Monday, March 2, 2009

March 2, 2009

Susan B. Eisen, 915-584-0022, jewelryexpert@crazyaboutjewelry.net, lifetag@att.net

Please email for high-resolution photos

No Recession Doom and Gloom for El Paso Jeweler

No doubt these are rough times for everyone, from the grocer to the financial planner. However, El Paso, Texas jeweler Susan Eisen, author of Crazy About Jewelry!® An Expert Guide to Buying, Selling, and Caring for Your Jewelry, is reporting higher traffic now in her store in comparison to the same time last year. "It's the most challenging time I have experienced for a retail jeweler in the United States," Ms. Eisen said. "By focusing on my jewelry designs, appraisals, and multiple jewelry services we are offering, it is keeping us very busy." One of her improved ?stimulus? services is redesigning jewelry using the customers? gold and diamonds and paying just for the labor. "Your Gold, Our Designs" is the message that is bringing people into her store to purchase new jewelry with gold or redesign their jewelry at less than half the cost of new jewelry. Because of the increase in the price of gold, her store allows customers to pay with gold rather than money, something that is very unusual in the jewelry business today. Diamonds have sentimental value to most wearers, and redesigning their jewelry with their own diamonds allows customers to feel like they have purchased something new. "Everyone has jewelry sitting in their drawers from previous relationships or jewelry that is no longer fashionable, which can be reused, recycled and redesigned into something more fashionable," says Ms. Eisen at her location on the Westside of El Paso. Besides redesign, she has seen an increase in jewelry repairs, refurbishment, and a renewed interest in using inherited jewelry that has never been worn. "Now is the time to revive what you have and make it something special," Eisen discusses with her customers regularly.

Susan Eisen is the President and Chief Designer at Susan Eisen Fine Jewelry & Watches, a graduate gemologist from the Gemological Institute of America, a Certified Gemologist Appraiser with the American Gem Society, a certified member of the International Society of Appraisers and a senior member and Master Gemologist Appraiser® of the American Society of Appraisers, a title held by only 4 other people in Texas and only 42 in the entire United States. An El Paso native, she founded her first store in 1980, is now located at 5857 North Mesa, and does custom jewelry designing, repairs, and jewelry and fine art appraising.