Managing Custom Jewellery Orders From Enquiry to Delivery

There is a comfortable belief in the trade that bespoke work is legally safer than stock, because the customer can't change their mind. The first half is true. The conclusion is backwards.

Because a bespoke customer has no cooling-off right, there is no safety valve. Nobody gets to walk away and reset. Both sides are locked into whatever was — or wasn't — written down at the start. That makes the brief the most valuable document in the job bag, and it makes every stage of the workflow a point where a specific liability is either captured or quietly lost.

The quote: put an expiry date on it

Open-ended quotes are the current pain point in the trade. The National Association of Jewellers published updated guidance for members on 16 April 2026 dealing specifically with volatile precious metals prices — covering retail stock repricing, precious metals purchasing and scrap handling, designer-makers adjusting pricing models, and valuers helping clients with rising replacement costs. As the NAJ's Compliance and Policy Manager, Katie Gillespie, put it, the guidance "has been shaped directly by our member community and reflects real-world challenges faced across the trade."

That guidance exists because quoting a price and absorbing the metal movement over a build is hurting people. Two practical defences: give every quote a stated validity window, and decide explicitly when metal is locked — at quote, at deposit, or at purchase.

There is also a provision worth knowing. Regulation 28(1)(a) of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 excepts contracts whose price depends on fluctuations in the financial market that the trader cannot control. Precious metal pricing is exactly that kind of fluctuation, and it sits alongside the better-known bespoke exception in the same regulation.

Design sign-off is where disputes are decided

If you take one thing from this: pin the specification in writing before you take money, and make the deposit and the sign-off the same moment.

What belongs in the spec: materials and fineness, dimensions, stone specification, finish, engraving — including the exact spelling — CAD approval, and the delivery date. Bespoke disputes turn almost entirely on what was agreed at the outset. Take the money before the spec is pinned and you are funded but unprotected, because the argument will be about what was promised and you will have no record of it.

On the deposit itself, size it against costs you actually commit to rather than by habit. A 50% deposit and a four-to-twelve week lead time are commonly quoted across UK jewellers' own commission pages, but that is prevailing custom and marketing copy — not a legal standard, and not a surveyed figure. A deposit that genuinely reflects costs incurred is defensible; a sum retained regardless of actual loss invites challenge.

"Bespoke means no refunds" is a half-truth

This is the trade's most dangerous piece of received wisdom, so it is worth being precise.

Regulation 28(1)(b) excludes from the cancellation rules "the supply of goods that are made to the consumer's specifications or are clearly personalised." That removes the 14-day cooling-off right. It removes nothing else.

Consumer Rights Act 2015 quality rights survive completely: a bespoke piece must still be of satisfactory quality, as described, and fit for purpose. A badly made commission is as returnable as a badly made stock ring. Pre-contract information duties also still apply — including the duty to tell the consumer that the cancellation right does not apply. The exemption is something you have to inform them about, not something that quietly happens.

The customer's own materials

Remodelling inherited gold or resetting a customer's stone is the highest-emotion, lowest-paperwork moment in the whole process — and the least documented liability in most workshops.

Three things need a written procedure. Record the condition on receipt, in detail and with photographs. Agree in advance who carries the risk if a stone chips or breaks during setting. And be honest about unknown alloy content in inherited scrap, which can behave unpredictably and is not your fault until you have failed to mention it.

A sentimental stone has no meaningful replacement value and infinite emotional value. That asymmetry is precisely why it deserves paperwork rather than goodwill.

Hallmarking is a scheduling dependency, not a final step

The most common cause of a missed proposal deadline is treating assay as a formality that happens after "finished".

It sits between finished and deliverable. And it has a prerequisite: a sponsor's mark must be registered with an assay office before anything can be submitted at all — the mark identifies whoever submits the article, so if you outsource the making, whoever submits needs the mark. Discovering this when the ring is done and the anniversary is Friday is a bad afternoon.

The weight thresholds are gold 1g, silver 7.78g, platinum 0.5g and palladium 1g; above these, an article described as that metal must be hallmarked by one of the four UK assay offices — Birmingham, Edinburgh, London or Sheffield. The responsibility sits with the seller, not just the maker. As GOV.UK puts it: "If you are sold an item of jewellery made with gold, silver, platinum or palladium over the minimum weight and it is not hallmarked, then the seller is breaking the law."

Custom work has a threshold trap of its own: a design can drift over the 1g gold line mid-build, and a multi-metal commission can cross thresholds unevenly. Re-check at sign-off rather than at the start. And note that the offence of untruthfully describing something as gold applies regardless of weight — being under the threshold exempts you from marking, not from honesty.

UK fineness standards are fixed: gold 375, 585, 750, 916.6, 990 and 999 parts per thousand; silver 800, 925, 958.4 and 999; platinum 850, 900, 950 and 999; palladium 500, 950 and 999. There is no lawful UK gold standard below 375.

Handover: the valuation is the only evidence that exists

A one-off has no retail comparable. Without a valuation, a customer's insurer falls back on post-loss assessment, which the NAJ warns "often results in an under-assessment of the lost item's true value."

A valuation should record the owner's details, the valuer's credentials, a description covering "metal type, cut, weight, colour and clarity of stones", make, model and serial for watches, a photograph — "often an essential" — and the replacement cost basis. Some insurers specifically require a valuation from a Member or Fellow of the Institute of Registered Valuers, which the NAJ describes as the UK's leading body of jewellery valuers.

The NAJ recommends revaluation at least every three years, because the price of gold and stones fluctuates. That interval is also a legitimate, useful reason to contact a past client again — one that serves them rather than you.

What to actually record

Five stage-gates carry almost all the risk: the written brief, CAD approval, the metal lock, assay submission, and the valuation issued at handover. Record those five with dates and you can reconstruct any job eighteen months later, when a dispute lands and memory has quietly rewritten itself. A job bag does this as well as any system, provided the entries actually get made.

One more piece of housekeeping: a Dealer's Notice must be displayed conspicuously on your premises, in black and white, minimum A4, printed in its entirety with no amendments. If you sell online — including custom-only — the separate Dealer's Notice B applies to your website.

The bottom line

The absence of a cooling-off right is not protection; it is the removal of an escape hatch for both of you. Write the brief before you take the money, put a clock on the quote, treat assay as a scheduling dependency, document anything a customer hands you across the counter, and send them away with a valuation. That is the whole discipline.