Where my opinion differs is that I do have some sympathy with their current problems. I’m not sure it’s that they’re not listening, it’s that in today’s market they can no longer buy reasonable quality, facet-able coloured gemstones outside of the Big 4, and set them into decent amounts of now hugely expensive gold or silver at the relatively low price long-term customers like most of us have come to expect. When I started watching and buying 10 years ago, the market was very different.
I'm not convinced that this is the problem that Gemporia are having.
There are numerous gemstone sellers that are still obtaining a wide range of stones at affordable prices. Take 'Gem Select' for example - they have a huge range of gemstones, of a quality that I would say is as good, if not better, than Gemporia gemstones, and their prices are very reasonable.
Unlike Gemporia though, Gem Select are VERY transparent and trustworthy. Every single stone they have for sale is photographed separately - so the one you see on their website is the exact stone that you will receive. It also has the clarity of each stone clearly stated, along with any treatments. Even the sizes are very accurate - measured to the nearest 100th of a millimetre - whereas Gemporia will just round measurements up or down to the nearest half a millimetre. Every single stone from Gem Select comes complete with an authenticity certificate too - showing a photo of the EXACT stone that you've bought. Gemporia's certificates don't even show a photo at all now!
All of that extra attention to detail takes additional time - whereas Gemporia will use one photo per product code - whether there's a quantity of 1 or 100 (if you're lucky - some of the new additions on Gem Collector don't even have a photo at all now!) The stone you see on-air or in photos is rarely the stone that you will actually get.
Also, whereas Gem Select list every single stone separately with its own product code, clarity and dimensions, Gemporia do not. If Gemporia have, for example, 50 gemstones that are similar in carat weight and dimension, they will simply lump them all under the same product code - and then put "average carat weight" in the description to cover their back if stone X is lighter than stone Y, or stone X is a quarter of a millimetre bigger / smaller than stone Y. That's a much 'cheaper' way of doing it than the way Gem Select do it.
Yet Gem Select seems to be growing - and Gemporia appears to be struggling.
At the moment, Gemporia seem to be selling lower quality stones than previously - for higher prices than previously. Dyed Lapis Lazuli, Irradiated 'Morganite', Reconstituted Turquoise, Dyed and / or Bleached Pearls, etc. I suspect they're buying them cheaper - but not passing those savings on to customers due to the predicament they appear to be in financially.
So I don't really have any sympathy because I am of the opinion that their downfall is of their own doing. They got cocky a bit too quickly a few years ago. Rather than having one extremely good channel, they tried to grow too quickly by launching others, such as Rocks TV, The Diamond Room, The Lounge, etc - all of which were ill-fated and fairly short lived. The cost of those failures must have been fairly significant because each new channel had a revamped studio set, new phone numbers, etc. That all costs money.
Then there's also the other failed projects - Gemporia USA, Gemporia India, the idea of selling Gemporia jewellery in high street shops (House of Fraser was it?), onboard Virgin Atlantic flights, etc. Again, all of this comes at expense.
Then there's all the staff redundancies, etc.
All that has to be paid for - so inevitably, it's going to be absorbed into prices. This is probably why the prices have gone through the roof on cheaper materials such as 'gold tone', filled Amazonite and dyed Lapis Lazuli. Stones that are widely available without treatment - yet Gemporia are selling treated varieties.
As for 'hugely expensive gold or silver' - sure, the prices of those have gone up - however, As MrMarple pointed out above, Gemporia were selling a three-tone 9k gold butterfly pendant - with
0.21 grams of gold (no gemstones) for £29.99 - which he worked out to equate to £142 per gram!
At the moment, 1 gram of gold costs £49.25p (as Gemporia buy in bulk, I would imagine they get a wholesale / trade discount on that price). That's a whopping £92.75p PER GRAM profit. OK, so they've got to factor in the price of the design and the cost to make the pendant - but I would imagine that even selling the pendant for £15, they would have made a significant profit.
So it's not that they're being forced to hike prices because materials are so high and gemstones are lacking - rather, it appears that they're choosing to hike prices to make big profits to, presumably, try to get them out of their financial situation - a situation that they have to take some responsibility for, for trying to grow too big, too quickly - with many failures.
I suspect this is why Steve Bennett seemingly got bored and moved onto Primal lotions and potions - because he'd tried to grow Gemporia into an international brand, but, failed. He probably felt he'd taken it as far as he could - so he moved onto his next project.
They've gone about it totally the wrong way in my opinion. By offering lower quality at higher prices, charging extremely over the top prices on Jadeite and gold gram weights, taking ages to refund customers and making price promise pledges harder and harder to claim, they've alienated a lot of long-term customers.
It's also false economy because, based on comments people are making in various Facebook groups, I would imagine that they are getting a LOT of returns at the moment due to the amount of people complaining about gold plating / 'tone' that has worn off in less than 6 months, or Jadeite being weaker in colour than they expected, or stones falling out of jewellery after only being worn a couple of times, etc. That jewellery is then returned faulty, and then presumably scrapped - and the customers have to be refunded. Again, all of which costs money - money that, ultimately, will have to be recovered by putting up prices.
To add to that, it's happened during a cost of living crisis. People want to pay less for things at the moment - not more! Charging people more, when they have less money, is never going to be compatible.
If they had continued with their original model of offering quality jewellery at reasonable prices (which is still very do-able - even with the increase in gold, silver and gemstone prices, etc), then they would have retained long-term, loyal customers instead of alienating them, they'd have had far less returns if they had stuck to silver and gold jewellery rather than sticking everything in plating or 'tone', and probably been able to turn things around. They used to say they operated on 'tiny margins' - but they could sell 200 of one item in minutes.
However, they now seem to do the opposite - sell items for as much as they can get away with, and whatever doesn't sell, will be repeated another day. And another day. And another day.......
I suspect that they're now trapped - they need to lower prices due to the current cost of living issues that customers are having - but they've wasted that much money on failed projects, studio revamps, etc, that they need to buy cheaper materials and sell at higher prices, to recover those costs and get the company out of the financial problems they appear to be having.
The two are incompatible in 2023 though - hence why I still believe that they won't be around in 12 months time.
Even if they did revert to their original ethos of good jewellery at good prices, I suspect that they've lost some of their old customers permanently - and others will need time to trust Gemporia again before they return.
