selling loose pearls in london

[tomblurt]

hi guys

ive recently come back from a trip to tahiti (what an amazing place!) and when i was over there i bought some pearls with the intention of making some money . my plan now is to basically go from jeweller to jeweller in london to try and sell them. i was wondering if anyone would have any advice on my approach etc.

basically i have bought 20 pairs of AAA and AA+ 10-11mm pearls and hopefully i can sell them all. i bought them in a wholesale shop in papeete and i have paid the tax and they come with full authenticated documents. i bought each pair for 85 pounds and i was advised that i should try to sell them for 200-300 per pair. is this a reasonable price to expect? will it be hard to sell them to jewellers?

i also bought a pair for 290 pounds, which are 11mm AAA quality and very high luster dark green colour and was thinking of asking for 1000 for them.

any advice would be much appreciated!

thanks

tom

 

[jshepherd]

Hi Tom,

Reselling them can be quite difficult but it might be worth your while to just visit a few of the jewelers and see what their interest level is. The pearls sold at the pearl shops and wholesale boutiques at Vaima Centre aren't really wholesale shops, unfortunately. I think there is a lot less margin available to you than you may be hoping for.

 

[GemGeek]

You might be able to get those prices if you sell directly to consumers, but I'm not sure that you could sell them as a dealer and get those prices. But Jeremy is right - the only way to know is to go and try. Here in the US, friends of mine have tried to sell gemstones directly to jewelry stores and have gotten ridiculously low offers. Good Luck.

 

[dkan 168]

Issue with selling directly to the consumers is that, if the pearls have not been drilled and have earring fittings fitted, then they may be wary of the extra costs involved in turning them into a pair of earrings, as well as the hassle of having them drilled.

I got my fingers seriously burnt when trying to sell unwanted diamond and gemstone jewellery to shops and on eBay, as what I managed to get for them were vastly under my rather too optimistic expectations.

I had a nice 14cm Tahitian pearl ruined by a jeweller located in Hatton Garden when I asked them to make it into a pendant. The drilling appeared to have been done without due care and attention as a crack appeared on the pearl's surface.

I was so upset by the experience I swore I would never commission another piece of high end jewellery in the UK ever again, and that was nearly 10 years ago.

Good luck to the OP in your venture!

DK

 

[pattye]

Good luck to you Tom, and let us know how it goes.

 

[tomblurt]

thanks for the advice guys, feeling nervous now haha! attached are pics of the ones i bought, the pair in the box cost 290 pounds and the other pairs cost 80.
last year i went there and i managed to sell some in perth to a jeweller for a similar margin, albeit less valuable pearls. maybe that was the case because the economy is stronger over there.

 

[dmj]

i can assure you that you will be able to buy the pearls for the same price from wholesale company s during trade shows in london i used to buy most of my pearls from small shows like ijl as well ( before i started to go to hong kong and got nice connections on farms etc etc ) and i think i never payed much more then what you payed on the island when i was still going to these shows

there are always jewellers that just buy everything they like so when the quality is good you might be able to sell some but its not the easyest market there is

 

[Fabio]

2/300 pounds ? So he should sell them to public at something near 500 pounds … he has to add Vat and gold fitting too… in my shop I sell a pair of 10 mm A/B and 18 kt white gold at little less than 150 € equal at 125 pounds … so I don't really think that a jeweller could pay you what you expect ! Anyway the price from Tahiti to english wholeseller it isn't multiplied 2.5 times .