Wedding Show Update

We've started finalising details of where we'll be showing in 2007, the first show is planned for the Everglades Hotel just outside Londonderry in Northern Ireland. The Everglades is a great 4 star hotel and a super wedding venue. As well as covering the Derry area, it also attracts brides from Donegal and all over the north west of Ireland. We'll be there on Sunday 14th January from 2-5 pm. We have more shows planned and will be anouncing them as soon as we finalise the details.
More information can be found here www.irish-wedding-shows.bridalgems.co.uk the most up to date info will be found here.

Christmas Toy Rush

Traditionally this time of year is pretty quiet here at Bridal Gems, most brides are thinking about Christmas and the spring or summer wedding goes on the back boiler for a while. This year to keep busy we've started selling a range of cheap toys, through our website www.toys-central.co.uk and eBay. We're not targeting the mass hysteria toys like playstation version 2 million and six, which tend to have mass hysteria price tags, instead we're concentrating on budget toys and stocking fillers. We've imported a wide range and are concentrating our efforts on selling through eBay. I've no doubt we'll keep at the toys in the new year although obviously they'll have to be scaled down a bit as the bridal side of the business picks up again.
For those of you still looking for bridal jewellery, please don't worry we're keeping the Bridal Gems website going and are getting most orders out within 24 hours.

Where have we been all weekend

As many will have noticed we were not available on the phone or email over the weekend 17th - 20th November, we're now catching up with the almost 600 phone calls and emails missed over the period. We hadn't planned on disappearing :-) but had simply popped over to Scotland for a family function on Saturday and couldn't get back to Northern Ireland because of the weather. Some orders have been delayed but only by about 24 hours, and all are now being processed.

We'd like to apologize to all our customers and have been trying to get in touch with everyone who has left us messages over the weekend. Anyone who still needs to get in touch can now give us a call on 0800 043 4850

Irish Wedding Shows

We're currently searching for wedding shows and bridal fairs through out Ireland. If you're an event organizer and would be interested in having Bridal Gems exhibit at your show give Nigel Carson a call on 0845 2571715 or fill in the form on the Bridal Gems web site, Irish Wedding Shows.
We're happy to consider all types of wedding related show regardless of size or location. At most events we'll be exhibiting our full range of Tiaras and Jewellery, and were available will set-up a fully interactive website portal for placing orders at the show.
This is a really exciting opportunity for event organizers to have one of the UK's largest wedding jewellery retailers exhibit at their show. Our show dates and venues will be fully advertised on BridalGems.co.uk which has thousands of visitors every day and will be a great benefit and asset to the shows we choose to exhibit at.

Free Phone Order Line

0800 043 48 50

From Monday 16th October 2006 our new Free Phone number will be fully operational, we've been testing it over the weekend, and are still ironing out a few small problems. Along with the new free phone number we've also added a new standard number and have introduced an out of hours answering service. Our old numbers are still fully operational and we have no plans to remove these however we will be replacing all contact information on the site to reflect the new numbers.

Our Contact Details Are:

Free Phone 0800 043 48 50
UK Standard Number 028 6638 0027
Republic of Ireland 048 6638 0027
International +4428 6638 0027

International customers please remember we're based in the UK and use British time (GMT) when calling you'll need to check what time it is here, so you're not calling in the middle of the night :-)

Wedding Directory

Submissions to the UK Wedding Directory are still fairly steady and most accepted sites are listed within 72 hours. The directory is of coarse still free and we're happy to consider all sites however we do request that you list the site in the most appropriate category.

Making Payments To Bridalgems

If you've read through this blog or had a look at our website www.bridalgems.co.uk you'll know that we accept many different forms of payment. There's really no need to go through all the different options here as they're well documented elsewhere. What I do want to say here is a quick word about helping us identify your payment, you'd be amazed just how many times we open an envelope with nothing but a cheque or postal order inside. Although it's a bit of a pain, we can usually trace the order by looking at the amount on the cheque, the name (if it matched the order) and in extreme cases the post office frank to see where the envelope was posted. As you can imagine a simple slip of paper with an order number or even the buyers name would be a great help. The other payment type that causes us problems is direct bank transfer, now this is a little more tricky as not all banks let you put a note with the payment, but if they do then again either the order number or name would be fine. The other point about all payments, especially if you don't plan putting a note with them, is to make sure they are for the exact amount. Again many people round payments up, for example an order total of £16.45 and they send a cheque for £16.50, no big deal if there's a name with the payment, but a problem if there's not.
Having said all this I think there's only been a handful of occasions were we couldn't match payments with orders, and even in these cases we've been able to sort them as soon as the customer contacts us. The real problem is speed of processing, as with all things we want to get the payments cleared and orders out as quickly as possible.
In summary, put a little note with all payments with either your order number or name and pay the exact amount. We don't need a fancy typed letter, just any old scrap of paper with it quickly scribbled on will do. :-)

New Toys Central Website

Toy Central sell an amazing range of Hen Night Accessories. It's worth checking out the bargains available.

Royal Mail Special Delivery

We've decided to re-introduce the option to have your orders delivered by Royal Mail Special Delivery. The Special Delivery service offers a faster more secure delivery option for urgent orders.
Back in 2005 when we first offered this service we advertised it as "Next Day Delivery" unfortunately because of the time it took to process the orders and get them posted we were occasionally missing the deadline for delivery and understandably customers, having paid for "Next Day Delivery" were unhappy. For this reason early in 2006 we suspended the service and went back to the normal Recorded Delivery service we'd always provided.
This time round we're not making any promises on delivery time just that the item will be sent by "Special Delivery". We won't be processing these orders any differently from normal Recorded items but will still do our best to get them posted as quickly as possible.
So in summary we have not reintroduced Next Day Delivery, but are giving you the option to have your order sent by Special Delivery if needed. From experience I know how important it is knowing your order is going to arrive safely and this option will, I hope add an extra dimension of security.

With the introduction of pricing in proportion by Royal Mail in August, our postage costs have risen by a massive 35% this inflation busting increase has been justified by Royal Mail because our packages are a non standard size, and therefore take longer to process. Although we're not happy with the increase, Royal Mail's virtual monopoly on home deliveries leaves us no option but to accept it. We just hope they can use the extra revenue to ensure a better service with fewer lost and stolen items and no more postal strikes like to one in Belfast in March which crippled our business. Because of the price increases we've made a few small changes to our postage and packaging charges. For most orders the costs will remain the same, about 75% of our currently orders cost £3.50 P&P and these will remain unaffected. Our charge of £1.75 for small items such as a single bracelet or pair of earrings has gone up to £2.50 and we are no longer offering free postage for large orders, instead all postage charges will be calculated during the checkout process and you'll be able to view them before completing the order.
I honestly think our Postage and Packaging charges are still very good value for money, and when you compare the total price you are going to pay for your Bridal Jewellery to the equivalent purchased through a high street bridal shop you'll still be saving up to 70% on their prices.

Things here at Bridal Gems are finally starting to wind down a little, this summer has seen a big growth in business and we've been continually expanding our operations to make sure we delivered all orders on time. We always aim to deliver orders for UK customers in a few days, and over the busy summer period we've scored pretty well on this front. Approximately 94% of orders were delivered within 3 working days and over 60% were delivered in 2 working days.
The quieter winter months will give us time to make some changes to the website and get some updates done that we've been planning for a while now. Hopefully there won't be much disruption during the upgrades and if there is we'll be keeping this blog live and updated with the latest information.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all our customers over the past few months for their continued support, we understand that with out you, bridal gems would not exist. We do hope that all your big days have gone well, or if they're still in the pipeline that all your plans are progressing well.

Nigel

Telephone Orders

Thanks to our new streamline credit card processing facility, we're now happy to accept payments and orders by telephone. It's still much easier if you place your order online and select the telephone payment option, but we can process the complete order over the phone if you want. For more information or to place an order give us a call on 0845 25 71 71 5.
I'd really like to apologise for the delay in implementing this service the problem was caused by euroconex who messed about with our merchant account.
Nigel

Irish Dancing Tiaras

We've just launched our new Irish Dancing Tiaras website. As the name suggests we've brought together a collection of tiaras that were popular with our Irish dancing customers and we've built a whole new website for them. The site has been in development for some time but now it's live and ready to promote the Irish Dancing side of the business. We hope this is useful for customers looking for specific tiaras, and in the future we plan to develop sites for other unique markets.

Alternative Credit Card Processor

Due to the large number of failed payments through paypal and the number of customer complaints, we've now added credit card processing through nochex as an alternative payment method. Nochex, like paypal offers users the chance to pay for their order by simply entering their credit card details. There's no requirement to have an account with them and the process is pretty simple. We've kept the paypal option there for those who prefer it, and we still encourage customers to use it as paypal's fees to us are a little less than those charged by nochex.
In the next few weeks we'll also be able to offer customers the option to pay for website orders over the telephone, and a few weeks after that we'll be implementing a full telephone ordering service where we'll be able to fully process orders by phone.
For existing customers nothings changed and all the options previously there are still available with a few extras. :-)

Bridal Gems - Wedding Fair Tour 2007

From spring 2007 we plan to take our jewellery and accessories collection on the road, with the Bridal Gems website expanding all the time it seems like a natural step in our evolution.

The venues and dates have not been decided yet and we'll be starting small with just a few locations, but if things go as expected we'll expand to cover more and more venues.

As we get confirmed dates and venues I'll post them here.

Connection problems

We have noticed today that some customers trying to access www.bridalgems.co.uk are having trouble connecting to the site. We're investigating the problem, but at this time our server is working fine and it would appear the problem is somewhere on route between the bt broadband connection and the server. We'll keep an eye on this and hopefully it will resolve soon.

UK Wedding Forum

I'm not to sure how I should start this post, the UK Wedding Forum is at last back on line. The forum, which was successfully running for a few years was lost back in April because of a server failure. We have finally re-built the forum and users can now register again and start chatting. It's obviously going to take a while to get our user base built up again, but if you fancy being there at the birth of a new forum get logged on and register, it's free with no catches. We're also happy to have business users on there promoting their services, the only thing we ask is that they don't pretend to be customers and are up front about their interests.

Mid Summer Madness

Well, July hasn't really held any surprises for us, this year like every other is just as crazy. The little notes with the orders, "I'm getting married next week, will my tiara be here on time", still put a smile on my face. It's not the last minute buying that amuses me, but the sudden realization that it's real people in real situations we're dealing with, and not just an order number on a screen. It's sometimes easy to forget that we're not just selling any old piece of jewellery, and the tiara or sparkling necklace is part of a girls dream, that she's probably had since a child. So not only does the influx of "urgent" orders keep us burning the midnight oil, it also gives us a good old dose of reality. Thankfully we can usually get the orders out on time, and so long as we know the deadline we normally make it.

Order Status Explained

I just though I'd take a moment and explain the different payment status notices sent to customers and found when you login to your account. The payment status is either set automatically by the site or manually by the person dealing with your order, below I've listed the most common settings.

Processing:
This is when we have received your order and your payment but have not yet posted your order, this will either have been set automatically for credit card and paypal customers or manually when we've receive a cheque or bank transfer.

Pending:
Pending is used for orders awaiting bank transfer payment, awaiting cheque clearance or if there's a problem with an order that needs our attention. This status is also set for a short time for returned orders until we manually update it.

Awaiting Payment:
Pretty much explains itself, we are awaiting a cheque or postal order for the order.

Posted:
Your order is on it's way, once set to this there should also be a Royal Mail tracking number in the comments box.

Preparing [Paypal IPN]:
Once you select paypal as your chosen payment method, this status is set, this is automatically updated to processing once we receive payment, if your order remains at this status then payment has not been received.

Cancelled:
If no payment is received, we manually cancel all orders, paypal order are usually cancelled in a few hours and cheque orders about 10 days, if we receive payment for a cancelled order we return it to processing provided we still have the stock to fill it.

Returned:
This denotes an order has been returned and refunded in full partly returned orders retain the Posted status.

Delivery Problem:
Used in the unlikely event an order gets lost in the post or is damage in transit.

There are a few others but they're used mainly for testing and internal order processing, if you see a different status to your order you should contact us to see what it is. You can view your order status by logging in to your account here Wedding Shop

New Look Bridal Gems Website

We've been working on our site design over the weekend to better incorporate the eBay listings into the home page. We are now using an RSS feed to update the eBay listings and have redesigned the whole front page to better fit the feed in to the page. The new look is well over due as the old front page had just about done it's time. We've tried to keep the page layout as simple and logical as possible and all the links that where on the old page should still be there with a few additions, mainly the new eBay listings. We added a new header to the page also just to complete the look. Comments and feed back are welcome and as always we'll be tweaking it a little over the next few days to iron out any remaining bugs that come up.

The biggest change on the front page is the addition of three special offers, which although I won't have time to update them all the time I will try to change them as often as possible. :-)

Bridal Gems on eBay

Currently we list several hundred items a week on eBay. All listing are in an auction format with a starting price up to 40% below the website price. Although many items are bid up and sell at or above the price on the website, occasionally items finish with no bidders and you could really pick up a bargain by popping on a late bid.

To help our visitors spot the bargains, we now list the latest eBay items on our home page. The list is connected live to eBay and updates as the auctions finish. We are also able to combine eBay and website orders to save on postage costs, all we ask is that you pay for both orders the same day and put a note with the payments that you want them combined.

Why not have a peep and see if you can pick up some cheap wedding jewellery, happy bidding :-)

Nigel

New Coloured Wedding Tiaras

For several months we've been trying to source a range of coloured tiaras, and although it's by no means the complete package we've finally got a few styles and colours added to the website. To start off we decided to go with a few simple rhinestone and leaf designs. Firstly we have the T79 Cream Tiara, it's sterling silver plated and set with sparkling clear crystals. The leaves are enamalled with a cream coloured coating. The tiara is a standard adult size although it can be flexed in and out to fit little bridesmaids. For those looking for other colours we've introduced the same style in pink, purple and blue. These are very similar to the standard cream tiara with the exception of the rhinestones being coloured to match the enamalled leaves. All the tiaras in this range have fitting rings on the end's of the head bands and are about 5 1/2 inches in diameter. If you'd like a look at all the colours try the links below.

• Pink Wedding Tiara
• Blue Wedding Tiara
• Purple Wedding Tiara
• Cream Wedding Tiara

We also added a very pretty and stylish Lilac Spouting Stone Tiara to the range, I did hope to have these in a few different colours but we where let down by the manufacturers. I'm not sure if we'll be able to maintain a stock of these, but I thought they were worth a mention as they really are nice.

My little rant for to-day - Returns

We have a very flexible attitude to returns and understand that buying online, or by mail order you need to know you can return an item if not suitable. In our returns policy we simply ask that returns are accompanied by the original invoice and sent back in the same condition they where received within 7 days of you receiving the order. We don't have this policy to be awkward or to put people off returning orders, we have very good reasons for all three of these requirements as detailed below.

Firstly lets look at condition, any item returned must be resold and as such absolutely has to be in perfect condition, we will not and can not sell any item which is not perfect and as such we strictly enforce this policy.

Secondly is the time frame, 7 days should we think be ample time to look at the jewellery and decide if it's suitable. We re-order stock as it sells and to accept items for return outside the 7 days would totally compromise our stock control system, which is in place to ensure we have the goods in stock that our customers need.

Thirdly and finally is the invoice issue, this is the one policy that is most often ignored. I've lost count of the number of times we've receive a box with a couple of necklaces or a tiara in it and nothing else. On average we dispatch between 3 and 4 hundred items of jewellery every week. When we receive an un-accompanied return we have to search through 2-3 weeks worth of sales to attempt to isolate all customers who purchased the particular product returned, and then try to figure out who sent it back.
Even when we receive a return with a customer name on the outside of the package we still have to try to trace how payment was made and when the order was delivered.
It may well be the wish to have an easy life, but we do now insist on the invoice being returned with the order. All packages returned without the invoice are simple set to one side and not refunded, we can not make exceptions to this, however if the customer sends the invoice separately we will then sort out the return.

Well that's the end of my rant for to-day, with less than 1% of the orders we dispatch returned, it's not really a big problem, but if we can make the process simpler and more efficient it can only benefit every one.

New Dedicated Customer Service Phone Number

We now have a dedicated "lo-call" customer service phone number 0845 2571715, UK customers using this number will be charge at local call rates from anywhere in the UK, and will get through directly to a customer services advisor.
In the next few months we'll be introducing our new sales phone number for telephone orders and credit card payments for customers not happy entering their credit card details online. As our website has grown so too has our offline mail order sales, and from next month we'll be able to process customers orders over the phone as well as online. I'll be posting the sales number here as soon as it goes live. The new phone numbers are just a small part of our continued commitment to provide the best possible services :-)

New Packaging Options

This week we've added the option of having your tiara packaged in a presentation box, the boxes will fit most of our standard tiaras and will come pre-assembled when purchased with a tiara, or flat packed when purchased on their own.
The boxes are cardboard with a metallic finish and a clear plastic lid.

We've been trying to source these for a while now and still only have limited stock availability, but we'll keep trying to get a reliable low cost supplier so we can continue to offer this option.

The Stone and Pearl Skip Tiara, Back at last

Ok so we've been sold out of one of our prettiest tiaras for over 3 weeks, well not any more, from Wednesday 7th June they'll be back in stock. The T260 "Stone and Pearl Skip tiara" is a real favourite with brides and bridesmaids, the low profile suits many who don't want the larger more overt look.

The shipment due to arrive on Wednesday will also have more of the ever popular T130 "Baby Bubbles" tiaras, which have been selling fast in the past few weeks and were very low in stock. The "Baby Bubbles" was one of the first tiaras we ever sold and is still as popular today as it was back then. The simple unclustered look makes it a favourite for bridesmaids, brides and even little flower girls. It's also sold quite alot for "First Holy Communions" in Ireland as are a few of our other small rhinestone tiaras like the T410 and T120.

We'll that is for now folks, not bad my second article on the blog and I managed to post photographs, well provided you can see them, if not then I've screwed it up again :-)

Nigel

What's happening at Bridal Gems

I've decided to create this little blog to keep the world updated about Bridal Gems.
Bridal Gems was born in 2002, and has grown over the years to what it is today. We are based in Northern Ireland and sell wedding jewellery and accessories through out the world. Our aim is to supply simple low cost jewellery without any hassel or pressure on the prospective purchaser. Currently we only sell online, both through our website www.bridalgems.co.uk and ebay.co.uk

I plan to update this blog every time something new or interesting happens, this could be daily or maybe even weekly. If we run into trouble or have problems this is where I'll get it off my chest and possibly even find solutions, in my ramblings :-)

Please feel free to comment on my articles and don't hold back, this is where I want to hear the good and bad side of things. If you're not happy with any aspect of our service, or if you've had the best shopping experience ever, let us know.

That's it for now, but I'll certainly be back soon.