Arezzo Jewelers

Jun 15

In their own words

“We named our store after the town in Italy called Arezzo because we specialize in 14 and 18 karat handcrafted Italian gold. We carry classic old-world and modern contemporary gold jewelry. We specialize in fashion jewelry from Europe and designs that are ahead of their time. And we have them all at reasonable prices we know you can’t match anywhere else, especially for fine and hand-crafted gold jewelry.”

-Vincent Spilotro

Jason’s Interview with Vincent

Jason

We're back on Meet the Jewelers and today we're talking to Vincent from Arezzo Jewelers. How did you get into the industry?

Vincent

I'm second generation, much like yourself. My father has been in the industry as long as I can remember. I basically grew up in a jewelry store.

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Jason
Did you always know this was going to be your destiny?

Vincent
Probably in the back of my head. In the front of my head, the answer is no. I was always a tech guy, I still am. Always loved computers. I actually went to school for computer science. I did graphic design, took some business courses, and ended up going back to the jewelry store.

Jason
Was there a moment you were questioning yourself or wondering, “Is this for me?”

Vincent
It's not just the jewelry part of the business, but it's also the business part. That's an ongoing struggle I'm still having. It's a tough industry. It's jewelry, it's luxury. You've got demanding clients, demanding wholesalers. I feel like I’m made for the industry. I’m pretty thick-skinned, good at business, and good at design aspects. I’m making it work.

Jason
How does service and experience translate into your store?

Vincent
I treat the client the exact same way I would want to be treated. Buying jewelry is an emotional thing, so you don't want to make it about price, you don’t want to make it about what you have, your selection. It's about the service that you offer.

Jason
What are some unique things about you that connect with your customers?

Vincent
I'm pretty outgoing. I'm a very good listener. I want to know everything that they want first. I make sure they get to see what they want to see. I am very customer-centric. I understand what my clients want. I tell them what goes into it, the work I'm going to do, why I have to do this work, and so on. At the end of the day, the customer does feel comfortable.

Jason
Are there things that your father passed down to you to be able to create a relaxing experience for your clients?

Vincent
Mainly the knowledge base. I've been just observing him over the years by learning from him all the knowledge that he brought to the business. Seeing his interactions with customers taught me a lot too. A lot of patience. The main thing is just being patient and listening.

Jason
You must be in such a great spot that you have second-generation clients coming back to you, maybe even third-generation. Tell us about that.

Vincent
We're actually on the third generation of kids coming in now. They're not yet at the engagement ring level, but they are buying jewelry from me. They come in and say, “Oh, my grandpa came here. My grandpa has been buying stuff from your dad.”

Jason
Can you tell us a little bit about the causes that are coming top of mind right now?

Vincent
We're pretty big into cancer research. We have a few family members, two different types of cancer, pancreatic and breast cancer, that we're dealing with right now, so we're big on two different organizations. We did a huge campaign with them. So that one's closest to us right now.

Jason
Why do you think people should trust your brand?

Vincent
It’s my family selling to your family. I wouldn't do anything that you wouldn't want done to your family. It's me. It's my father. It's my mother. We have several long-time employees. One's been there for over twenty years. That's what we do. We're a community store and we serve families.

Jason
Do you have other family members that you're grooming to take over the business?

Vincent
My daughters are too young, but they come all the time. And my four-year-old says when she grows up she wants to be a jeweler like papa.

Jason
Tell us a fun proposal experience that you were a part of.

Vincent
We give free photography for a lot of our proposals. One time, it was me in the bushes. Me hiding in the bushes, in the cold, taking pictures of the proposal. Another cool time, a client got engaged in Hawaii. He spent a lot of money on this professional photographer. Got his pictures back, hated all of them. But some random passer-by took a picture of the moment he got on his knee, and it was the best picture out of all of them.

Jason
Any fun trends and pieces right now?

Vincent
Lab-grown diamonds are common and I don't promote them. I don't even know too much about them, but people are coming to me like crazy for them. I'm a GIA graduate gemologist. I'm not a big fan of them, but they are popular. That and gold jewelry. Gold jewelry is back. No stones, just gold jewelry.

Jason
Do you see a shift of the type of consumer that's coming into your store?

Vincent
Yes, absolutely. More women are in the process, now more than half.

Jason
And do you interact with your clients both online and offline?

Vincent
Yeah. Everywhere.

Jason
What's the feeling like? What does it look like when you come in?

Vincent
I do my Breakfast at Tiffany's style, where she will walk in, I welcome her, and then I will pull out diamonds and rings for her to try on immediately. Offer her a drink. A normal customer walking in without an appointment, we’re not a store that you need an appointment. If you're just coming in off the street, you do have to ring the doorbell to get in. Once you're buzzed in, expect help immediately. We don’t really leave any wait time unless we're overburdened.

Jason
If the customer wanted to do some of the process online, is that possible?

Vincent
Go to our website arezzojewelers.com or arezzo.us. Our entire inventory is on there. It's live, updated every day. You can make an appointment from our website. You can message us directly from our website. You can text us. You can text our store number, we're available almost 24/7 for a response.

Jason
This is your platform to say whatever you like.

Vincent
We named our store after the town in Italy, Arezzo, because we specialize in 14 and 18 karat handcrafted Italian gold. We don't only celebrate engagement occasions, we also celebrate a lot of other occasions in your lifetime, such as your child being born, the religious occasions, whether it's your baptisms, your communions, your confirmations. We carry the classic old world and the modern contemporary gold jewelry. Also, the religious medals, crosses. We specialize in fashion jewelry from Europe and designs that are ahead of their time. We do them all at reasonable prices that we know you can't match anywhere else, especially for gold fine and handcrafted gold jewelry.

Jason
Any key brands that you wanted to highlight?

Vincent
We carry Pandora, of course. We're actually one of the original Pandora stores in the entire Midwest, so we're still on that big Pandora train. As for our gold jewelry, we do not carry any designers, we do small-batch manufacturers from Italy. So different goldsmiths we use. And our bridal line, I do a lot of the custom design myself. We have a line that we highlight from California called Mars Fine Jewelry. They are extremely high-end, beautiful pieces, exquisite diamonds, very well-made pieces, very detailed. They're very well priced for the modern market. Other than that, I do a lot of designing in-house. I sell most of my engagement rings that are over one karat, I sit with the client and we design the ring together.

Jason
Where do you see things going five, ten years for your store?

Vincent
We're remodeling and possibly moving to a bigger location. I really want to focus less on brands and more on custom work. And just basically do what I'm doing now at a bigger scale. We're doing pretty well now, we focused on everything that we need. We have our fun fashion through Pandora and another Italian silver line. We carry our fine gold jewelry and then we're going to do a lot of our custom diamond jewelry. I don't want to force you to buy from me. If you want to buy online, buy online. But if you want to sit down, and look, and be educated, that's the type of customer/client that I'm looking for.