Looking for the precision cut genuine color gemstones

Peter!!!!!

You managed to fall into the trap. Andrei Vesselovski and Lisa are
BOTH AFFILIATED with the website they promote....



this may well be what you find among the better gem traders. The web,
despite
it's high profile, is not that commonly where a jeweler would look for
fine
stones, nor is it common for the REAL gem traders to do much business
there.

Not true! Time is changing. I can name a few websites which belongs to the
REAL
traders and who trades successfully online.

wrote in message
...
Peter!!!!!

You managed to fall into the trap. Andrei Vesselovski and Lisa are
BOTH AFFILIATED with the website they promote....

Whatever you say my anonymous friend :-) And I am not sure how
Lisa affiliated with echinastone.com., but if you look at the website
copyright ( and actually many others gemstone websites) and my
email address, you will see that I know what I am talking
about and you don't.

Best Regards
Andrei Vesselovski

On Tue, 28 Oct 2003 19:16:31 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry "Andrei Vesselovski"
wrote:

Peter!!!!!

You managed to fall into the trap. Andrei Vesselovski and Lisa are
BOTH AFFILIATED with the website they promote....

Whatever you say my anonymous friend :-) And I am not sure how
Lisa affiliated with echinastone.com., but if you look at the website
copyright ( and actually many others gemstone websites) and my
email address, you will see that I know what I am talking
about and you don't.

Best Regards
Andrei Vesselovski

So, OK. why not spell it out. It looks like you're a web developer who either
developed the echinastone site, or works for a company that did. Is that right?
Are you an independent web developer, or an actual employee of echinastone? And
are you a jeweler, gemologist, gem dealer, or otherwise involved beyond the
consumer level with gems?

What's your involvement with echinastone.com?

Peter

"The Light" wrote in message
...
Pictures are bad

IMHO their pictures are GREAT and I find it
really rare that their gemstones are not photoshop treated as the
website you pointed out.... wish you good luck
Rouben

Very interesting comment. First of all, why Photoshop
treatment is bad and what is exactly wrong with the merchant
who uses various graphic tools ( e.g Photoshop) to achieve
better representation of the gemstone? You can say, that
enhanced picture can mislead the customer and I would
agree, if return policies were never exists. But to my knowledge,
all serious online gemstone dealers offer at least ten days
return policy. So, if the picture look better than actual
gemstone, customer will simply return it and probably never
shop there again.

However, I don't think you really understand gemstone
trade online. Imagine a website stock over thousand
of single gemstones. How much time you can invest in
one picture, knowing that you will never use it again after
the stone sold. Do you really think that using Photoshop
in this scenario will be possible, or at least cost effective?
And do you really believe, that poor gemstone photograph
worth spending time of the professional artworker?
I don't think so.

And finally, almost all pictures you see on the web are
"photoshop treated" to some extend.

BTW, www.creativegem.com pretty interesting website,
but I would agree with Lisa - pictures could be better.


Best Regards
Andrei Vesselovski

"Peter W. Rowe" pwrowe@ixDOTnetcomDOTcom wrote in message
...
So, OK. why not spell it out. It looks like you're a web developer who
either
developed the echinastone site, or works for a company that did. Is that
right?

Yes, that is right. I am a web developer who developed www.echinastone.com

Are you an independent web developer, or an actual employee of
echinastone?

I am independent web developer, owner of the web development company
and I never been employed by anybody my entire life.

And
are you a jeweler, gemologist, gem dealer, or otherwise involved beyond
the
consumer level with gems?

I was involved in gem business for some time. I mined peridot,
trade rubies and sapphires in Vietnam. Currently, I am involved
in gem business by developing good websites which sells gemstone
online. I believe, that all gem dealers must have presentation
on the web, transparent price structure, standard clarity and color
classification and clear trading policies. I believe that color
gemstones are commodity and must be sold as such and I believe
that internet is the only way to accomplish this.

What's your involvement with echinastone.com?

I developed this website and my company provides technical
support, such as hosting for example. And if someone asks,
where to buy calibrated ( or machine cut) gemstones, I will
point at this website. And I will point to other gemstone
websites I developed if someone asks where to buy relative to
those websites gemstones. ( and I always do as you can see by
searching this group for example )

I will do it, because I know who is behind those websites, how much
effort owners of this websites invested in their online business and
I know what is behind pretty "photoshop treated" pictures. So, I am
pretty sure, that it is nothing wrong with my advice.

Finally, I am a professional web developer with good knowledge
of international colour gemstones business and 4 years experience
in design and development of ecommerce solutions for the gem dealers,
and I believe that I could find better use of my time, rather than
setting up "traps" in Usenet.

Does it "spell out" or should I publish references as well?

Best Regards
Andrei Vesselovski

"Andrei Vesselovski" wrote in message
. ..

You say: "However, I don't think you really understand gemstone
trade online. Imagine a website stock over thousand
of single gemstones. How much time you can invest in
one picture, knowing that you will never use it again after
the stone sold."

I might not be an expert as YOU in e-commerce but I do feel that for
the layman and the professional alike the IMAGE is what eventually
doing the sale!

And than you say: "So, if the picture look better than actual
gemstone, customer will simply return it and probably never
shop there again."

Do you really think a customer will go through the hassle of returning
a 20$ package and loose his 15$ shipping costs?????????

If it is not the actual product picture why you are not saying so in
your site terms?

Be honest with your customers and don't try to justify a misleading
picture by huge stocks….. Call it clipart gem file for very limited
reference value LOL.

You continue saying: "And finally, almost all pictures you see on the
web are "photoshop treated" to some extend."

No, YOU are WRONG. Websites who work on CHEAP gemstones designed to
the end consumer might use the clipart files. How about checking these
GREAT SITES for REAL pictures of REAL gemstones designed for the
TRADE:

http://www.unconventionallapidarist.com/
http://lapidaryart.com/rocks.html
http://www.acstones.com/
http://www.creativegem.com

:-

What is so great about them? They do not offer machine cut gemstones
and it's hard to get any useful price information due many errors,
such as:

"What is so great"? How about honesty, reliable service, wide range
of product, exceptional prices, full disclosure of probable treatments
used, courteous service and willingness to find a particular item when
asked. That's pretty "great" if you ask me. And the only error I've
ever encountered on their site has been during the purchasing process
.... which I've successfully completed many times.

Perhaps their pictures may not be the "prettiest" on the web but I've
never received a single item from them where the picture didn't fairly
represent the product I bought. And _all_ the pictures were of the
specific items I bought, not some generic photo. Generic photos may
be convenient for the vendor but they're useless for the customer.

Over the past several months I've bought a wide variety of items from
creativegem.com and have been satisfied with almost all of them. In
the cases where I was less than satisfied it was because of my own
ignorance and no fault of their's. And, frankly, at the prices they
are asking I was happy to consider it an economical education.

Let me be perfectly clear: I have been and am a happy customer of
creativegem.com and fully expect to be in the future. If you've found
someone with whom you are as satisfied I'd say you should count
yourself lucky. To each their own.

Cheers,
Trevor F.

"The Light" wrote in message
news
I might not be an expert as YOU in e-commerce but I do feel that for
the layman and the professional alike the IMAGE is what eventually
doing the sale!

You absolutely right.

And than you say: "So, if the picture look better than actual
gemstone, customer will simply return it and probably never
shop there again."

Do you really think a customer will go through the hassle of returning
a 20$ package and loose his 15$ shipping costs?????????

Yes, I do.Sometimes people go through the hassle of returning a one
dollar gemstone, especially Ebay folks. However, I see you point
and here is my thoughts:

Gemstones are not end consumer commodity, to the rare exception
of the small percentage of people who buy gems to set it in the
custom made ring or standard setting. So, the alpha customers of the
gem website are either jewellers or gem dealers, who purchase stones
for their business repeatedly. Those customers will not go through
the refund hassle below certain amount, but they won't shop again
at your website either. So, it is not difficult to see who is doing good
business online and who is not. Who is online for few years and
expanding and who just have an internet presence...

If it is not the actual product picture why you are not saying so in
your site terms?

I didn't say that. I said, that product picture can be enhanced and
I don't see anything wrong with it. And I'am not saing that you
should generate pictures of non existing items.

Say that you shot a blue sapphire which has eye visible inclusions
but those inclusions are not visible on your picture due poor
photography skills of yours. What is wrong, if you make this
inclusions visible in this picture by using your Photoshop skills?

Be honest with your customers and don't try to justify a misleading
picture by huge stocks

I am not. First of all, huge stocks online a usuall result of good business,
which also means customer satisfaction. Second of all, I think that
picture must represent true appearance of the gemstone. Not bad
appearance due poor photography and not misleading appearance
due good Photoshop skills. So, it doesn't matter what tools you
employ to achieve this true and honest gemstone presentation or does it?

No, YOU are WRONG. Websites who work on CHEAP gemstones designed to
the end consumer might use the clipart files.

What do you call cheap gemstones?

How about checking these
GREAT SITES for REAL pictures of REAL gemstones designed for the
TRADE:


http://lapidaryart.com/rocks.html
http://www.acstones.com/

These two websites are not designed for trade, but they do have
many good pictures. However, they are using speculative
technique, where the colour of the background against which a gem
is photographed and background of the HTML page where
picture is presented have a major effect on overall appearance.

I can't say if this effect misleading or not, since you need to
see real stones and compare. But what I can say for sure,
is that these websites do not have good business online and
there is no guarantees that stones presented on site are on
hands. Actually, when you see the last update on 05/08/2003
-- it's scary.

http://www.unconventionallapidarist.com/

This website offers very little of faceted gemstones
and I think it's designed for the hobbyists, not for the
trade. And faceted gemstones photos could be better.

http://www.creativegem.com

I already comment about this site.

All above sites did use some graphic tools
to crop and optimise their stones photographs.
It could be Photoshop or any other imaging
application.

Cropping the photograph would be a "treatment to
some extend". Optimising photograph for the web,
would be "treatment to some extend". And in both
scenarios, original photograph may ( and usually does)
loose certain qualities.

But to make sure, I randomly check few pictures from
the "GREAT SITES" you taking about. And yes
acstones.com do have some not treated pictures
( I found one) shot using Sony Mavica, but most
of them treated using PicturePress 2.5 (compression).
Now, lapidaryart.com uses Gimp to treat their pictures.
and creativegems uses Leadtools ( probably Multimedia
Imaging Pro) to enhance or compress their images of
stones.

Best Regards
Andrei Vesselovski

"TrevorF" wrote in message
...
"What is so great"? How about honesty, reliable service, wide range
of product, exceptional prices, full disclosure of probable treatments
used, courteous service and willingness to find a particular item when
asked. That's pretty "great" if you ask me. And the only error I've
ever encountered on their site has been during the purchasing process
... which I've successfully completed many times.

... skipped

Let me be perfectly clear: I have been and am a happy customer of
creativegem.com and fully expect to be in the future. If you've found
someone with whom you are as satisfied I'd say you should count
yourself lucky. To each their own.

Dear Trevor,

It's one of the best testimonial I ever saw and I spent an hour researching
creativegem.com. I have no doubts that website owners are honest and
willing to find whatever customer want them to find, but their website
does have many errors. From the home page it is almost impossible to
get any further. Large and promising buttons like Laser Cuts, Over 40c
Stones and Gemstones Wholesale returns only MS runtime error. In the
Gemstones section more than half of the links are not operational and
returns same MS runtime error. So, it is safe to assume, that high
percentage of website visitors will pretty upset. They will close their
browser window and miss the chance to experience "courteous service".
Also, I can imagine that potential customer may ask a question: "What
is so great about them?".

But let's check your "great points":

full disclosure of probable treatments

This is an industry standard. Besides, sometimes it's almost impossible
to determine if there were any treatments with the gem dealer equipment.
(Learn more about it from http://www.themelis.com )

willingness to find a particular item when asked.

Who won't?

reliable service

What kind of service you can call "reliable" at gem dealer website?
I believe you referring to the order delivery service. Well, this kind of
service depends on FedEx or Registered mail and varies from country
to country.

wide range of product

Can you show me worth visiting gem dealer website without a "range of
product"?

exceptional prices

Tough one. Online (public) prices are pretty similar across most of gem
dealers, but you never know what is behind "My account" button or
password protected area. Some of gem dealers even won't display
prices on site. ( For example .www.palagems.com) Therefore,
exceptional prices are subject to certain terms and conditions

_all_ the pictures were of the specific items I bought, not some
generic photo.

This is an industry standard. I never heard of gems dealer, who is
successfully trading online and using generated pictures. Or maybe
you can point me at one?

Best Regards
Andrei Vesselovski

P.S I really don't understand how you can say "and the only error I've
ever encountered...", unless you bought all gems from them over the phone.

"Andrei Vesselovski" wrote:

It's one of the best testimonial I ever saw ....

Thank you. I hadn't gone out of my way to make it so but it's not
undeserved so fair enough I'd say.

P.S I really don't understand how you can say "and the only error
I've ever encountered..." ....

Let's begin here. I say it because it's true. While I have noticed
the odd page is occasionally unavailable I think it's safe to assume
that that is due to site maintenance. This is not particularly
unusual. And in almost all cases said page is back up and available
in an hour or so, sometimes less, sometimes not. And not to be picky
but a unavailable page is different than "many errors" which is what I
was originally responding to.

I've been on the web long enough to know that some parts of the world
are better served than others. I've assumed that Thailand,
CreativeGem.com's home, is occasionally one of those "others".
Unfortunate if you're in a rush but not a show-stopper. At least not
for me.

As to their site navigation. Sorry to hear you're having a problem
with it but I've never had. I get around just fine. Would I say it's
the best designed site in the business? Perhaps not, but I've been to
a lot on online gem merchants on the web and CG is hardly deserving of
slander on that count. But again, it's a relative thing. Most of
these people are on the web to sell stones, not win design awards.

Do we want to do this point-by-point? Why not? It's efficient if
nothing else.

_all_ the pictures were of the specific items I bought, not some
generic photo.

This is an industry standard. I never heard of gems dealer, who is
successfully trading online and using generated pictures.

I said "generic" not "generated". Big difference. I've visited a
number of successful gem dealer sites that use a generic Carnelian cab
photo, for example, to represent their Carnelian cabs. This is not
very useful IMHO. Generally speaking if I'm going to buy a stone I
want to see at least a picture of _that_ stone before I'm going to
shell out for it. There are execeptions but I vary rarely make them.

full disclosure of probable treatments

This is an industry standard.

Balls! Firstly, there is no "standard". There's no agency
controlling these sites so any "standard" followed is completely
voluntary ... and arbitrary. Second, the number of sites I've seen
that say nothing more than "Treated, see the Glossary of gem
treatments" is appauling. This means nothing to me and I refuse to
even spend time at sites that do this never mind shop there. There
are plenty of attractively prices stones at sites that do better.

Sites that do get my attention are those that indicate the treatments
they know or believe apply to a particular stone or group of stones.
Of course we're not talking about certificates or anything like that
but the honest desire by the vendor to be as forthright as they are
able to be. That I appreciate and I vote for it with my purchases.

exceptional prices

Tough one.

I've spent hundreds of hours "window" shopping on the web to be fully
confident of what I've said here. _I_ think their prices are, in most
cases, exceptional and again, I vote for them and their pricing with
my money. It's not "tough" at all. I'm not trying to represent these
guys in court. I'm giving my opinion. Take it or leave it.

wide range of product

Can you show me worth visiting gem dealer website without a "range of
product"?

Are you _trying_ to be obtuse here? I said "wide" range of product.
Again, I've shopped around enough to be fully confident of what I've
said here. Many sites I've seen have only a fraction of the range and
selection that CG has. Not all sites, perhaps not even your favourite
site, but who cares? If you happen to know of someone who's selection
you like better, bravo! Fill your boots! Now we're both happy
customers.

willingness to find a particular item when asked.

Who won't?

Many won't. At other sites the responses I've received to special
requests varies from dead silence to "what you see is what you get" to
"sure, we'll get right back to you". Needless to say the latter is
nicer. CG has come through in flying colours for me in this regard
and I like that. Just because someone hangs out a shingle doesn't
mean they're going to be responsive to your needs or requests. But
surely I'm stating the obvious.

reliable service

What kind of service you can call "reliable" at gem dealer website?
I believe you referring to the order delivery service.

Yes, reliable delivery is one point of service but there are obviously
others. Did the vendor put the right thing in the box? the right
number? Did they fairly represent their product? Did they ship it
quickly? Do they consistently do so? Are all the necessary documents
there? In sufficient duplicate for the customs people? Did they
charge what they said they would? I don't really need to go on do I?
Frankly, to suggest that credit for "reliable service" goes to Fedex
or whomever is rubbish. And it's a cheap shot which brings us to the
fact that I may well be missing the point in my response to you.

I have the distinct feeling that you've got an axe to grind and you're
going to do that no matter what I have to say. Fine, no problem,
grind away. But don't expect me to spend more time listening to you
do it.

I bothered to mention CG because I'm a happy customer of theirs and I
felt they had been unfairly slighted. I'm not asking you to be their
customer, or anyone else for that matter. If you like to get your
stones elsewhere that's wonderful. Vive la différence!

My comments were and are based on my good experience with CG and
that's pretty much between me, them and anyone else that is
interested.

Over and out,
Trevor F.