Name of your website?Jewelry Insurance by Touchstone Jewelers
Your name?
Ralph Cohen
Your Location (city, etc)
Northbrook IL
Please give us a short summary of your website?
We offer a simple, affordable jewelry-only insurance policy, based on an appraisal provided by the jeweler at the point of sale. Touchstone believes that its insurance program allows consumers to be protected before they leave the jewelery store.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
After extensive research and analysis, we believe a compelling case can be made for purchasing jewelry insurance at the point of sale rather than via the usual, cumbersome, time consuming, and ultimately risky method of adding a rider to your Homeowner policy. Our online jewelry insurance portal does just that.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
Years ago to show our gemstone image and database system Virtual Inventory. Virtual Inventory also allows a Virtual Inventory user to upload images and text regarding jewelry articles to websites. This feature allows potential customers to view retailers and or wholesalers products online, including catalogs customized for a specific potential customer.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
A touchstone is a small tablet of dark stone such as fieldstone, slate or lydite, used for assaying precious metal alloys. It has a finely grained surface on which soft metals leave a visible trace. Our jewelery insurance policies do just that, they check the value of jewelry, gems, diamonds and insures you for their real world worth.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
We offer both a business and consumer jewelry insurance solution. There are two different policies. The first is a repair and replacement policy offered by GemShield and underwritten through XL Insurance. It provides coverage against loss, theft and damage protection for your customers’ jewelry. The second type of policy is a cash value policy underwritten by Chubb Insurance.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
To keep our site like our wholesale jewelry business that has been in our hands for generations.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
A GemShield policy through Touchstone provides protection from loss, theft, damage, mysterious disappearance and provides that the insured item is repaired or replaced with like kind and quality from the consumers preferred jeweler. We will continue with the time honored process.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
Equally important, a separate jewelry insurance policy helps you avoid the very real risk of putting your valuable Homeowner's policy in jeopardy in terms of higher premiums, or even cancellation, in the event your jewelry is lost or stolen.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
I would have to hire more jewelry appraisers, insurance underwriters and web programmers, that is the easy part to selling jewelry insurance. The
What has been your biggest challenge?
We use Virtual Inventory as a solution to manage jewelry inventory, appraisal, sales, and marketing and AppraiseLink (geared specifically toward appraising and inventory appraisals) as the ideal software products to create the databases required to deliver appraisals at the point of sale, for both jewelers and appraisers. There are too many gems and too little time to catalog everything.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Using the services of an old friend and business acquaintance Bruce Jones from Design And Promote http://www.designandpromote
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
Mr. Cohen is a recognized expert, progressive business leader, and innovator in the jewelry industry. He brings nearly 30 years of experience in executive management, sales, marketing, purchasing, operations, and technology. In 1985, Mr. Cohen became the president of A.M. Cohen Company, a national wholesaler and manufacturer of fine jewelry. As president, he managed all operations and business functions. He also stimulated technology development to achieve breakthrough improvements in the jewelry industry.
Do you offer your customers any free software?
Touchstone’s personal jewelry insurance program includes a free software* package that creates appraisals in a simple and easy format, and allows you to create a database of descriptive jewelry information along with quality pictures for every item you sell or appraise. Touchstone has created a unique program that provides added value for your customers and added revenue to retail jewelers and appraisers.
What is your website address?
Jewelry Insurance by Touchstone Jewelers
