Why do customers travel all the way from America in a 20-hour flight to the Bangkok Gem & Jewellery show? There is a reason, the reason is that when they are looking for a supplier of Wholesale Loose gemstones, it is of utmost importance that communication and the business relationship are maintained between the seller and the buyer.

If you don’t spend enough time on choosing the right Gemstone supplier for your wholesale needs then you will be spending a vast majority of the time just ordered Colored gemstones that you won’t even be able to put in your Jewellery. If you are a Jewellery designer or a manufacturer, you need to get in touch with the right company, have a fixed quality standard, yes it may be difficult as not many companies out there have a “fixed” quality in practicality.

For more information, check out our infographic page development for the Gemstone industry. We have created infographics with real gemstones from our stock. Each one of these infographics on this page is 100% pure work of Navneet Gems – created all by Navneet Agarwal himself, a Graduate Gemologist from GIA.

If you already have a supplier for your Semi precious stones, or Precious gemstones then please go over with the company about the following things:

1. Color chart – Since Colored gemstones, colors are the most important aspect of Gemstones, your focus should be most importantly on color. And trust me this will make things easier. The best way to make sure to get a color chart synchronized is by having two color charts, the same, one with your company (Buyer) and one with the seller. To make a color chart, tell your supplier that you need to order samples in for example 3 shades of Smoky quartz, now it may seem like what? Does smoky quartz come in 3 different colors but yes it does. Ask them for all gemstones that you regularly order, do not forget to color chart on the most important gems like Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald, Rhodolite garnet, etc. In fact, check out our Navneet gems’ color chart here, you need to have this in “physical” terms, not just as an image. (Because image and reality may be different)

2. Quality chart.
It is very important to make a quality chart of stones that are usually categorized in A, AA, and AAA quality. Usually, in Semi precious gemstones (You cannot possibly make a quality chart unless you specialize in one particular stone where you can afford to spend time and invest time into creating a quality chart for let’s say Sapphires), there are A – Very easily visibly included, AA – Slight included with the eye (May go up to moderate) and AAA – No inclusions with the visible eye, some companies provide Loupe clean stones too (just like we do to the Watch companies as their standards are quite high)

It may sound weird in today’s market where the prices are ever fluctuating but to hedge against the price fluctuations you need to “fix” your supplier with prices that you would need to use to price your Jewellery for a wholesale customer who suddenly walks into your door and asks “I need to make Cocktail rings of Swiss blue topaz 18×13 – 1000 pcs” and what are you going to do? Call your supplier in the middle of his night (Assuming your supplier is in Bangkok or India or China), you are likely to lose the customer because of not having a good estimate and by saying ” I think this will be the price…but I will call you tomorrow and confirm, give me your business card please”, yes it may work, but as much as I know many customers, they want to know how much you know your prices and supply, well or not. So better be safe and have a price list that lasts let us say the next 3 months and then another pricelist after the 3 months have passed.

Now we have talked above about what factors you need to consider if you already have a supplier to make sure all your orders are done well, quality of gems are maintained, and more importantly, prices are hedged against (Fixed). Now let’s talk about what to do if you are looking for a supplier of Gemstones.

Depending on what type of gemstones you want, let me here list the different ways you can source your gemstones depending on who you are, what you want, where you want it from.

1. Who you are.
For Wholesalers – You need to make sure that in every category of gemstones, you have people who are specialists in that field. For example, Navneet Gems and Minerals specializes in Blue topaz, Rhodolite, Blue zircon, Rough, Cabochons, Drusy, beads, and fancy gemstones that are made on order only. So do not try to order Silver jewellery from us, it will not be efficient. For small rounds do not approach Indians in Jaipur, you will get ripped off.

For retailers – You must be a one-stop-shop? Well, you need someone who has a factory and can produce many different types of Gemstones and be flexible on the production quantities as the variety will be more of an important factor than anything else.
For stores – When a customer walks in, you need a local supplier of expensive Gemstones like Diamonds, Ruby, Sapphires, Emeralds where you cannot afford to hold onto a lot of inventory, thus you need a local supplier in your city who you can call and ask for “stones on memo” where the seller sends out 5-6 stones and the buyer who just walked in can select the best stone out of it. This is the best method for a Jewellery store if you only have a few branches around the USA. If you have more than 10 branches, then yes you can afford to play around with the inventory and afford to have stock and use it interchangeably within your store branches.

What you want.
Here is who you should go to if you are looking to source gemstones related items from depending on our experience of their expertise and lowest cost + highest quality.

1. Gemstones
– Small-sized rounds – The Chinese manufacturers are some of the best producers of small rounds, but mind it, their understanding of cut, cabs, specific height will definitely be off and difficult to explain.

– Synthetic stones – if you need synthetic stones like glass, plastic then the Chinese manufacturers are who you should go to.

– Freesize large gemstones – Indian and Thai manufacturers specialize in this, depending on what you want, you may prefer Thailand over India for the more expensive stuff which requires better quality products.

-Fancy gemstone cuts – Indians and Thai again. We have factories in both countries that’s why we know that both countries can cut which types most efficiently.

– Expensive gemstones – well really, Thailand, Srilanka, India, Brazil, Russia are the best places to go depending on what you want.

– Cabochons – both India and China.

 2. Jewellery
– Low-quality silver jewellery – India has become the biggest manufacturer quickly, as prices of manual labour are low. Even China has started to produce mass-produced products.

– High-end silver and gold jewellery – should be sourced by Thailand and the second option would be China.

3. Jewellery accessories – definite china because of its mass production and prices which don’t compete with anyone else. But if you want good quality Plastic bags for putting gemstones, or weight Mettler for gems, tweezers, Scopp then Thailand would be a good option.

Where you want it from.
As mentioned above, if you want to order 200$ gemstones every 2-3 days, it will not be possible to get a post-shipment every day. So it will be better to source them accordingly.

I hope this article helped in making my best efforts to explain how to source gemstones, jewellery, jewellery supplies at wholesale as it can get very tricky to source them. Just an insider 😉