Fire Mountain Gems and Beads Has Great Discount Pricing

This has been the "week from you know where!"

The morning that I was supposed to fly to Vegas, my babysitter called me and related enough medical symptoms to qualify her for intensive care.

No babysitter, nobody to call, and a plane to catch for the MAGIC/Accessories Show. I had to go – I was showing my latest jewelry designs at a booth, and I've been working for months to get ready.

In desperation, I called the airline. They said "yes," they'd let me take Tommy, my one-year-old, with me. I called my hotel in Vegas; "yes," they could provide a highly recommended babysitter. Wow, this was going to work out!

The first day of the show was great! The babysitter was a lovely lady, and my customers absolutely loved the new designs. Then, the babysitter called and said she had to leave just after lunch the next day. This wouldn't work at all!

This is how Tommy ended up going to his first jewelry show. He's a good baby, but between crawling and walking, he was everywhere - and I was totally frazzled.

Three hours later, I was feeling worse. I was at that stage between screaming and crying - I know you have all been there.

Just then, two young women walked up to the booth with big smiles on their faces, and their hands extended. "Hi," one of them said. "We are Jessica and Robyn, from Fire Mountain Gems. We know you are a good customer, and we wanted to meet you."

I snapped around and shouted in their faces, "You're too expensive!"

Their smiles and their hands slowly drooped. 

Robyn said, "Really? Everyone we've talked to at the show has been telling us we have the best prices." 

Jessica asked, "Are you talking about certain products, or everything?" 

I told them about the gem briolettes that I use. "When I buy these stones, I only need 6-8 strands at a time. I can't buy 15 strands at a time, much less 50 or 100 strands to get the manufacturer's discount. This is your most expensive price--the first price on the far left. Frankly, I'd like to buy everything from you, but I can get them cheaper."

"But Tammy," (not my real name) "you buy hundreds of items with each order," said Robyn. "You don't get charged the first price--you probably pay the fourth price."

"Here, let me show you," Jessica told me. She pulled a small laptop out of her roller bag  and said she would pull up my account. This took some extra time  because my son, Tommy, smashed his hand down on the keyboard.

Jessica showed me my last order on the screen. "Look, you've actually been paying the lowest price - the fourth price - for everything you buy. You buy over 100 items with every order, so you pay the 100+ price for everything."

My head was pounding worse. "You mean the discounts are based on the total number of items I buy, not the quantity of each item?"

"Right on!" said Robyn, as she pulled out a Fire Mountain catalog. She flipped to a page called "Assortability" that talked about "mix and match." The page was full of charts of numbers and explanations. I never read pages like that - I'm too busy making jewelry.