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stevebennett
Guest Shopper
I will try and answer as many questions as i can in one post. I know i am in a no win situation where i will be criticised if i do post and also if i don't. However, i do appreciate that everyone has their own opinions and even though all my posts in the past have always back fired, i want to prove that we are not a faceless corporate business and that we still deeply care about everyones opinion.
If you remember we purchased Gems TV back in June 2010. We purchased the company through our Coloured Rocks group structure. i hope this clears up the post that our structure "has something to hide". We have absolutely nothing to hide, we are very open and straight forward family owned company that is UK registered, UK owned and pays UK tax. This is something that we are proud of and something that very few of our competitors can claim.
At the time we purchased Gems TV it was just about to go into liquidation, in fact the company had lost over £20 million in the UK in just two years. As a family we took a massive risk and it will be many, many years before we see a return. We purchased the company and saved the jobs of some two hundred employees and friends and at the time i did openly state on air that we would have to make many changes in order to turn the business around. Within just a few months, through the hard work of the entire team, we managed to turn the business into a small monthly profit.
However, with the continued increase in the cost of precious metals and the recent rise in VAT, plus the fact that our cost of broadcasting has recently escalated we have had to make even more changes.
One of the common themes of many posts seems to be "is it still an auction". As far as we are concerned the answer is yes. Our producers are targeted at making sales. We DO NOT measure their performance based on what percentage margin they make. The reason for this is that we are very different to most companies. If for example we were to purchase jewellery from a middleman, we would benefit from something called SOR (Sale Or Return). In this scenario we would crash to the price we wanted, sell what we could and send back what did not sell. However, as we do not purchase in this way and therefore we don't have the luxury of SOR. This means we have to sell ALL of our jewellery. Even if we have to sell an item of jewellery bellow our cost of manufacturing, then this is what we have to do to move the stock through. With the new method nothing has changed, we still need to sell all of our designs. The producer chooses a quantity to place in the auction and commits to offering that many pieces at the final closing price, they have to sell jewellery, other wise the airtime costs will not get covered. At the beginning of the auction, neither the producer or the presenter have any idea of what price they will have to drop to make sales.
One post says this is simply a method to put up prices. This is not the case. We know we can't put our prices up, as our customers would simply stop buying, so all we can do is hold more auctions and sell more quantity quicker. This method will allow us to sell more pieces, even if our percentage margin is reduced, the increased turnover will help cover our higher costs. With the increased cost of broadcasting and the new platforms that we are about to broadcast on, we could not continue to expand if auctions take too long. Therefore the new method allows to make sure we hold more auctions in every hour.
I will make no excuse for some of the negative comments made about certain recent experiences with our call centre and the relevant managers are currently looking into these.Whilst i admit we are not perfect as an organisation, the entire team have worked very hard since last June to cope with the quick growth of the combined companies. We have had to recruit over one hundred new members to our team in order to cope with handling and shipping over 100,000 pieces of jewellery every month and whilst we do train our team, it does take time for some of them to understand our culture and ways of getting things done.
As always, I am happy to respond to any emails directly, please email me steve@gems.tv.
If you remember we purchased Gems TV back in June 2010. We purchased the company through our Coloured Rocks group structure. i hope this clears up the post that our structure "has something to hide". We have absolutely nothing to hide, we are very open and straight forward family owned company that is UK registered, UK owned and pays UK tax. This is something that we are proud of and something that very few of our competitors can claim.
At the time we purchased Gems TV it was just about to go into liquidation, in fact the company had lost over £20 million in the UK in just two years. As a family we took a massive risk and it will be many, many years before we see a return. We purchased the company and saved the jobs of some two hundred employees and friends and at the time i did openly state on air that we would have to make many changes in order to turn the business around. Within just a few months, through the hard work of the entire team, we managed to turn the business into a small monthly profit.
However, with the continued increase in the cost of precious metals and the recent rise in VAT, plus the fact that our cost of broadcasting has recently escalated we have had to make even more changes.
One of the common themes of many posts seems to be "is it still an auction". As far as we are concerned the answer is yes. Our producers are targeted at making sales. We DO NOT measure their performance based on what percentage margin they make. The reason for this is that we are very different to most companies. If for example we were to purchase jewellery from a middleman, we would benefit from something called SOR (Sale Or Return). In this scenario we would crash to the price we wanted, sell what we could and send back what did not sell. However, as we do not purchase in this way and therefore we don't have the luxury of SOR. This means we have to sell ALL of our jewellery. Even if we have to sell an item of jewellery bellow our cost of manufacturing, then this is what we have to do to move the stock through. With the new method nothing has changed, we still need to sell all of our designs. The producer chooses a quantity to place in the auction and commits to offering that many pieces at the final closing price, they have to sell jewellery, other wise the airtime costs will not get covered. At the beginning of the auction, neither the producer or the presenter have any idea of what price they will have to drop to make sales.
One post says this is simply a method to put up prices. This is not the case. We know we can't put our prices up, as our customers would simply stop buying, so all we can do is hold more auctions and sell more quantity quicker. This method will allow us to sell more pieces, even if our percentage margin is reduced, the increased turnover will help cover our higher costs. With the increased cost of broadcasting and the new platforms that we are about to broadcast on, we could not continue to expand if auctions take too long. Therefore the new method allows to make sure we hold more auctions in every hour.
I will make no excuse for some of the negative comments made about certain recent experiences with our call centre and the relevant managers are currently looking into these.Whilst i admit we are not perfect as an organisation, the entire team have worked very hard since last June to cope with the quick growth of the combined companies. We have had to recruit over one hundred new members to our team in order to cope with handling and shipping over 100,000 pieces of jewellery every month and whilst we do train our team, it does take time for some of them to understand our culture and ways of getting things done.
As always, I am happy to respond to any emails directly, please email me steve@gems.tv.
