Select Pearls - 12 Days Review & Giveaway (Closed)

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

Select Pearls is Canada's largest online pearl retailer and they are based in Bedford, Nova Scotia. When I was organizing this festival and my review, I spent a lot of time on the Select Pearls website looking at products, researching their company and their policies and I have to say that I'm impressed. I need to start somewhere though (or I will start rambling), so I will start with the items I am reviewing.

Select Pearls sent me one of their best sellers to review, a White Cultured Freshwater Pearl Necklace & Earring Set. Before I talk about the item, I need to start with the packaging. The set was sent to me in a luxurious black velvet presentation box (which is free with your purchase). The necklace and earrings both were within the box in a little black velvet drawstring bag each. I have to say I felt a little like Julia Roberts in Pretty Lady when Richard Gere opens the jewelery box then snaps it shut. When I first held the pearls, they were noticeably heavy and they are gorgeous. I am by no means a pearl expert, but I am a chick with a healthy pair of eyes, and they look stunning! They have a high gloss to them and the ball clasp is made with solid 14-karat yellow gold. The earrings feature a pearl each and are also set on solid 14-karat yellow gold posts with butterfly backs. The jewelery looks so classic and timeless. I will be enjoying these for years to come and hope to one day pass them down to my Baby Bird.

To look at them you would think they cost a fortune, they actually do... If you buy them somewhere else! This White Cultured Freshwater Necklace & Earring Set is appraised at $1,180.00. They retail for about $850CAD, but Select Pearls sells this set on their site for $249.99. I was pretty speechless when I was putting this all together.

The fru-gal inside of me was amazed at those prices, and I had to ask Maggie Roberts, the owner of Select Pearls how they could offer such beautiful jewelery for great prices. She told me that there are three reasons why they can offer such great deals, and here they are in her words:

1. We buy direct: We do not purchase these pearls from pearl markets or pearl brokers. Every time you add a “middle-man” between you and your pearls you add cost and you reduce the quality of the product. We only buy these pearls from farms that have their own processing facilities. This ensures that we know where the pearls are coming from. They literally go from the farm to our hands. And we scrutinize and hand-pick the pearls to keep the quality control and standards consistent and high.
2. We are web-based only: We don’t have the expenses that a bricks and mortar store would have. And quite frankly, we do not gouge our customers with inflated prices. We go to great lengths to make sure our customers understand what they are buying and the quality of the product. All we sell are pearls, and we are GIA (Gemological Institute of America) trained pearl specialists, and the skill that comes with hundreds of hours of looking at and appraising thousands of pearls of every kind - is priceless.
3. We are not a “reseller”: Many on-line pearl e-tailers are resellers for some large corporate machine. This means they do not have the same flexibility as we do in price. And this means that their orders are drop-shipped, sight unseen, to their unwitting customers. The reseller never sees the product, so how can they have any control over what their customers receive?
   

In addition to the amazing prices that you will find at Select Pearls, there are also some other freebies you get with every purchase. I mentioned the velvet bags and box, but there are three other items you get as well. Select Pearls offers free shipping in Canada via Canada Post Xpresspost on every purchase. As well, your purchase also comes with a free Certified Appraisal completed by a GIA Graduate specializing in pearls. The third item is their great customer service and their no hassle refund policy.

Last but not least of my findings is that they are an accredited BBB business with a perfect rating since they started their business and they are a Jewelers Vigilance Committee (JVC) member. The JVC is an organization that monitors ethical practices within the jewellery trade.

Make sure you check out all of their pearl jewellery at SelectPearls.com. They also have a Sale and Clearance area that you can look through. Jewelery is always a great gift at Christmas time (or in my opinion, any time!) and with the prices, selection and service offered here, you can't go wrong!

Select Pearls has generously offered one lucky This Bird's Day reader a White Cultured Freshwater Pearl Necklace & Earring Set of their own as a giveaway.

To enter: Go to Select Pearls, then come back here and leave a comment at the end of this post telling me what item of jewelery is your favorite, other than the White Cultured Freshwater Pearl Necklace and Earrings that I mention in this post (please include your email or a way to contact you should you win). *You must do this for any additional entries to count.

After you have completed the first entry, you can enter an additional comment one time only for each of the following:

• Become a public follower of This Bird's Day (either in the right sidebar or through Facebook at the bottom of this page).
  
• Follow This Bird's Day on Twitter AND tweet about this giveaway linking to this post. Please include your twitter id in your comment (you must do both for this one to count).
  
• Be a confirmed email subscriber to my updates (at the bottom right of this page). Simply enter your email address, confirm it and you will receive email updates when I make a new post. This will let you know when there is new content and giveaways on my site.
• Find out how to get more entries by reading this post.
  

This contest is open to Canadian residents only and runs until 9pm MST on Thursday, November 19, 2009.