What Sets Us Apart?
This month, I have decided to write a short blog on why you may consider The Pacific Lights for your next boutique project. In addition, I would like to mention the differences in quality, price, service and product that you would get with us versus other online vendors.
This article is primarily focused for individuals who are not familiar with jewelry or the process of ordering a custom piece, as well as working in independent artists.
• The internet is littered with engagement ring companies, gem vendors and jewelry companies that all provide and offer similar services.
• Often online shops are a one stop shop with little, to zero customization and even less customer service.
• The point of these shops is to make as much profit as possible with thinner, less robust rings that they can sell without needing to spend employee time speaking with clients.
• Often times these companies are not based in the USA, and often times can use unethical business practices, or unsustainable methods of production.
While this is certainly a popular business model - and very fast - it is a no frills method to selling pieces that could be more customized and special for clients.
What about cost?
Almost always - a no-frills, generic one-stop online shop will be cheaper than purchasing from us.
Why is that?
Most online shops buy factory cut, unoptimized, and poor quality gemstones to cut costs for their profits
• We use custom cut gemstones, cut in house for your unique project.
Custom cutting a gemstone is an art form, and costs labor, machinery use, and most of all - lots of time and attention! It is something that we are specialized at in The Pacific Lights.
Most online shops don’t have an in-house person discussing your ring details, and may even use pushy and aggressive tactics to get you to purchase something quickly.
• What we are at The Pacific Lights is a customer service based boutique shop. We do not push or use aggressive sales tactics to hook clients. We would prefer to have great referrals and phenomenal service!
Most online shops will create very thin and poorly made pieces to cut costs on gold weight
• We create your jewelry with your gemstone, keeping in mind you will be wearing it FOR LIFE. Most of our rings are at - or above - industry standard width and thickness for lifetime wear and robust pieces. More weight = more gold = higher price for a strong item you can count on for life.
Most online shops make mass produced pieces
• We make nothing mass-produced! Each piece we make is made to order specific to your tailored wants and needs.
We are a small, independent gem cutting and jewelry making establishment
• We are currently a two employee team only - husband and wife!
• We use USA-based casters with recycled gold and metals sourced only from the USA
• Our gemstones are typically lab-grown from the same factories that we have personal connections within the gemstone industry and have safe business and employee practices
• Our natural gemstones are sourced strictly/only from USA based vendors that go to mines personally and are very well known in the industry such as Joe Henley, Matthew Milstead or Fabian Knapp in Europe.
When you order a ring from us, you will directly be speaking with me, Rana, the owner of the company or my husband Randy - our second gem cutter added to the business and CFO.
What other shops DONT do:
Gemstone customizations
• Custom cut gemstones with optimized designs (please read about custom cut gems here)
• All gemstone orders from us include THREE design options that we send clients via email.
• We use a computer modeling program called Gem Cut Studio to share with you renders of options for design ideas.
Example:
A client of mine recently wanted a blue Lab Sapphire in an 11 x 8mm oval shape. I sent him these three animation gem designs as options for his custom cut stone. You can see that the computer render also shows movement and light return. He is now able to choose his option for his custom cut gemstone.
Jewelry:
• At The Pacific Lights - you are getting a custom-made piece fit to what you want
• Your choice of gold karats and color
• Your ring size
• A unique design created by Rana
• Our designs are exclusive to our shop and our brand and are not seen or made anywhere else
Want something less custom?
• We can do that!
• We do have a huge portfolio of very simple and classic settings too. There is not much we cant do!
Most jewelry stores will not offer you computer models and renders of your custom piece.
Even less common is having your ring designer ALSO be the owner and creator of your design and your gemstone.
• At TPL, you get all of that
• I send personal computer models/CAD of every project to ensure both client and myself are happy with the projects direction.
• I also send plastic 3d models of your ring (fee added) shipped to your door to make sure you are happy with your ring size and dimensions before casting.
This is a level of attention almost no jewelers do for clients, but we think its important and imperative for clients to be happy.
An example:
• This piece was created by me for a client that had a vision of a kite gemstone custom cut with pave setting and additional wedding band.
• We created this CAD/computer model and the final piece is shown underneath,
• We sent her the CAD model in a plastic ring to her home so she could try on and see if she wanted anything changed.
• All in all - this back and forth only took us just 3-4 emails to nail down what she wanted!
Note: You can see the progression of changes we made to her ring as we discussed details.
