Custom Jewelry Wholesale Order Flow From Enquiry to Delivery
An order runs through six published stages at TTT Jewelry: enquiry, consultation and development, CAD and prototype in under 48 hours, sample and approval across 25–30 days, bulk production in 21–28 days, then final QC and delivery with 100% inspection. Only three of those stages carry a fixed clock. The other three last as long as the paperwork takes, and that is where launch dates move.
Key takeaways
- Six stages run in sequence, but only three carry published durations.
- CAD is quoted at under 48 hours, sampling at 25–30 days and bulk at 21–28 days.
- Brief to dispatch totalling 48–60 days works out at roughly seven to nine weeks.
- 100% inspection means the last piece holds the shipment, not the first.
Six stages, three fixed clocks
The flow is linear by design. Enquiry leads to consultation and development, the drawing goes to CAD, the sample is built and approved, bulk follows, and final QC closes the order before shipping. Enquiry and consultation have no quoted duration because they depend entirely on how fast a buyer answers questions. Final QC has no quoted duration either, because it is a 100% inspection pass followed by packing, not a scheduled production block.
What remains is the arithmetic every planner should carry: 2 days of CAD plus 25–30 days of sampling plus 21–28 days of production equals 48–60 days. That range is the honest one. It assumes no second sample, no artwork approved late and no decision left open at the bench.
Enquiry and consultation: what has to be on the table
A brief that names only a product category gives a factory nothing to cost. Four items do most of the work: the metal, the number of pieces per design, the finish, and the conditions the piece will meet. That last one is not decoration. A buyer who says the range must survive showers and swimming is describing PVD plating on stainless steel; a buyer who says gold colour over brass is describing a different process with a different wear profile.
Buyers who want to get a quote that can be checked line by line should add a reference image with a scale, a logo file in vector form and a target ship date. Without a scale, a 12 mm pendant and a 20 mm pendant photograph identically, and the difference surfaces later as a tooling correction.
| Stage | Document that closes the gate | What goes wrong without it |
|---|---|---|
| Enquiry | Reference image, metal, pieces per design | An unsuitable alloy is costed first |
| Consultation and development | Finish target, wear context, price band | The plating route is chosen twice |
| CAD and prototype | Vector logo, dimensions, stone sizes | The model is rebuilt after first look |
| Sample and approval | Signed sample card and fit notes | Production copies a rejected detail |
| Bulk production | Approved sample and purchase order | Colour and stone placement drift |
| Final QC and delivery | Packing list, barcode data, labelling copy | The shipment is held at the packing bench |
The right-hand column is not hypothetical risk language. Each entry describes a physical redo: a second plating load, a fresh casting, a box order printed with the wrong barcode. Those redos cost bench slots that other orders are queued for.
CAD in 48 hours, sampling in 25–30 days
The CAD block is short and decisive. Under 48 hours produces a 3D model, and that model is the reference for the mould, so a change after approval is a change to tooling. Two days is 8% of a 25-day sampling window and 6.7% of a 30-day one, which is why a CAD delay looks trivial on a Gantt chart while pushing everything behind it.
Sampling is where the piece becomes real. 25–30 days is 3.6–4.3 weeks, and inside that window a sterling silver jewelry manufacturer has to cast, set, polish and plate before anyone can judge the result. Approval should therefore be physical: plating colour under daylight, hallmark position, clasp action, stone seat, weight in the hand. Written notes with photographs are what stop a bulk run from matching someone's memory of a sample.
Two approvals are commonly compressed into one and should not be. The CAD approval confirms geometry; the sample approval confirms finish and feel. A buyer who waves the drawing through because the shape looks right will meet the consequence at the plating stage, when a 0.2 mm difference in a bezel edge shows up as a different highlight.
Bulk production, inspection and dispatch
21–28 days covers the shop floor: casting, sprue cutting, high-gloss polishing, brushed and textured surface work, electroplating and assembly. Final QC inspects 100% of the pieces rather than a sample, which is a throughput fact worth planning around. A 250-piece order carries 250 inspections, so the last unit off the line sets the dispatch date.
Because inspection is a single full pass, a split dispatch has to be agreed before bulk begins. Asking for half the order early, once the run is already plated, usually means re-inspecting and re-packing a partial set rather than gaining time. Order flow discipline here is unglamorous: confirm the quantity, confirm the packaging, then let the bench finish.
Quantity itself is fixed much earlier, at the minimum-order stage. Published minimums are 50 pieces per design in 925 sterling silver, 100 in artisan eco-brass and 100+ in stainless steel. MOQ shapes the order before the first CAD file exists, and a change of metal after sampling restarts the development work rather than adjusting it.
Worked example
Suppose the brief is signed on 2 March and stock is needed by 1 May, a window of 60 days. CAD takes 2 days, so the model is ready on 4 March. Sampling at 25–30 days lands the sample between 29 March and 3 April. Production at 21–28 days then delivers between 19 April and 1 May.
Read the two ends separately. The fast path is 4 March plus 25 plus 21 = 48 days, arriving 19 April with 12 days spare. The slow path is 4 March plus 30 plus 28 = 60 days, arriving exactly on 1 May with nothing spare. One rejected sample replaces the 12-day cushion with a 25–30 day block, so the fast path is the only one with room to absorb a mistake. For a programme built on custom jewelry wholesale volumes, that 12-day gap is the difference between a launch and a delayed one.
Frequently asked questions
Which stage of the flow has no fixed duration?
Enquiry and consultation. The published flow gives them no clock, so their length depends on how quickly the buyer supplies metal, quantity, finish and a reference image.
Can CAD and sampling overlap?
Sampling starts from an approved CAD model, so the two blocks run in sequence. CAD is under 48 hours and the 25–30 day sample clock begins once the drawing is signed off.
Where does a rejected sample fit into the schedule?
A rejected sample returns to CAD and then a new 25–30 day sampling block. On a 48–60 day chain, one rejection uses the whole fast-end buffer.
Handoffs, not hope
Most late orders are not late at the bench; they are late in the handoff between two desks. A complete enquiry, a signed drawing, a photographed sample and a confirmed packing list are four small documents that keep a 48–60 day chain intact. Buyers planning a first run should also check the metal minimums before the brief is written, since quantity per design decides how many approval trails run in parallel. For plated fashion lines, the custom brass jewelry route is the usual entry point, and its 100-piece minimum is double the silver figure for the same single design.
Source note: figures come from the manufacturer's own website (tttjewelry.com), read 28 Sept 2026.[1]