Graham Jewelers Inc

In my opinion, Graham Jewelers is the best store jewelry store in the state of Minnesota. My husband and I searched for over a year almost every store, every chain, in the Twin City region to find an upgraded wedding band to celebrate our 20th Anniversary. Every store we would go into we felt like we were dealing with “used car salesmen” and it was really hard to hear their sales pitch and their “great deal.” When we worked with Chris Graham it was like a “breath of fresh air.” There was never any pressure, he was completely knowledgeable and we felt like we could trust him. I now have a gorgeous wedding ring that Chris and his staff have helped me keep shining for almost 2 years. Whenever I have a fun event to get ready for, if I can’t make it into the store, Chris will send out an employee to pick up my ring, get it buffed and sparkling, and return it to me that same day! We live in Stillwater, so not only do they go the extra mile, they go an extra 60 MILES, and we can’t thank them enough! more

I visited Graham Jewelers after speaking with a gentleman on the phone about selling one of my diamonds. The person I spoke with on the phone was quite professional and told me that they would be interested in looking at my stone after I described it to him. I asked him in the conversation if they would make me a reasonable offer on the diamond if it was something they were interested in as I didn't want to go to the trouble of driving down there if the offer was going to be well below wholesale value. He confirmed that he would make me a fair offer if it in fact was something they were interested in. After the inspection the offer was $1500, the diamond is a 2ct SI2/J. This stone was purchased for $8500 in 2005 and wholesale is in the 5-6k range. Needless to say I felt quite insulted after wasting my time, the salesperson was quite cavalier about the offer and in my opinion this is not good business. If I were running the store I would rather tell the client that the stone was valued at $X but they would not be interested in it at that figure. If I wanted to pry and offer out of them that would be a more appropriate time to make a low offer in order to obtain the diamond for a dollar amount that they were more comfortable with. This is another example of businesses trying to take advantage of people in an economic downturn. Graham has several exclusive product lines a good stock of inventory and a new high end facility on the main drag in Wayzata. No doubt they rely on business practices similar to my experience to fund this operation and I imagine the markup on there product is so high it would give you a nosebleed. If you are in the high brow Wayzata crowd you no doubt can afford to donate your money to these people, I on the other hand will chose another more courteous proprietor to do business with. I wonder how long businesses who operate like this are going to survive. If the economy doesn't turn around how long are people going to continue to donate money in the form of high markups for the privilege of doing business with an exclusive retailer when the products they offer can be purchased online at significant discount? Pros: The showroom and products are quite nice Cons: They need think a bit about how they treat people. . more