Hallmarking AGAIN!

[Patstone]

I go to one or two craft fairs every month, get quite a look of surprise when people are told that we just buy silver sheet and wire and make it from that, and also the finer silver chains, its a "craft market" for goodness sake, its not a craft if you just buy stuff and sell it on. Our stuff does comply with the law in that respect, because we weigh all the finished items before we either earmark for selling or stamping. The only bugbear I have is that the cost of the return postage from Assay Office to home. I send it up for about £4 and they send the same things back by post and charge £12, which pushes the price up if you are only sending a few items, which we do, as its a hobby not a full time job. Inevitably we try to keep the items less than the accepted weight to keep costs down, some of the items that are special we get hallmarked and any commissions are too, but on the whole although I would love to send everything up, the cost to us is prohibitive, alternative is to put the prices up and dont sell anything, which eventually would stop my hobby which I thoroughly enjoy, and of course the bonus of being able to buy nice shiny tools.

[ps_bond]

I've a few issues with the charging for assay, TBH - the pricing structure isn't terribly transparent and I feel the minimum packet charge should include the sponsors mark where needed as well as laser marking - if I send in 4 pieces for marking, I don't really think it is reasonable to charge £15 plus a charge for sponsors mark PLUS a charge for laser. It still isn't clear from the price list where packet handling & packet logistics come into play either. Return postage... Well, Royal Mail seems to be doing everything it can to make sure it is uncompetitive.

It also doesn't help much when someone misreads the hallnote and concludes that *everything* should be lasered...

If you send 5 silver rings for assay & laser, I'd expect a bill of about £38 - so including postage there, that adds about £10 onto the costs to make the ring - which, using my usual formula, adds about £23 onto the retail price of each. Send in 10 and it adds around £14 onto each. Once you get to sending 50, the hallmark adds £5 onto the retail price. It's cheaper if you don't have to rely on Royal Mail, admittedly, but for low value stuff that's adding quite a proportion onto the price. When the ring is in the order of £600 it's less of an issue.

[Patstone]

Quite agree, most of my plain/unadorned rings and pendants sell for around £25 ish, and the last time I sent up a small packet to them the stamping and sponsors marking came to around £10 and with the VAT etc and post and packing the parcel ended up costing £32. Bearing in mind that I sent the parcel up in a fairly substantial box, and the postage cost less than £4 from home to the Assay Office, I have never had anything lasered so I cant compare costs for that.

[SteveLAO]

Pricing is always an issue with all the assay offices, I think because there are hundreds of different variables that we have to deal with! We always charge the sponsors mark as an extra rather than including it in the minimum charge as we have many customers who like to apply their own sponsor's mark themselves and trying to extract that out of a minimum charge would be more complicated than adding it on at the end.

[SteveLAO]

Caroleallan - re your question if anyone ever gets "done" for breaching the hallmarking act....oh yes they certainly do! We had one case where a shop was closed down and £200K of unhallmarked jewellery was seized by trading standards! Usually though a warning with 21 days to comply is sufficient for most to get on the right side of the law

[pearlescence]

The statement you get back, with the long list of additions, is so complicated I took the last one to my accountant, who in turn took several minutes to understand it. And then frowned a lot.
The London office does need to sort out better shipping. As they do it now they are charging far too much extra for Special delivery (and special delivery isn't so special that before I left them they lost two packages in three weeks. Then made me feel like some sort of fraudster when I claimed.)
I suspect any courier company would be cheaper and better.

[Wallace]

I have had experience of BAO using courier.... Seriously, I would for the PO 'special delivery' every time. The cost is much higher with couriers. My last BAO experience was the final straw. I love being at LAO.

However, I do agree about postage being disproportionate. I sent my goodies up in a roll of popping plastic and padded envelope.... It cost me just over £6.00 to send via 'special delivery'. It was returned in the same packaging, with a Post Office supplied 'special delivery' envelope. The fee to wrap my bundle back up in my plastic roll, not single bags and put Sellotape on it, raised it to almost £10. So I am a little miffed only at that really.

The pricing for laser is a little higher than BAO, but it is set out in the freely available tariff, so I know what is coming.

'Special delivery', if there is no signature from you or your business members, you are able to take it up with the post office who are responsible. Going back to couriers, and my last packet there...BAO were given a specific address where I currently work (counting down the weeks). They took it to another building, not directly linked to mine and I had to chase it up to find it (took me the better part of a day)... So beware of couriers too.

Overall, I am happy having switched offices, very happy. Steve and Sascha are brilliant in supporting and helping with even the smallest enquiry, and you can even track it all on line. I am, for the most part, a happy jeweller.

[ps_bond]

In the May newsletter, AOL described their Special Delivery Response Service - you ask for pre-labelled bags, use them to send the packet in & the cost of shipping gets added to your fee. Has anyone tried that yet?

I do appreciate that there are admin costs associated with sending stuff out - I also appreciate the assay offices handle packets of wildly varying size & value (hence expansion into Heathrow, for example). We're very small volume by comparison and there aren't many opportunities for economies of scale as such.

Steve - later this morning I'll be sending a packet in. It's all 925, there's 3 bracelets, 1 pair of cufflinks, 2 rings and a bowl; all of them need sponsors marks, the bowl I'd like lasered with 4mm high 3d marks (which I've just remembered to add to the hallnote). Going on the current pricelist, that is £19.95 minimum charge, plus £1.60 for the sponsors mark (plus laser?), plus shipping at whatever RM charge, plus £3.25 packet handling - oh yes, and as I forgot last time - PLUS VAT! Oops. Did I miss anything? Everything is loosely wrapped in tissue, then placed in a box with bubble wrap, which is in a jiffy bag.

[SteveLAO]

pearlescence - I'm really sorry to hear about your losses, but as they went by royal mail special delivery and were subsequently lost by them then I think that would be down to royal mail? We would handle your claim for you as we are "the sender", but we can't be held responsible for RM's logistics. Customers are always welcome to arrange shipping by any method including couriers, and parcels are sent in by a wide variety of methods.
Wallace - The reason we charge £3.25 packet handling is that despite my best efforts, the guy in the post room stubbornly refuses to work for nothing lol!! Seriously as most of our work is done on a "time" basis we do need to charge out for re-wrapping and getting your parcel to the postman.
ps bond - you would be charged out at the minimum charge for 5 or more items, which is £19.95, plus 8 sponsor's marks at 20p, so a further £1.60. Then there's the £3.25 packet handling and then of course the dreaded VAT. I can't see you being charged a handling charge judging by how you're sending the items in.

[medusa]

pearlescence - I'm really sorry to hear about your losses, but as they went by royal mail special delivery and were subsequently lost by them then I think that would be down to royal mail? We would handle your claim for you as we are "the sender", but we can't be held responsible for RM's logistics. Customers are always welcome to arrange shipping by any method including couriers, and parcels are sent in by a wide variety of methods.

I think she was complaining about RM not you guys for loosing the packets. Have to say I've never ever had anything go missing via SD, so twice in a month must be horrendous luck.

Wallace - The reason we charge £3.25 packet handling is that despite my best efforts, the guy in the post room stubbornly refuses to work for nothing lol!! Seriously as most of our work is done on a "time" basis we do need to charge out for re-wrapping and getting your parcel to the postman.

I recall this reasoning before. Given it takes a maximum of five minutes to stuff stuff into an envelope and address it, can I please have a job at £39 per hour?