How to Find the Best Fine Jewelry Suppliers?

How to Find the Best Fine Jewelry Suppliers?

Why finding the Best Fine Jewelry Supplier is a tedious and systemic process involving numerous criteria? 

Well, the designs, the quantity required, the materials, the pricing, the sourcing locations as well as other factors have to be taken into account.

Here is a non-exhaustive listing of important information to be considered on how to search and select your new fine jewellery partner.

Table of Contents:

• What type of jewellery are you looking for?
• What are the credentials of the Best Fine Jewelry Supplier?
• How long has the fine jewelry supplier been in business?
• How large is the fine jewelry suppliers workforce?
• What is the quality of material used and where is it sourced?
• How to judge the quality of craftsmanship?
• Where to find the best fine jewelry suppliers?
• How about their CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)?

1- What Type of Jewelry are you looking for?

Make sure to clearly identify your needs. This is an essential question but if you are searching for the best fine jewelry supplier – your ideas, and tastes must match their expertise.

We can still list the main categories as followed:

• Fine Jewelry made of gold or platinum set with precious stones or semi-precious stones,
• High Jewelry true art using exceptional stones with a very high degree of craftsmanship and outstanding design prowess,
• Designer Jewelry (could also be from both definitions listed above) made by the world-famous houses as well as more local labels,
• Vintage Jewelry at least 20 years old showing the design movement of the corresponding era,
• Antique Jewelry at least 100 years old with big influence from the Gregorian, Art Nouveau or Art Deco era,
• Semi-fine jewelry similar quality than fine jewelry but using more affordable materials such as Silver gold plated with hard or semi-precious stones,
• Silver jewelry as its name suggest, main component will be silver,
• Fashion jewelry the entry level of jewelry found in clothes stores or supermarkets. Usually uses brass, cheap beads or crystals.

As David Allen said, “You can do anything, but not everything”. Exercise caution with jewelry manufacturers telling you they can do everything from silver all the way to high jewelry. 

It is like going to a restaurant advertising that the chef masters Chinese cuisine as well as Indian, French, Mexican… Wouldn’t you raise eyebrows? No one can do everything with the highest level of expertise.

Identify the strengths of the supplier, and make sure it adheres to your vision. A SWOT analysis could become handy in order to fine tune your research.

2- What are the credentials of the Best Fine Jewelry Suppliers?

Memberships with each country’s National Jewelry Association along with the RJC (Responsible Jewelry Council) assert the reliability of a fine jewelry supplier.

You can review this  list of Associations compiled by the GIA (Gemological Institute of America) 

Why is it becoming the norm for fine jewelry suppliers to become accredited by the RJC (Responsible Jewelry Council)?

• Because RJC’s Code of Practices is a landmark standard for the jewellery supply chain and addresses a wide range of supply chain issues, including business ethics, human rights, social and environmental performance.

How to perform a background check via google to focus your search on a particular name? 

• Using inverted comma’s to ensure the results include the name you are looking for.
  • For example: “company name” then analyze the results and look for articles and publications.

LinkedIn also comes handy as a powerful tool to find the information on the fine jewelry supplier, and assess their credentials and professionalism.

3- How long has the fine jewelry supplier been in business?

The age of a business does not necessarily equate to skill, and professionalism – but it can be a good indicator. A rule of thumb would be to look at fine jewelry suppliers with at least 15 years of experience because those businesses are able to constantly adapt to shifts in the market, and onboard new technology to keep up with the times. 

A supplier who has been operating for a long time also shows signs of having built long lasting partnerships with their clients – supporting them for all their needs (we are evolving in a traditional crafting industry in the end). 

4- How large is the fine jewelry suppliers workforce?

Why does this detail matter? It can indicate the ability for the supplier to deliver orders in a timely manner, along with the volume of orders than can be undertaken.

When a medium size manufacturing company has at least 20 to 30 employees on the production side alone, it will most likely ensure that every step of the jewelry making is performed in-house (thus not outsourced which is better for intellectual property protection).

Ideally, the fine jewelry supplier should also have its dedicated in-house designing team to create and adjust “on the go” 2d and 3d renderings to reduce lead-time.

Finally, the admin and account management team will be an essential point of contact for you to ensure your needs and the shipments are conscientiously handled with care in a timely manner.

5- What is the quality of material used and where is it sourced?

Today’s end-buyers are more conscious of the quality and source of their product. Hence, the speed and amount of information available for prospects buyers can increase your competitiveness.

The conscious consumerism movement is an important decision making factor that no company should ignore. Thus, the fine jewelry supplier you work with must be transparent and provide you as much information as needed upon request.

If your supplier is RJC approved, they would be audited on their supply chain practices. This audit would include, but is not limited to:

• purchasing Gold from reliable sources such as PAMP in Switzerland. 
• purchasing Diamond where the supply follows the Kimberley Process (the Kimberley Process unites administrations, civil societies, and industry in reducing the flow of conflict diamonds – ‘rough diamonds used to finance wars against governments’ – around the world.).

6- How to judge the quality of craftsmanship?

Why are clear pictures in decent resolution now mandatory? Because it would be the best way for you to first understand:

• the flair for design 
• the manufacturing quality (filing, polishing, lapidary, setting…)

Make sure the photos are proprietary of the fine jewelry supplier, it is usually easy to check from credible sources such as trade show websites or the corporate website. 

Some fine jewelry suppliers even have their own Youtube channel where you can appreciate quality as if it was before your eyes

It would also be advised to visit the fine jewelry supplier, understand their process, and their way of working.

If time is an issue, make sure to at least visit your potential new fine jewelry supplier at one of the numerous jewellery trade shows being held worldwide. 

This will lead us to the next topic, is your supplier experienced with export and open to the world?

7- Where to find the Best Fine Jewelry Suppliers?

Another way to judge on a fine jewelry supplier’s openness to the world is to identify to which jewelry trade show it is attending.

Most reputed fine jewelry manufacturers would be present at the following exhibitions:

• Centurion, Couture, JCK for the USA. 
• Hong Kong March and September for Asia. 
• Vicenzaoro and Baselworld for Europe. 

Serious and diligent fine jewelry suppliers will always attend at least 2 or 3 of the shows listed above. It is their best way to carry large quantities of designs to be displayed to the industry professionals in a safe & secure environment. 

Don’t be afraid to do business with a company on the other side of the globe. Communication tools and logistic supply chains have never been so optimized.

8- How about CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)?

Even though it is not compulsory, to know that your fine jewelry supplier is giving back to improve the life of a community is an important factor to consider. 

If you had to choose between 2 exact same fine jewelry suppliers but only one had a CSR program, which one would you choose?

Located in one of the leading countries for producing fine jewelry, Smart Arts Jewellery is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of superior fine jewelry. As a family-owned enterprise, it specializes in producing hand-joined flexible jewelry with authentic, high-quality gems that are perfectly matched for color and brilliance.

Smart Arts Jewellery was established in Bangkok in 1999 by Pradeep (Jolly) Lodha, who has been trading and manufacturing diamonds since 1987. With associate offices in New York, Hong Kong, Dubai, and Mumbai, Smart Arts Jewellery delivers sparkling gems to clients in over 30 countries worldwide.

Bruno Radegonde – Contributor – I’m a French Business Developer based out of Bangkok since 2010. Smart Arts Jewellery has been my beloved home since 2019 where I handle both Marketing & Sales.