Discover our latest articles and insights on jewelry production management
If you manage your jewelry production with external manufacturers, chances are your daily life looks like this:
📱 In the morning:
💻 In the afternoon:
📧 In the evening:
Does this sound familiar?
You are not alone. 87% of jewelry brands with fewer than 50 people still manage their production like this. And most think "it works".
But does it really work? Or have you just gotten used to the chaos?
The Situation:
The Real Cost:
Time spent SEARCHING for information rather than USING information:
Multiplied by your team: If 3 people regularly search for info, that's €600-1200/month of hidden cost.
The Situation:
Your client asks: "Will my ring be ready for Friday?"
You answer: "I'll check and call you back."
You open WhatsApp. The last message from the manufacturer is from 5 days ago: "👍" (but 👍 to what exactly?)
You call him. No answer.
You send a message. Seen 2 hours later. Answer: "Yes yes, it's good for Friday" (you half believe him).
The Real Cost:
The Situation:
You send an email to the manufacturer with the specs:
"Ring size 52, 18K white gold, central diamond 0.50ct GH/VS, 12 halo diamonds 0.02ct DEF/VVS"
The manufacturer reads quickly (on his phone between two settings).
He understands:
"Ring size 52, 18K white gold, central diamond 0.50ct GH/VS,
1218 halo diamonds..."
2 weeks later, delivery. You discover the error.
Options:
The Real Cost:
The Situation:
You want to manufacture 30 "Solitaire" rings.
You ask for quotes from 3 manufacturers.
Manufacturer A answers by email:
"Hello, for your 30 rings: €80 excl. tax/piece labor, material to provide, 3 weeks delay, 50% deposit."
Manufacturer B answers by WhatsApp:
"Hi! I'll do it for €75 a piece but with material included. I can deliver in 4 weeks. Can you wire me 40% to start?"
Manufacturer C answers by email (PDF format):
Detailed table with phases (CAD, casting, assembly, setting, finishing), price phase by phase, separate material, delay per phase, payment terms at the bottom of the page.
Problem: You spend 30 minutes copying everything into Excel to compare.
The Real Cost:
The Situation:
You are RJC (Responsible Jewellery Council) certified. It's a guarantee of seriousness for your clients and distributors.
Every 2-3 years: audit.
The auditor picks a finished product at random from your stock:
"Eternal Ring, reference #2847-015. Can you prove the origin of the gold and diamonds?"
You start searching:
2 hours later, you maybe have 70% of the documents.
The Real Cost:
The Situation:
Monday morning, you create an order for 20 rings.
You open your "Gold Stock" Excel file.
Current balance 18K white gold: 120g
You calculate (mentally or on paper): 20 rings x 7g = 140g needed.
❌ Not enough!
You call your refiner: "I would like to order 200g of 18K white gold."
Answer: "No problem, delivery Thursday."
Meanwhile: Production blocked for 3 days.
But the worst:
You discover on Wednesday that your Excel calculation was wrong. You actually had 180g (your colleague forgot to note a scrap return).
You had enough. You blocked production for nothing.
The Real Cost:
The Situation:
You manage 5 manufacturers. It's still manageable (barely).
Your activity grows. You move to 8 manufacturers to absorb volumes.
Complexity with 5 manufacturers: Manageable (difficult but manageable)
Complexity with 8 manufacturers:
You hire a dedicated person just for coordination. Cost: €30-40K/year.
The Real Cost:
This is the #1 objection we hear. And it's a legitimate objection.
But here are 3 things to know:
They receive incomplete specifications, have to follow up for missing info, don't always know exactly what you expect.
A tool that clarifies all this from the start? It's also a victory for them.
Your manufacturer knows how to use:
A modern, intuitive tool, designed for them? It's simpler than what they already use.
Modern platforms (like LIINK) are free for manufacturers. Only brands pay.
Concrete proposition for them:
Which manufacturer would refuse that?
Let's recap the identified costs:
| Problem | Estimated Annual Cost |
|---|---|
| Time lost searching for info | €2,400 - €4,800 |
| Time-consuming follow-up calls | €4,000 - €8,000 |
| Transmission errors | €2,500 - €10,000 |
| Quote comparison time | €1,500 - €3,000 |
| RJC audit time | €500 - €1,000 (annualized) |
| Compensatory overstocks | €5,000 - €10,000 (immobilized capital) |
| TOTAL | €15,900 - €36,800/year |
For a mid-size brand (30 employees, 70 orders/month), that's €20,000 to €35,000 per year in hidden costs.
That is the equivalent of:
Question: How much does it cost you NOT to change?
It's the classic paradox:
"I don't have time to stop to sharpen my axe, I'm too busy chopping trees."
You already spend 5-10 hours a week managing chaos.
A modern tool saves you 60-80% of this time from the first week.
Simple calculation:
Monday 9am: Create an order for 20 rings
Total Time: 30-45 minutes
During 3 weeks:
At delivery:
Total time for 1 order: 2-3 hours over 3 weeks
Monday 9am: Create an order for 20 rings
The system automatically does:
Total Time: 2 minutes
During 3 weeks:
At delivery:
Total time for 1 order: 15-20 minutes over 3 weeks
Gain: 85-90% of time
Price Reality:
You are already paying, but in lost time and avoidable errors.
Reality: The smaller you are, the more you CANNOT afford to lose time.
Reality: You will NOT grow with your current methods. It's the vicious circle:
The Good Sequence:
For 1 week, note precisely:
You will probably realize it's worse than you thought.
Most modern platforms offer 15 days free trial.
Test for real:
After 2 weeks, compare:
If after 2 weeks of trial:
→ Continue. ROI is immediate.
If:
→ Stop. At least you tried.
Marie, founder of a contemporary jewelry brand (15 people)
"I resisted for 2 years. I told myself: 'Excel works, why pay for a tool?'"
"In reality, I spent 8 hours a week just coordinating my 4 manufacturers. 8 hours! That's a whole day."
"I tested LIINK out of curiosity, without believing too much. In 3 days, I had imported my products, created my first orders. My manufacturers took 2 hours to understand (it's really intuitive)."
"Today, 6 months later: I spend 1-2 hours a week on coordination. I recovered 6 hours. 6 hours that I use to develop new collections, approach retailers, work on my strategy."
"My only regret? Not having done it 2 years ago. I would have saved 600 hours (i.e., 15 weeks of 40h). Imagine what I could have done with that time..."
WhatsApp, Excel, Email: these are not bad tools per se.
It's just that they were not designed to manage a multi-manufacturer production chain.
You are using a screwdriver to hammer nails. It works (a little), but it's exhausting and inefficient.
Modern tools exist. They are:
The real question is not "do we need a tool?"
It is: "how much longer will I continue to lose money pretending it's fine?"
LIINK is the modern collaborative platform designed for jewelry brands outsourcing their production.
What you can test in 15 days:
✅ Create your products with nomenclatures (gold + diamonds) ✅ Create orders in a few clicks ✅ Invite 1-2 manufacturers (free for them) ✅ Track progress in real-time ✅ Upload/consult photos and documents ✅ Compare quotes from multiple manufacturers ✅ Manage your gold and diamond stocks
No credit card. No commitment. No sales pressure.
If after 15 days you haven't saved time → no problem, you stop.
If after 15 days you have recovered 3-6 hours per week → you continue, and you save 150-300 hours per year (i.e., 4-8 weeks of 40h).
It's up to you to see what 150-300 hours per year are worth to you.
→ Try LIINK for free (15 days)
P.S.: Brands that succeed are not those that avoid change, but those that anticipate it. While you read this article, some of your competitors are already saving 5h/week. How much time can you afford to wait?