in their mind, it upgrades the value of design and
    manufacturing costs in the mind of the customer. Remember, the only
    other place that will buy their gold is a pawn shop. They pay as
    little as they can. Your offer is likely to be generous by comparison
    and that makes you look good. 

    I have taught store owners and staff how to do this in an
    appropriate way. Before I worked for PMWest I had a store, back in
    the days of $700 plus gold. Getting some gold below spot really
    helped the repair department stay profitable. Scratch stone anybody?
    Or go electronic, those machines have really gotten good in recent
    years. Within one karat in my experience, and I have both scratch
    stones and the Tri-Electronics estimator. 

Daniel Ballard
PMWest

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