7 Reasons Local Jewelers Are Better
Than Big Box Jewelry Stores
● Certified Expertise
● Quality Over Quantity
● Price & Value
● Experience & Atmosphere
● Professional Service
● Product Selection
● Community
Certified Experts
Local Jewelers and local jewelry stores are often invested in the jewelry trade. At Anne Dale Jewelers , we have both a Certified GIA Gemstone Expert and Master Goldsmith in the store.
At a high-volume jewelry store, you are likely to find sales associates with limited knowledge in a very highly specialized field. While a sales associate may have a passion for jewelry, often they are unable to share product knowledge beyond the price on the small jewelry tag. Most offer basic information along with a sales pitch, followed by an offer of in-store financing. This is all in the hopes of closing a sale and processing a transaction. Even their product recommendations are mass-produced, with little or no personalization for the customer.
Quality Over Quantity
Independent jewelry stores for the most part cherry-pick the gold, diamonds and gemstones featured in the showcases. A local jeweler can custom design or handcraft jewelry items to fit the customers’ needs – often capturing rites of passage and memorable moments in jeweled art.
Chain jewelry stores are scalable businesses that operate in a lower market. As a result, the jewelry comes with huge markups that offset their expensive mall rents and advertising budgets. These high-volume jewelers choose products that fit specific price points. These stores also carry SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) that are mass-manufactured with little to no connection to the consumer.
Anne Dale, as an independent jewelry store, hand-selects each diamond, sapphire, emerald, pearl and ruby from reputable sources that take immense pride in their craft. Every piece of jewelry is uniquely created to make every customer feel special.
Much of the pieces from independent jewelers are one-of-a-kind creations. Price & Value
Prices in local jewelry stores are often based on the cost of components (precious metals and gemstones) plus skilled craftsmen’s time. The prices vary, but the true value is a sum of the craftsmanship and the rarity of the materials used that were mined from the earth.
A local jewelers have a skill set above the assembly line functions found in an overseas manufacturing facility. Also, there is an economy of scale in mass-produced items as opposed to truly handcrafted, unique art.
Experience & Atmosphere
Smaller jewelry stores may know you by name, since the staff is a family jeweler that lives in the community. These stores exist based on their reputation and word of mouth marketing. The physical location is close to home and the atmosphere feels like home.
Large mall chain jewelers and high-volume jewelry stores struggle with their bigness, and by design, they always fall short on personal service and atmosphere.
Professional Service
A jewelry store with less volume has more time for its clients, providing a level of professional service that many other industries can simply no longer offer. The owner is the jewelry craftsman, who not only attends to you at the jewelry case but later creates a masterpiece for you or a loved one.
By contrast, the mere foot traffic inside a high-volume or chain jewelry store demands less-experienced sales associates to service the masses.
Product Selection
You can find a work of art in that jewelry box at an independent jewelry store. You will receive an intimate personal experience and a selection of truly fine jewelry crafted with care, knowing the final wearer will enjoy the items before passing it on for generations.
The branded jewelry store has replicated items, which have been formed from a mold and mass produced with specifications to satisfy a return on investment from the company’s shareholders.
Community
A locally owned jewelry store stands for generations of love and commencement. The store’s name and owners are intimately involved with local weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, baptisms and untold rites of passage. In the stage play written by Karol Józef Wojtyła as a college student before becoming Pope John Paul II, The Jewellers Shop portrays the role the little jewelry shop has on generations, and in the end the love always returns.