Gemporia - struggling financially?

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SpiralGalaxy said:
It might have been like that once, but a company can turn bad very quickly if the culture or working practices change and the employees are not on board. I've seen it happen more than once. It's usually down to one or more upper management or above tier decisions made by people without much experience in dealing with the customers and knowing what it is they want. They make unreasonable demands of middle management, who push the frontline staff, who become miserable. Presenteeism and absenteeism goes up, productivity goes down, management react by doubling down and pushing staff even harder instead of taking the blame with their silly antics, and the company goes to pot. A whole company can be sacrificed for the grand "vision" of a single berk with too much power and not enough sense.

The presenters do look genuinely happy Steve is back, so hopefully he can turn things around.
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Sounds v plausible this us what happened at Gemporia, Steve stepping back and handing over to an MD without the passion for gemstones and understanding of the business model that made the company successful .. and complacently thinking that sales during covid when there was literally a captive audience could be sustainable especially with lower quality products and tacky ones that have been stretching the brand to breaking. Speaking personally I only buy from companies that deliver on expectations for quality/value and most importantly on the rare occasion something goes wrong, have it dealt with quickly and with courtesy ... which does not involve waiting longer than a month for a refund.Steve please bring back the focus on gems,quality and customer care. The presentations and selling only work if these are solid.
 
Sorry for going on about the customer service issue but these threads have made me reflect. When I started shopping here one of the products I bought was a pair of blue Ceylon sapphire stud earrings 1.5 cts in gold £70. When received one was a perfect cornflower blue but the other was paler. I messaged the helpdesk and John Bennett, Steve's brother I think went into the warehouse and found me a perfect matched pair of earrings to replace. Fast forward to when i bought a pale yellow Destello handbag 29.99 .. When I came to use it there were black splodges on the surface of the bag ...gave me a fright .. looked like it had gone mouldy!🙄 I think the black lining of the bag must have somehow stained it. Very weird. Anyhow ... getting the bag returned as faulty was like pulling teeth. Even when a company expands to the size it now, it still needs to look after its customers.
 
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Imogene9500 said:
Even when a company expands to the size it now, it still needs to look after its customers.
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It needs to be honest too - for example, at the moment, there is an 'Indicolite' showcase.

However, I'd be intrigued to know whether these stones have been independently certified by a lab as 'Indicolite' because in my opinion, they are far too green.

Indicolite should be a deep blue colour.
 

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TheManWithNoName said:
It needs to be honest too - for example, at the moment, there is an 'Indicolite' showcase.

However, I'd be intrigued to know whether these stones have been independently certified by a lab as 'Indicolite' because in my opinion, they are far too green.

Indicolite should be a deep blue colour.
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Just had a look at the show out of curiosity. These stones do look very green, some designs more than others. At a push green/blue rather than blue/green. I wouldn't say deep blue though or predominantly blue.
 
TheManWithNoName said:
It needs to be honest too - for example, at the moment, there is an 'Indicolite' showcase.

However, I'd be intrigued to know whether these stones have been independently certified by a lab as 'Indicolite' because in my opinion, they are far too green.

Indicolite should be a deep blue colour.
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I agree indicolite as far as I'm aware is more blue
 
rubia said:
I agree indicolite as far as I'm aware is more blue
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Actually when you look at the app and just missed items there are designs that describe the stones as green, but perhaps you can have green Indicolite? I love blue stones but I thought Indicolite is super rare and definitely blue or strong blue tones?
 
Imogene9500 said:
Actually when you look at the app and just missed items there are designs that describe the stones as green, but perhaps you can have green Indicolite? I love blue stones but I thought Indicolite is super rare and definitely blue or strong blue tones?
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Indicolite is solely the blue variety of Tourmaline. If it's green, it's classed as Green Tourmaline (or Chrome Tourmaline if coloured by Chromium).

Indicolite should be a very deep, strong, blue - the closest stone I can think of to describe it in terms of colour is London Blue Topaz.

This picture is an Indicolite - genuine blue.

The stuff on Gemporia was teal at best - but some were most definitely closer to green than blue.
 

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TheManWithNoName said:
Indicolite is solely the blue variety of Tourmaline. If it's green, it's classed as Green Tourmaline (or Chrome Tourmaline if coloured by Chromium).

Indicolite should be a very deep, strong, blue - the closest stone I can think of to describe it in terms of colour is London Blue Topaz.

This picture is an Indicolite - genuine blue.

The stuff on Gemporia was teal at best - but some were most definitely closer to green than blue.
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Have you seen the fire chalcedony on now, supposed to be super duper new and rare and awesome? I thought red chalcedony was just Carnelian.
 
Imogene9500 said:
Actually when you look at the app and just missed items there are designs that describe the stones as green, but perhaps you can have green Indicolite? I love blue stones but I thought Indicolite is super rare and definitely blue or strong blue tones?
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I saw the beginning of the show and saw the stones were green. It surprised me a bit as I'd only seen indicolite as deep blue before. So, thanks for the clarification everyone. Same with the Paraiba ring they recently had on for megabucks. I was expecting a vivid blue but the gem was a very pale green. Maybe that comes in different shades, but I thought the vibrant blue was the most prized? Is that right?
 
SnowMoon said:
I saw the beginning of the show and saw the stones were green. It surprised me a bit as I'd only seen indicolite as deep blue before. So, thanks for the clarification everyone. Same with the Paraiba ring they recently had on for megabucks. I was expecting a vivid blue but the gem was a very pale green. Maybe that comes in different shades, but I thought the vibrant blue was the most prized? Is that right?
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Anything on the GreenBlue part of the spectrum but, as you say, the brighter, the more neon the colour (both hue & tone) and the cleaner - the more desirable. Honestly? I've only ever seen these on the old Rocks & Co broadcasts.
 
Townieland said:
You'll have to excuse me on somethings because my information comes secondhand as I don't work there anymore and I may or may not respond to any questions because I don't come on here a lot so I might miss them.

Unless something major happens the company is going to be around until April next year minimum. However they are currently in a bad spot right now. I won't say figures but they need a make a certain amount of money before April 2024 or they will close down. If they do make enough money Santander (Who they took out the stupid loan with) will look at renegotiating said loan because Colin was a moron and based the repayment amount off what the company was making during covid (which was a lot)

What happened is it was decided by someone or some people (No idea who) that we would beome an employee partnership and buy 75% of the company from Steve. This was all fine and we were steadily paying back Steve. Then for whatever reason Steve decided he wanted the rest of the money he was owed straight away. So to cover this they took out a loan with Santander, Steve got paid off and went on his merry way not looking back or caring about what happened to Gemporia even though he still owned 75%. Then after the world started going back to normal things started to get difficult. It was harder to get stock in (which is why you keep seeing the same stuff over and over again. We were sick of it too) and prices shot up. As well as that the pound crashed and they buy everyting in US dollars so the exchange rates meant everything was more expensive to bring in.

Communication in the company was appalling. Colin would never respond to anyone so unless you were actually in front of him the likelihood of ever getting any answers were slim. Even then when you did speak to him it always seemed like he didn't know what he was doing. Gemporia was falling on hard times and needed a leader but he certainly wasn't it. He was at the top looking after his do no wrong merchandise team who were some of the rudest and most unhelpful people I ever had the unfortunate pleasure of working with. Honestly trying to schedule a good show was next to impossible with those lot around. Not even mentioning the sales managers who were beyond useless. That position eventually got removed and was overseen solely by Colin who couldn't manage his way out of a paper bag.

By the way the working on tiny margins thing a complete load of bull. You see those pieces of Jade on screen pretty much every day? It's because they're the only things currently in stock that actually makes any money. This is because they cost something like £2 to make and then they mark it up to £100+ pounds. It's daylight robbery especially when you look at the actual quality. Oh and don't even get me started on what they actually say regarding treatments. Just one example was a really expensive parabia they sold a month or so back. Jake was on screen saying it was natural. HE'D CHANGED THE RECORDS TO MAKE IT SAY NATURAL. Whether this was orginally a mistake or he's lying I can't say because I genuinely don't know but you guys can be the judges of that.

As for Jake now being made the new MD I think that's a horrendous decision. He was always a very demanding guest for our directors but in the new plan when the redundancies were announced he and Colin thought it was a good idea to have directors doing 8 hours on air each to cover the 16 hours of live tv each day. He was happy to work them into the ground. I don't know if they've adjusted them now but the prerecorded shows are just taken as a 4 hour block. If a presenter runs over you'll just see them get cut off mid sentence which is honestly hilarious to see. Professionalism doesn't exist for the prerecords. Probably because no one in production ever thought they were a good idea.

Any coming to my last bit of info. Colin was withholding information and the bank decided they couldn't work with him anymore and approached Steve which is why he's back in some regard now. The company was actually going to go into administration this month before the bank intervened. That's how badly Colin messed up the company. How much influence Steve'll have over what happens going forward I don't know but I honestly don't think he wanted to come back in the first place.

Anyway take what you will from this :)
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I can concur with all this. Essentially they hoped the success of selling during lockdown would continue, but the total opposite happened.

Townieland I think I might know who you are, but good luck in your new ventures as a fellow ex-gemporian! ;)
 
VapidStoat said:
Their breakfasts were fantastic. I hate driving long distances, but breaking the journey up by having a long rest and a huge breakfast made it bearable 😋
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Absolutely. Pricey but part of the whole "get in the car for 5 hours" excitement as a kid. Sometimes miss Wimpey too - who can forget their sausage bap called Bender In A Bun?!

Aaah, nostalgia. Like good size Rajasthan Garnet, blended Ametrine and rings with more than 1g of metal. 🤔😉
 
AndyW said:
Absolutely. Pricey but part of the whole "get in the car for 5 hours" excitement as a kid. Sometimes miss Wimpey too - who can forget their sausage bap called Bender In A Bun?!

Aaah, nostalgia. Like good size Rajasthan Garnet, blended Ametrine and rings with more than 1g of metal. 🤔😉
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Those were the days! *waves Union Jack tea towel sadly* 😭
 
Please stop talking about Little Chef breakfasts - you'll give Troth and Jade Thompson ideas.

They'll probably look into flogging a range of frozen full English breakfasts, with rarer than rare sausages, bacon that can command hundreds on the High Street, waffles disguised as hash browns, and eggs that were only obtainable through exclusive contacts.

Simply pop in the microwave, with a 30 second clock, to give them a bit of heat treatment and you'll be raring to go (possibly in more ways than one......). Absolutely.


Buy three and get a free gold tone Jade bracelet.

Good luck to each and every one of you. Well done.
 
TheManWithNoName said:
Please stop talking about Little Chef breakfasts - you'll give Troth and Jade Thompson ideas.

They'll probably look into flogging a range of frozen full English breakfasts, with rarer than rare sausages, bacon that can command hundreds on the High Street, waffles disguised as hash browns, and eggs that were only obtainable through exclusive contacts.

Simply pop in the microwave, with a 30 second clock, to give them a bit of heat treatment and you'll be raring to go (possibly in more ways than one......). Absolutely.


Buy three and get a free gold tone Jade bracelet.

Good luck to each and every one of you. Well done.
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Gemporia wouldn't dare let Jade Thompson anywhere near them. He seems to have enough trouble finding shirts that fit as it is 😳
 

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