Our Standards on Quality and Craftsmanship: Why it matters

We are still on the path of introducing new items at rapid pace than ever before. Site is growing and expanding to bring a better experience when navigating the site on mobile or through desktop view.

Along with the fast pace we are on this year, we are also going to experience a few snags along the way. This is a common problem and we recently hit one major one that I sorta shared on social media recently. It all happened with the introduction of the DEATH MOTH Pendant.

I have to assume that alot of people are not familiar with how things work "behind the scenes" when it comes to the business world. These days, you are probably familiar with the word "fast fashion". If you are not familiar with it, I will only touch the surface of what that means. It's a phrase, really, to describe a process of what it happening in the world of fashion.

Fast Fashion is basically a way that describes a concept of business. This concept I refer to is simply called SCALING. What is scaling in business?

Scaling a business means setting the stage to enable and support growth in your company. It means having the ability to grow without being hampered. It requires planning, some funding, and the right systems, staff, processes, technology, and partners.

Fast Fashion is basically scaling but referring to the fashion industry. It is a concept that the fashion industry has mastered. This mastery is at its fastest it's ever been. The crazy thing about fast fashion is that, it doesn't need to be this fast! In fact, my opinion on this better to be slow than fast for a few reasons. Those reasons, from a business perspective, is that you can provide better quality to the consumer. In the end, for me personally, that is the ultimate end game. It is also the reason for why I created Sigil Occult Jewelry.

Jewelry has been around forever. The most expensive pieces are jewelry are of course, the gold, silver, diamonds, etc. Even more expensive is when they are custom made to cater the buyer's desires in style, size, and other aspects of jewelry. Naturally, something custom will be more expensive. It's no different than getting a tailored suit or dress.

When you go down that path to where apparel gets less expensive, you start to see more apparel being more "one size fits most". It is generally mass produced to fulfill the needs of the massive amount of customers on a grand scale. Scale in this term is NOT the same as SCALING in business. Scaling in business is as the definition above described. In easier terms, its growing and expanding of a business. The model by how you get there is what scaling means. Typically this requires producing new products and cutting costs or keeping them low by maintaining prices that are steady for the customer base the business targets. Of course, sometimes scaling also means producing products to meet different type of customers that would pay a premium on goods and/or services.

Fast Fashion is no different. However, there is alot of trending articles about this concept with fast fashion as being a really bad thing. In the end, it's a matter of perspective for every individual. The supply and demand curves see things a different way than someone who is concerned about other topics unrelated to economics or business. That's a fact that NOBODY is talking about but ME. I am not saying whether it is good or bad, but I am shedding light on both ends of this subject.

Our site is based on jewelry and we have provided jewelry that sets us apart from all the jewelry that was being sold for years to those who live on an alternative lifestyle that is generally dark, goth, occult, or punk. That list is longer but I think you understand. We created products that people really appreciated. Our standards for our products ran high. I cannot speak for other brands in the same space but we know what we set out to do. We wanted to bring something better for those who were willing to cover a premium to get what they really wanted and not have to settle for something that loses its quality during a mass production.

Just like fast fashion, even the jewelry space is like that too. Typically foreign companies that produce jewelry have lower costs for production and in order to meet demand, they produce items at a faster rate. In other to get to the market faster, just like fast fashion, they overlook the quality and craftsmanship. Most people do not understand that in the world of business, it certainly matters who is FIRST to the market when it comes to new products. Something that is so new and renovating will gain the biggest market-share if they are first to drop. Afterwards, the competition heats up when others try to mimic or copy the ORIGINAL. You see this everywhere and we are no strangers to having that happen to us too. I don't need to tell you about how much of our style or some design elements of our jewelry has been knocked off by now. There are so many!

There was a time when fashion was only found in Hot Topic stores and most of us would settle to stitch together our own variations of outfits to wear on Goth nights. These days, with the help of fast-fashion, that is a thing of the past. As the seasons change and the styles go with it, many companies that sell fashion are quick to change fast due to these very concepts. Products are affordable to produce at a mass scale (production) and along comes with relaxed QA (Quality Assurance). Quality Assurance is typically a department in major manufacturing plants. Anything that ever gets produced is likely to have a QA department. However, the name of the game is SCALING and manufacturing is getting relaxed in this department. Letting things go of products without a thorough check. Often times, most products are actually pretty good and the manufacturing is not all that bad, however, they are PRODUCED THIS WAY. Intentionally produced with low quality for a speedy production and movement through the process of getting this product in the hands or retailers.

Now I am going to cut off the long discussion on this because it is important that I share this brief understanding on how sausage is made in the world of business. Once you understand THIS, you will understand how WE operate.

When we introduced the Death Moth Pendant, the first run was a small production. We also introduced a few other items at the time and all of them met our high quality and craftsmanship standards. However, when it was time to restock the Death Moth Pendant, we were taken with a bait and switch by a different supplier. In the rush to get this out, a mistake I have to admit I did, we got sub-par product. The design is the same but the quality is way off the mark.

I have to admit, I thought we could probably rush to request and get the stocked as fast as possible but that was the error of my judgement. We were dealing with a different manufacturer that wasn't vetted and this is the result. We got what we asked for, the design, however, the other aspects that separates us from the rest was way off.

Many competitors would have just done something like because it costs extra to put in the extra services required to produce an item that meets our level of standards. This is why our jewelry might cost about $5-$10 more for something that looks relatively the same with other sellers. In fact, this pic is the Death Moth we got and it was rejected. I felt compelled to share this story because I want everyone to understand that just like the clothes you wear and the price tags that go with them sometimes, makes a difference in what you are paying for too. Fashion Fashion is producing apparel that is cheap in quality but will fill your desire your have that style you seek sooner rather than later. There is something special in getting your hands on something great until you realize one day t

hat the shirt or pants rips on an otherwise simple snag. You almost cannot believe how easy that was. In some cases, you wash it once and it shrinks or has a hole in it. That's not by mistake, that's what you got for the price, in some cases.

I was a firm believer once that shopping at Walmart was no different than shopping at Macy's. I had to get a gift this past Xmas. It was supposed to be a hooded sweater with zipper, all black. Buying a Nike sweater was an option and that cost like $60. I knew that the person this gift was going to would have loved it. I mean, who doesn't like Nike, right? However, I got him a Ralph Lauren from Macy's and it cost me $150. As someone who would never buy that at that price, understood the difference the first time I went to see it myself. The little draw strings for the hoodie had metal caps at the end. While most hoodies almost always had plastic. Then the material itself felt incredible. It felt solid and very good stuff. That's when it hit me, the quality is amazing and the little extras that are otherwise almost not not a big deal, suddenly DID mean a big deal. Tiny bits of details really did matter. They literally EARNED my $150 for that sweater. So I bought it. Of course, I ended up also buying the Nike sweater because why not. The more, the merrier, he would be.

The point of my story is that STANDARDS MATTER. QUALITY AND CRAFTSMANSHIP MATTERS TO US and this is why. You can clearly see the full size pics here, not shared this way on social media previously. The steel is different. The top pic has this metal that almost doesn't even look like its stainless steel. Its hard to tell. There is a technique called brushed polishing and it gives stainless steel a different look. Of course, ours are HAND POLISHED to a mirror shine. The other method is done by a mass method of polishing. They are basically thrown into a giant DRYER looking machine with a special type of rock...yes, ROCKS. These rocks, along with the pendants are then in this dryer style machine where they tumble around for a period of time. The rock has polishing affects on the metal. Of course, I am not exactly sure what was used in the product we got. I merely mention one method by which finishes are done on metals. The method we use requires piece by piece. Its costly when you have a few thousand to do. So put that into perspective as well. Going that extra step. It matters in the end.

And so with that, we go where we are with the Death Moth Pendant and I wanted so share this story with everyone. We are soon going to start a new production with a manufacturer we have had for a long time. There will be no surprises going forward at this point. I will finish this blog with updates we added to the site if you wish to continue reading. Also, let us now what you though of this blog post. Interesting? Educational? Will you be buying a knock-off because its cheaper next time? Something worth thinking about, right? As always, Stay Dark my friends and thanks for the support. ~ Xerxes

Website Updates

Recent updates to the site were made. You will see that we included a PRIVACY POLICY page to stay compliant with International viewers of our site and some states like California. You will see a link at the bottom that says "Do not sell my information". We never sold or shared information with any 3rd party. This link is there to block other additions to the site in the near future that might want to tap into our data. All sites use other company resources to manage some aspects of the site's functionality or other purposes. Clicking this like will help ensure that data will not be shareable to these 3rd parties when we are not looking. Make Sense?

Mobile view version of the site also changed. You will see more of our products much better than before. Pages should load a little faster too. We took out some pages on the site and simplified links and pages to be able to navigate better. You can also used a SEARCH bar the top of the site to find what you are looking for faster.

As always, thank you for your ongoing support. Thank you for making us your jewelry destination.

~ Xerxes