Gemologist Joseph Villarreal owns Villarreal Fine Jewelers, a custom, appointment-only jewelry retail business in Austin. Ninety percent of his business is engagement and wedding focused. The other 10 percent comes from well-heeled collectors, who prefer to shop by appointment. “The best compliment I’ve gotten is, ‘Wow, Joe, you have exceeded my expectations.’”
Q&A with Joseph Villarreal
THE JEWELRY DETOUR. My interest in rocks evolved to geology and I thought I wanted to work for the oil companies. But oil wasn’t doing well then. It was a fluke that turned me from geology to gemology. My brother and I both attended GIA in Santa Monica.
IDEAL DAY OFF? Playing golf on a weekday. I have a lot of friends who are business owners as well and I don’t know how they find the time to play so much golf. I’m lucky if I get to play twice a month.
RAVE REVIEWS. We constantly query our clients on how they heard about us. Ultimately, they come to us because of the Google reviews. And then they say, “After speaking with you, Joe, we felt you were a better fit for us. You had the experience and the knowledge.”
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. You have to know what you’re talking about. It’s all about education. Jewelry and gemstones are blind items for consumers. This is why they’re very hesitant about buying. They see pricing all over the place. They see fictitious pricing, like constant 50 percent off. Those kinds of practices made me want to do better and it made me want to be very pro-consumer, especially by way of educating the consumer. Not that I thought I was a big shot, but once you have that education, you know certainly more than the average consumer.
Advertisement
BIG TICKETS. I was the first in Austin to do custom design from scratch. My average engagement ring sale is $7,500 to $10,500. We sold more in 2020 than we sold the year before by 30 percent. There were a lot of bigger ticket items. I sold a stone valued at half a million wholesale that belonged to a private collector that I sold to a private collector.
Four Decades of Excellence: How Wilkerson Transformed a Jeweler's Retirement into Celebration
After 45 years serving the Milwaukee community, Treiber & Straub Jewelers owner Michael Straub faced a significant life transition. At 75, the veteran jeweler made a personal decision many business owners understand: "I think it's time. I want to enjoy my wife with my grandchildren for the next 10, 15 years."
Wilkerson's expertise transformed this major business transition into an extraordinary success. Their comprehensive approach to managing the going-out-of-business sale created unprecedented customer response—with lines forming outside the store and limits on how many shoppers could enter at once due to fire safety regulations.
The results exceeded all expectations. "Wilkerson did a phenomenal job," Straub enthuses. "They were there for you through the whole thing, helped you with promoting it, helping you on day-to-day business. I can't speak enough for how well they did." The partnership didn't just facilitate a business closing; it created a celebratory finale to decades of service while allowing Straub to confidently step into his well-earned retirement.
