We asked and you answered….find out what we’re buying in Tucson

Jan 24, 2019

Written by Yvonne Raley

We asked and you answered….find out what we’re buying in Tucson

I can’t believe it’s right around the corner: the biggest and most fun gem trading event of the year, the Tucson gem shows. Both the AGTA and GJX shows open on Tuesday, February 5th and run for six consecutive days, during which we will have our 20% off gems sale. This year, the sale will be preceded by a 30% off sale of items we’d like to move out to make room. We are happy to take suggestions for what to include in our sale. Those of you who watch our inventory carefully will know which items have been with us longer. Offers on a package of several items are welcome too, just keep in mind that 30% is more than our profit margin, so there are limits to what we can offer, especially on newer items.

Also, at the end of this blog, you will find a list of consignment gems we are considering returning at the end of the Tucson show, so now’s the time to make your purchases on those. Or, if your wallet isn’t big enough, let us know if you’d really like us to keep the gem a little while longer. You’ll notice we borrowed a lot of sapphires and demantoids, as well as a few spinels.

To those of you who have filled out the Tucson survey: thank you thank you thank you. It is very helpful for us to know what’s on your mind and how we should allot our funds. If you haven’t yet filled it out, please do, it’s invaluable to us and to our survival as a small company. I wish so much that we could buy everything, but in the end we are all in the same boat. We have to choose!

Link for Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DSTPPZ7

Here’s what we’ve learned from you so far:

Your favorite colors are blue-green, lavender, purple, and you’d like us also to carry more color change gems. Fewer respondents than expected favored peach.
Gem cuts we’ve not designed enough jewelry for are all the squarish and rectangular cuts: emerald and radiant, aascher and princess, cushion cuts.
Among your favorite gems are red and pink spinels, blue tourmaline, ruby, Paraiba, emerald, green tourmaline, in exactly that order. (Opal, star gems and cat’s eyes, fancy diamonds were at the bottom of the list).
Pendants and statement rings are your favorite jewelry items.
You’d like to see more sales and discounts (favored over a loyalty program which was second, a referral program, giveaways, and expanded free shipping).
Lastly, many of you would like us to carry larger focal gems. We are happy to do that, but we need to hear more from you. Also don’t forget we can source just about anything from our vendors, so all you need to do is ask!

But we have hadonly about 40 responses so far, and the more we can get, the more we can report back to you on whether these results are representative.

Given your responses, we will keep our eyes peeled for the bluest tourmalines on the market (hopefully within a reasonable price range), and lavenders/purples will be our first priority.

In fact, the VERY first thing we plan to do is find my lavender sapphire source from Thailand. He’s the one with the melee you have been buying, pinks, blues and lavenders in the smaller sizes, as well as ruby melee and small rounds. Did you notice I listed a few more from last year by the way? They were bought in February 2018 but the bag had fallen behind my cabinet and was buried under my favorite winter slippers from last year!

I’m also hoping to score a few more Paraiba cabochons in the 2-3mm range from someone at the GJX show. And benitoites. While the latter haven’t gotten much love from my first 40 survey takers, they have been among my most searched items in the Etsy shop, together with Paraiba.

Ok folks, that’s it for now. More updates coming next week. Stay tuned to our social media channels!