TaoGem Gemstones

Brand new Spokane area Social Networking Community for crafts, lapidary, jewelry, and all other related artists.
This community was started as a means to simply bring a variety of local niche artists from the Spokane area together in hopes of creating interesting and unique opportunities for all members.
Members are not limited to the few arts categories [...]

It will be held on the grounds of a Victorian Tea House, and a lovely home just across the lane.
Admission is free, and there are 70+ vendors. Vendors will cover everything from antiques, collectibles, vintage goods, primitives and arts and crafts, jewelry and of course my gemstones. Both homes will have vendors set [...]

Recently I did a little poll on my forum asking other lapidaries how their online sales have been doing. There were a couple of comments that stood out. First, although the number of folks utilizing the poll were few, online gemstone and jewelry sales seem to be in decline past few months. The month of [...]

About a year ago I began exploring various marketing and promotional techniques for the purpose of boosting my online presence.
I think just like myself, a lot of brand new online lapidary related business owners find ourselves somewhat overwhelmed with the many different possibilities that just sorta seem to present themselves to us as we embark [...]

Quartzsite 2009
Shows 2009
Quartzsite, in western Arizona, just 20 miles east of the Colorado River on I-10, Quartzsite has been a rockhound’s paradise since the 1960s. These days, it is also a mecca to well over a million visitors each year, most of whom converge on this small town in a wave of RVs during the [...]

For two weeks every winter, the world meets in Tucson as it becomes a bustling, international marketplace of buyers and sellers at the Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase.
The “Gem Show” is much more than a single event at one location. Rather, there are thousands of participants and attendees at nearly 50 sites around town. [...]

In a thread started by Alana over at CST. “I believe these are some hard times for our business right now” we seem to have discovered common sales experiences in regards to a greater percentage of International sales recently as compared to National. Possibly a connection to the present Global Recession.
I can speak from personal [...]

Many of you have been doing business with me for almost two years now. You have come to know that I did not start my gemstone business because of dependence on the income. I am sort of in between doing this as a hobby and online business.
Lots going on in the world these days. These [...]

TaoGem Gemstones
It can be a real struggle for a gemstone jewelry designer to design that unique piece of gemstone jewelry. Most designers do not have a working relationship with a specific lapidary shop. This means that the designer is limited to picking out gemstones to work with at random off the internet or perhaps from [...]

I was thinking today about the different people, places and things that came into my life when I first became interested in learning about gemstone cabochons.
Searching for every imaginable educational and how to type sources of information that would help me get started. I had absolutely no knowledge at all, with the exception of having [...]

When I first decided to try to sell on the internet there was one thing that still stands out from all the suggestions that were offered through a number of online internet sales forums. It was strongly suggested to specialize and revolve the business around a specific niche.
For myself it became readily obvious just how [...]

Link to store wide sale.
If your familiar with TaoGem prices, then you already know how inexpensive they are.
Twice a year I like to have a nice little sale and mark everything down twenty percent. On top of that, there are no shipping costs either for National or International gemstone orders.
This is also an excellent time [...]

New E-Store Link
Ever since I started using the Wordpress e-Commerce Plugin by Instinct Entertainment customers have been lining up complaining about how difficult it is to shop with. Not user friendly at all.
In response to that, I created a new ZenCart for shopping gemstone cabochon jewelry supplies.
Much more user friendly.
Gemstone categories are broken up into [...]