7/23/2023 0 Comments Fireside mountain gemsWe provide them with: - Platinum Partner special pricing that doesn’t appear on catalogues or on the web - Advanced access to all our publications (about 2,500 pages of printed matter every year) - Patterns/designs with instructions for classroom usage - Updates on current designs and colours - Exclusive weekly previews of new items CB: What does the future hold for Fire Mountain Gems? C&S: The customers are still telling us what they want, so we are working around the clock to provide it: - New ways to order and pay, including mobile and PayPal - New products – we have 116,000 items on the web, but we get many requests daily for new items - Faster service worldwide – secure, inexpensive delivery with lowest possible tariffs or duties. CB: Do you provide retailers with any support? C&S: Yes, we treasure our retailers if they don’t succeed, we cannot succeed. After 35 years, that is still our bestselling item. We would tell the customers how it originated and call it The Boss’s Bead Bag. As I was sweeping them up, an idea came – why don’t we sell bags of assorted beads and other desirable items. If you make a mess, you clean it up, and, 2. The four trays flew up in the air and beads went everywhere. As I was bringing them out one day, I tripped. When customers requested them, we would carry the four trays containing 400 types/sizes/shapes of beads out of the back room and over to the front counter. To enable this, we got four large trays, each having 100 pockets. Customers who didn’t want to buy an entire strand of one item asked us to sell the beads individually. Our most popular product line then, as it is now was gemstone beads. Thanks everybody! CB: What are your most popular products? C&S: Our single most popular product was an accident. Those who like numbers tell us that we are now the largest fashion jewellery supply company in the world. However, we don’t measure success in numbers because customers aren’t numbers, employees aren’t numbers, and vendors aren’t numbers. The bulk of the growth is from referrals one jewellery maker referring us to another. CB: What has been your greatest success so far? C&S: Our greatest joy has been watching our customer lists grow worldwide. Anybody want to buy a room full of dumb ideas? We’ll say it again: when you need good ideas for products or processes, ask your customers. CB: What has been your greatest challenge? C&S: Resisting well-intentioned advice, mainly from employees and friends who have wanted us to jump onto every fad and gimmick. You really have to learn to listen and to be open to questioning some of your own beliefs. That’s about the extent of the worldly wisdom we have to pass along. CB: What approach do you take when it comes to the jewellery and beading market? C&S: When we were just starting out, a seasoned businesswoman told us, ‘Take good care of your customer and your customer will take good care of you’. In 1986, we moved to Oregon, USA, where we now operate as a full-service, jewellery-making supply company. This was lots more fun than engineering and we soon moved to commercial quarters, and became a rock and gem/silversmithing shop. We started sending out flyers with lists of cut and uncut stones. We put small ads in trade magazines and started selling cut and uncut, rough gems. Soon we had four people in the garage, cutting full time. The problem came when we became buried in finished stones and had to start selling them to keep going. This was a great hobby for an engineer – angles, optics and gemology. The hobby was lapidary – cutting faceted stones. How did the business get started? Chris & Stuart: It started as a hobby in 1973. Once again, reading for spiritual improvement is emphasized.Craft Business: Tell us about the history of Fire Mountain Gems. Too poor to buy wood, she and her children huddle together to read the Bible, achieving a spiritual warmth. Harriet Beecher Stowe writes A Sketch, juxtaposing a rich man, with an ornate, unread bible next to his bed, with a poor woman, with a well read penny edition of the Bible. Dewey s essay, Practical Hints on Reading, advocates reading a means of improving the lower classes. Contains the work of Orville Dewey, one of Wordsworth s American friends. Foxing and light age-related toning throughout. Gilt finishing bright on front and rear boards. Light wear to extremities with more moderate scuffing to corners and end bands. Fire Mountain Gems ranks 68th among Beads sites. Reviewers complaining about Fire Mountain Gems most frequently mention customer service problems. Mead, New York, 1856, 358 pp, decorative blue cloth, 10 x 6.5, 8vo. Fire Mountain Gems has a rating of 3 stars from 84 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. By the Most Eminent American Writers, Illustrated and Embellished with numerous beautiful Engravings and Paintings, Published by S.G. Gems For the Fireside Or, Choice Miscellaneous Papers, Devoted to Science, Art, History, Biography, and General Literature.
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