Our Story
An Insider Uncovers The Secrets Of The Jewelry Industry
You Are Empowered to Get Great Jewelry at Unheard of Prices
Discover the Next Level of Diamond Buying Experience.
The Jewelry Industry- It’s Inside Secrets
How Executive Diamond Service Works
MY PIX How Executive Diamond Service Was Born
A Diamond Is Forever
Today, you can buy diamonds and fine jewelry either through a traditional brick and mortar retailer (either family owner or chain) or on line. Many traditional retailers also now have web sites.
My name is Tom Noon and I am a jewelry industry insider, and have been one for many years (see below). As an executive in the industry, my Company sold hundreds of millions of dollars of jewelry. I started my career as a CPA then worked my way up to become Chief Financial Officer of a mega million dollar retail chain. Because of the issues I saw in trying to buy diamonds and fine jewelry, I created a unique and special process to help you buy diamonds and fine jewelry like a Jewelry Industry INSIDER with no hassles and with complete confidence. Before I show you how, though….
I am going to share some inside secrets with you on how the industry works, so you can make good choices on one of your important lifetime purchases.
Traditional retailers buy from wholesalers. Most wholesalers in the jewelry industry are many generation family businesses of Jewish heritage. It is an industry at this level controlled by integrity and trust for those who are insiders and part of “the family” either by birth, or by being mentored into the family. I was mentored into the family.
Although integrity and trust reside firmly at the mining, cutting, manufacturing, and wholesale level between family members, it can break down at the retail and customer level since diamonds and jewelry quality are very subjective (regardless of what anyone tries to tell you as a customer.) Remember—buyer beware!
Traditional retailers have stores, inventory and people to pay for. They pay for their people regardless of seasonal sales levels. (Over 50% of annual sales can come in the October through December time frame). Inventory turnover is only about one (1) time per year, so they have a large investment in very slow moving inventory.
***Secret *** These traditional retailers have to mark up their loose diamond inventory by 100% or more (called double key) and their completed jewelry items by 200% (triple key) or more, so they can do specials and make it look like you are getting a DEAL when you buy from them.
Look, these are not bad guys! They are good businessmen and need this kind of mark up to maintain the store, staff and inventory and to pay their high rents so it is convenient for you to come in and look at their jewelry.
Zales, for instance in its annual report, shows a fifty percent (50%) gross margin as a percentage of sales (about a 100% mark-up of their cost) which means they averaged receiving double key on all purchases for an entire year. But with all their overheads, they only brought 3.5% of sales to their bottom line (average over the last 5 years)!
***Secret*** The on line retailers can sell for less margin because they don’t have the overheads OR INVENTORY that the traditional retailers have. So naturally they can sell for less. That’s right! On line retailers do not have their own inventory. So what about the 30,000 or 40,000 or more diamonds they promote? Who owns and where are those diamonds? They are sitting mainly in the cutters and manufacturers offices around 47th street in New York City, or in Tel Aviv, Brussels, or somewhere in India waiting to be shipped into the US. The on line jewelers are generally all pulling from the same sources out of on line databases.
Look, these are not bad guys! They are good business people who have a new distribution and sales model and you the consumer are more empowered with training and information than ever before. But they still want to keep their secrets, since that is how they make money.
Blue Nile is the Gorilla of the on line jewelry sales industry. It is a public company so we can look at their annual report also. It shows they were about 10% the size of Zales on a sales basis. Their gross profit is 22% of sales (equals about a 30% mark-up of their cost) or less that half that of Zales. Now comes the interesting part! Blue Nile’s bottom line averaged 6.2% for the last two years. WOW! Less than half the gross margin and almost twice the bottom line! That’s the power of low overhead and using someone else’s inventory!
***Secret*** Every diamond is unique. God made a special material when He created diamonds. These special qualities can create stones of tremendous brilliance and beauty at the hands of skilled craftsmen called cutters. The grading of the finest of these cut stones are done by independent laboratories. This is a subjective process! It’s an art not a science. There is a range of quality for each of the promoted 4 C’s, Color, Cut, Clarity and Carat (weight/Size). The fire and brilliance and apparent size can vary with stones of identical grading characteristics.
This is why Executive Diamond Service does not leave you on your own looking through a list of scores of diamonds on the Internet, wondering what to do now, like the traditional on line retailer. We are a new buying experience. Our exclusive INSIDER Diamond Buying Process uses jewelry experts who are at the top of their field in the entire world to personally examine diamonds that meet your criteria and select the top 2 or 3 (out of tens of thousands) that will give you the best value for your budget!!!!!
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I founded Executive Diamond Service (Exec Diamonds) to help young couples and executives get beautiful diamonds they can truly trust at unheard of prices by using my INSIDER jewelry industry contacts (see how Executive Diamond Service was born below). I am a CPA with over 35 years of business experience and my partner and I recently sold the leading franchise company in the Med Spa industry. All our clients work directly with me or one of our executives to take you through our exclusive INSIDER Diamond Buying Process.
First we determine your specific desires and communicate those criteria to our New York jewelry experts who comb through their thousands of loose diamonds to pick out the best quality stone within your criteria. Our executive then helps you make a custom setting selection, if desired, and tracks the stone and setting through the assembly process.
Then we continue our exclusive INSIDER Diamond Buying Process. Every diamond is hand picked by a top expert jeweler to assure you get the best stone within the criteria you set, has a certificate guaranteeing you are getting what you expect, and we go one step farther to laser inscribe the certificate number on the diamond girdle so you can be sure the stone is authentic forever. Every setting is custom designed to your specifications.
Exec Diamond gives unmatched client service by one of our executives and you get INSIDER pricing evidenced by the invoices we receive plus our small service charge (15% of invoice costs up to $10,000, plus 10% over $10,000).
Compare this price to your local retail jeweler (average 100% mark- up) or other on line jewelers (average 30% mark-up).
How Executive Diamond Service Was Born
I’ve been in the business world for over 35 years, first as a CPA with one of the national CPA firms then as Chief Financial Officer of a large national retailer with over $100 million in jewelry sales. Our President was a charismatic leader named “Sam” who was a jewelry INSIDER. From his many years in the jewelry business and our company’s large volume of jewelry purchases, Sam knew everyone in the industry. Sam took me as a young executive under his wing and ushered me into a completely new world at one time largely run by Hasidic Jewish men but still the realm of family businesses with Jewish backgrounds. Through Sam I became an INSIDER.
As an INSIDER, I have always been able to make a phone call directly to President X (Note- due to the sensitive nature of this industry and my new service, this industry mogul wishes to remain anonymous) of one of the premier New York based diamond cutting companies and ask him to send me a beautiful stone of whatever size. No money changed hands. The next day a brown box would show up and inside a piece of wax paper was wrapped the best quality diamond according to my budget and other criteria I gave. If I wanted to keep it, I would send him a check. If not, I would send back the stone. My price? Whatever the biggest chain of jewelry stores in the country could by it for!!!!! This was my INSIDER diamond buying process.
That is the benefit of being an INSIDER.
Now here is the bottom line. No amount of money can make a person an INSIDER. No amount of prestige can make someone an INSIDER. The diamond industry takes a long term focus in doing business and will not do something today that will hurt tomorrow. The only way to become an INSIDER is to be ushered into the family by another INSIDER!
I have been an executive and an entrepreneur but out of the jewelry industry for many years. But I never stopped being and INSIDER.
On my 25th wedding anniversary, I made another call to President X, “Could you send me a 2.25 carat round stone?” I asked. The next day it showed up. It was brilliant! I replaced my wife’s engagement ring diamond with this beautiful new stone and she was thrilled. Boy did I get some new points with her and continue to get new points every time she shows it to one of her girl friends.
My business partner saw me doing the INSIDER diamond buying process and asked if I could get him a new diamond for his wife. “Sure!” I said. We went through the same INSIDER buying process. He got an even bigger and more brilliant diamond.
Next a young lady who used to work for me called and said, “Tom, Alan and I just got engaged.” I congratulated her and then she asked, “I saw you buy a diamond for your wife and wondered of you could do the same for us?”
Again, we went through the INSIDER diamond buying process. This time President X introduced me to the top settings manufacturer in the country and we had a custom setting made up. This young lady and her fiancé saved over $15,000 on her engagement ring and matching wedding ring! She loved it and I got a big hug.
Her fiancé didn’t really know me that well so I took them to lunch when the stone came in and stopped at a local jewelry store with the stone. They appraised the diamond at twice what the stone cost them (I gave them a copy of my invoice for the stone and the rings). Now he was thrilled (I didn’t get another hug though just a big smile and hand shake.)
All of a sudden I realized that I could help young people and other executives buy diamonds and jewelry at great prices and actually help their quality of life by helping them give their loved ones special gifts at great prices. Everyone wins!
So Executive Diamond Service was born to make my clients INSIDERS. I walk them into the family and they get brilliant diamonds at great prices. My clients get a copy of the invoices for the diamonds and I charge a small service fee.
This is more than a clever marketing slogan developed by DeBeers before World War II. A piece of jewelry with a certified diamond becomes a family heirloom. It is passed from parent to child to grandchild and on. Diamonds are the hardest material know to man, and yet forever in terms of their life is actually a very short time when compared to Eternity. If you would like to discover more about Eternity and how you can bring Eternity into your own life, click here.
