Our new bench is a bit blown away by all of the bids that we have received, but as we are, disappointed in the very low proceed rate.

I did not know their procedure for preparing a bid, but I do now, so now is a good time to discuss this I think.

The way that they do the bid is to make a cad cam of the piece in question, then if necessary they will also cut a wax so that we can give very accurate quotes, not estimates subject to dramatic changes. (They never were estimates from us, and we lost money more than once when the estimate from our bench was too low and the cost to us ended up being more than our quote to our client.) We actually think this is the right way to do this, and I am beginning to understand why the quality of the work that I have seen from them is so high.

The underbidding problem will not be an issue for us with this house, but it comes with a price. They are paying gifted craftsmen to do the cad cam work and when we had more than 80% of our bids not be acted on, they decided that this was not working for them. Frankly, I was surprised at the low number of follow throughs myself, since the bids were very competitive with what we have been doing, especially considering the very high cost of metals right now.

So, here is the deal.

We must now charge $75 per quote. If you want to get quotes for multiple rings it will be $75 for each ring. If when you see the cad you need minor changes, there will not be a charge for that, but if you have us basically reinvent the wheel and do a new ring, then there will be an additional $75 charge.

Now, when you go forward, you will get credit for the $75 that you have paid for the ring that we are making. It was always included in the bids that we were doing with Mike, he just did not actually do the cad until we gave him the go ahead.

You can also request to see the Cad of any design that we do for you and we will get the photo from our bench. Just be warned that sometimes the Cads do not show the gentle edges and the prongs always look horrible as they stick way up until they are cut with a seat and clipped off after setting.

There will not be a charge to get a simple quote from Stuller or Ingwer or Roseco etc, but Sheila, Sylvia and Melissa will only quote two items from this day forward. There have been far too many times when they have ended up quoting five or more items and then a different five or more items and even then sometimes there was no follow through with an order.

We genuinely love doing business with the ladies and gentlemen here, and we want to give you excellent service. It is time I better recognized just how much my staff has been doing behind the scenes and take some of the pressure off of them. This will actually allow them to spend more time servicing the orders that we are working on, and allow us to more quickly get quotes to you when we are not doing so many of them.

I think in the long run this will be a plus for every one, as doing it this way will allow me to keep my costs in control, otherwise I will have to charge more for the jobs that are done in order to cover the costs for the jobs that are not done. I hope you will agree with me that this is the better way to do it.

Wink

I just want to add that if we do a custom quote request, return the pricing (after the CAD and wax have been done by the bench), and the client changes his/her mind about some elements of the ring, there will be an additional charge if the changes require a change to the CAD and wax. Certain extreme differences would require a brand new quote.

For example, if we quote a 3-stone ring with 1.5mm diamonds in the halos around all three stones and 1.3mm diamonds down the shank, and the client changes their mind about the center stone's size and shape, and the size of the diamonds in the halos, that is going to require a completely new CAD and wax. We would have to charge for a new quote.

What if you wanted some changes to a Stuller, Adwar etc. mounting... like basket change,head change, no side stones or something like that. Does that fall under the $75?

Good question....that sounds crazy though.

Thanks for the thoughtful clarifications Wink and Melissa! I know I've been torn between two different settings for my five stone. Wink gave me a very reasonable bid for one of the designs. I had a local shop bid the other, and the cost was astronomical! I'm really thinking that I want Wink to bid on this one too, and I don't mind the $75 charge because I know I'm going to be going with one or the other of Winks proposals. We certainly want to keep Wink in business, and if this new bench helps with that, then I'm all for the change in process.

Option #1: U-prong setting in white gold.


Option #2: Filigree setting made for my stones in yellow gold.

Stuller, Adwar, Vatche, Ingwer, etc. are not custom pieces.

Oh Wink, I totally understand. Un my business, to make a quote, I need to spend at least several hours working on a design too, and we also usually give out CAD renders. Unfortunately, we compete with 43 other businesses in the same industry on our city, so we don't charge for that.

You have to do what you have to do to keep up being competitive!

Actually if done with a go forward, that would not be true. If it is a change to see how it looks, then yes, there will an extra charge as we will be charged. We will avoid charging for minor changes to a design as much as possible, but if the changes are substantial then we will pass any charges on to our clients.

Wink

No, as with Stuller or Adwar it is just a case of ordering the different head. We are not being charged a fee for that so we will not need to charge one.

Wink

We are working on your quote as we speak, and did I tell you how elegant that U prong style mounting is? That is HANDS down my favorite of the two pieces!

Wink