[Jewelry making - Article 00774] - Re: [Orchid] Pricing those custom waxes

[Daniel R. Spirer]

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John,

>     And if it takes someone else 3 hours to do it, the jewelry world,
>     in the long run, is going to pay them the same price as they pay me
>     for 45 minutes. That's all. 

    I'm not so sure about that. If that were the case then no one would
    ever pay David Yurman's prices or the prices some other top name
    jewelers get. Many of the designer jewelers you see in Neiman
    Marcus, etc. get a whole lot more money for work that someone else
    (often anyone else) can make much quicker, and possibly cheaper. They
    can do it because they have a name, not because their work is
    necessarily better than anyone else's (not always the case, but
    often). My name, in my area, allows me to get a better price than
    most jewelers around here. I have been around long enough, am well
    enough known, and have a great reputation for honesty, so I can ask
    higher prices for the same thing someone else might do for less. Do I
    do this all the time? No, usually I try to direct people to other
    places if they want something that isn't consistent with my look, but
    then I have customers who simply won't use any other jeweler because
    they want me to do all of their work. If they want to pay me 2-3
    times what they might be able to get some commercial looking setting
    for elsewhere, because I don't really want to do the work, that's ok
    with me. Of course they also know that when I do it, it's still going
    to look better than any commercial setting available, it will be
    better made and more durable and it's guaranteed for life. 

    Oh and by the way John, if you are as good as you say (and you
    certainly have the years under your belt to be), you have to remember
    that the time it takes YOU to do a wax is not an industry average.
    You should be significantly quicker than the industry average. So in
    fact if something takes you 2 hours, it probably takes a person with
    only 5 years experience 4-5 hours to do. Consequently if pricing is
    based on industry average it's going to be based on much slower times
    than yours. 

Daniel R. Spirer, G.G.
Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, LLC
1780 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02140
www.spirerjewelers.com
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