Hi there! We are Glenn and Kathy, and we're glad to meet you. We are an older couple in our 50's living in Northeast Florida. "Always Yours Jewelry" is a Mom & Pop business which had its beginnings in Sept, 2005, when we decided to start listing some things we had sitting around our place. We'd accumulated too much clutter over the past 3 or 4 decades and it was approaching critical mass! Then in December of 2005, Kathy discovered an excellent source for beautiful jewelry to sell online, and "Always Yours Jewelry" was officially born.
ABOUT OUR BUSINESS: We focus on women's fine jewelry with a strong emphasis on solid 14kt and 10kt gold. We carry a lot of created gemstones coupled with genuine diamonds, especially the more expensive ones such as tanzanite, sapphire, ruby, opal, and emerald. You will also find a lot of genuine gemstone and diamond jewelry in our store, such as amethyst, garnet, citrine, topaz, jade, black onyx and more. We also offer some sterling silver pieces when we feel they are of exceptional quality. We will sometimes offer watches if we see a nice watch we think is above average or unusual.
OUR SELLING PHILOSOPHY: We believe our buyers should get great value for their hard earned dollars. We also believe we should get a fair profit for our products, which are bought with our hard earned dollars. For that reason, the majority of our listings are in the more cost efficient store format with the most reasonable prices we can offer. We also sometimes do a few regular auction style listings with a reserve price or a fixed price just for promotional advertising reasons, since auction style listings get much more exposure on eBay than store items. We dislike reserve auctions, but they are one of the few ways we have to get a buyer's attenton while still protecting our investment in an item. Our hope is always that rather than bidding on one of our reserve price auctions, the buyer will visit our store and find something beautiful for a great price that they can purchase immediately.
ABOUT OUR "REDUCED!" JEWELRY: Our price reductions are real and honest. We keep a record of the original price each piece was listed for, and then at random intervals, reduce the price a little at a time until the piece sells. Once an item reaches the level of at least 10% off, it is placed in our "REDUCED!" category, where it continues to be marked down gradually until it sells.
ABOUT OUR PHOTOS: We normally use company provided stock photos of our jewelry items, since we have a hard time getting good close-up images of jewelry and we are not professional photographers. If we think the company stock photo does not represent the item accurately enough, then we do take our own photos, but they are not the quality work we would like to produce. Our habit of using company stock photos does not mean we are drop shippers. We NEVER drop ship anything. We buy all of our jewelry up front, and it is delivered to our door first. Then we thoroughly inspect every piece before we list it. One of our simple little goals is to buy a much better digital camera than our current one so we can stop using stock photos altogether. Until that day, we do try to write up the most complete descriptions we can to go along with the stock photos or our own photos.
ABOUT OUR SHIPPING: Our home in Northeast Florida is way out in the country and very quiet. We like it that way, and we love seeing the wildlife that wanders through our property, especially deer and fox. There is one drawback though...we are so far out and so far off the road that mail pickup is not available to us. Daily trips to ship packages are not cost effective, especially with gas prices the way they are. To help solve that problem we devised our shipping schedule of Wednesdays and Saturdays. We think that provides reasonably fast shipping for our customers, and we use USPS Priority almost exclusively for our jewelry.
ABOUT OUR PAYMENT TERMS & REFUND POLICY: You can read the boring details in our listings, but we think this is the right place to say that nothing is ever chiseled in granite as far as we're concerned. Life happens...unexpected problems arise. We have lived long enough to know that, and we work very hard with our customers whenever they have problems. All we ask is that our customers contact us and communicate whatever difficulties they have so that it can be worked out in a pleasant, friendly way.
ABOUT REGULAR FEEDBACK: We normally wait until the buyer leaves feedback before returning it. Why? Because most buyers do not let us know they received their items. We don't consider the transaction complete until the buyer has received their item and has no problems, does not want to return the item, and does not do a chargeback. So once we see their feedback comment, we know the item has been received and the buyer is satisfied.
ABOUT DETAILED STAR RATINGS: Did you know?
1: A seller's placement in search results is affected by their DSR ratings?
2: A seller's ability to become a power seller is affected by DSR ratings?
3: A power seller's ability to earn a discount on final value fees is affected by DSR ratings?
4: A seller cannot even attain a 30 day rating unless they have at least 10 DSR ratings in the last 30 days? This means they can only have "average" placement in search results if they have 9 or less ratings in the past 30 days.
5: More weight is put on shipping detailed star ratings than any other ratings?
It's true. Buyers control a seller's ability to be successful on eBay through DSR ratings. This would not be such a bad idea, except one way the system is skewed is by eBay's explanations to buyers of what the ratings mean. Buyers are told when filling out the ratings that a 4 star rating is "good". However, if a seller actually falls down to 4.0 average, eBay gives that seller "lowered" placement in search results, and strips them of their power seller status and their discount. A seller with a 4.0 average might even be in danger of being suspended from selling on eBay.
What's a buyer to do? Not filling out the DSR ratings harms sellers, so we recommend that buyers do fill them out. Especially if you are happy with your transaction. We also recommend that buyers who feel they have had a positive experience be very free and lenient with passing out 5 star ratings, especially shipping star ratings and "as described" ratings. This helps a lot to undo the damage done by uninformed buyers who can unintentionally nitpick and 4-star a seller to failure on eBay. If you truly liked your seller's service and product, you will want to be able to find them in your search results and still on eBay in the future.
ABOUT OUR HOBBIES: Living in the country has been the perfect environment to encourage Kathy's bird watching hobby. She has identified over 200 species right here in our own yard over the years! Some residents, and some migrating through on their way south or north. This is our front porch, Kathy's favorite spot to sit quietly with a pair of binoculars and watch the birds:
We both have been avid flea marketers and antiquers since we were teenagers, and we still like to go puttering around in musty old shops now and then. We also love day trips to the nearest beaches to enjoy the scenery, stroll the beautiful white sandy beachs and look for seashells and other interesting finds the ocean offers up to us.
OUR HAIRY BABIES: We've always been animal lovers, and we have adopted many homeless strays over the years. Right now our hairy babies are 3 cats and 1 dog. I couldn't resist adding at least a couple of pictures of them:
We can't imagine living without the patter of little paws around the house, or never hearing the purr of a contented kitty curled up beside us in bed on a cold winter night.
Well, I guess that's about it for now except to say come visit our store anytime you feel like looking at beautiful jewelry. We try to add something new every week. Thanks for reading our "ME" page!
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