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The Opal Auctions Family Business Story
蛋白石拍卖家族企业的故事
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“A family working together is unstoppable”

–Wayne Sedawie 2012 

Timeline of Events

iilybs1v4lkmidgf.jpg1986 – Paul Sedawie Begins an Opal Mining Venture at Four Mile Opal Fields

1992 – Branching Out with Opal Wholesaling

2003 – Pursuing E-Commerce and Planting the Seed for Opal Auctions

2006 – Tucson Gem Show: A Disaster Turned Success

2008 – Bringing in More Family

2020 – Thriving Through the Pandemic

1986, How it all started: Paul Sedawie Begins an Opal Mining Venture

Sometimes we set out on a course that inevitably takes a detour. And if you’re lucky, that detour leads to treasure. That’s exactly what happened to Paul Sedawie, who lived in Melbourne, Australia and had a strong desire to try his luck at gold mining. While Paul didn’t strike gold, a series of events led him toward something more beautiful than he could’ve ever imagined: opals. Not just opal stones, but opals that would build a family legacy and become a dominating enterprise in the gemstone industry.

In 1986, Paul had a dream to go gold mining, and in light of a recent divorce, he decided it was now or never. He began his journey north in search of gold and passed through the famous opal mining town at Lightning Ridge. However, his path was interrupted by massive floods, and he could not proceed. With his dreams of gold seeming out of reach, he opted to stay in the nearby town.

As luck would have it, he ran into his school buddy, Bob Young, who offered him a stay at his camp, and talked him into abandoning his gold pursuit to instead go opal mining at the famous Four Mile opal fields. However, the luck didn’t last long with their small jack hammer operation, that was, until he met another opal miner, Chris, and they joined forces to create an opal mining operation.

paul sedawieBeing born and bred in Lightning Ridge – the Opal capital of the world – Chris is a second-generation opal miner who knew the lay of the land and best opal mining methods.

Currently, Chris is a seller on Opal Auctions under the name “Opal Rush.” Years before Opal Auctions launched online in the early 2000s, Paul and Chris were in the opal fields in a quest to unearth the world-renowned Australian opals.

Paul was so enamoured with opal mining and the lifestyle that his yearning for gold quickly transformed into an opal obsession. But his love for opals started long before his opal mining days.

Paul can remember buying his first boulder opal at the young age of twelve. There in the dusty open country, he poured his entire focus into unearthing the famous opals that only the climate and geology of this arid region could produce.

Leaving the gold and jack hammer operation in the dust, Paul invested in a claim with a caravan and necessary equipment at the Four Mile opal field in Lightning ridge. Like all new pursuits, striking gold – or in this case, opals – takes time, persistence, and hard work. In the beginning, Paul and his colleagues would wake up early, have breakfast, and go straight down the hole to begin mining. After more than a solid week of digging, the team unearthed their first opal stone!

While it may not have been a fine-quality elusive black opal, that half carat stone was a beacon of success, offering Paul hope of what could come, which is why he still has that first opal as a keepsake.

One month later, they unearthed a large crystal opal. Overcome with excitement, they had anticipated getting $1,000 for the stone, but unfortunately, the specimen contained sand throughout, and it only sold for $100. Paul knew there would be a fair share of upsets and a huge learning curve, but he persisted. He knew that opal mining is extremely hard work and being in the hole every day gave him a healthy respect for the work miners do, and an understanding of how hard it is to find opals.

After nine hard months of mining in harsh conditions, Paul pivoted his efforts and started dealing in rough opal.

Meanwhile, Paul’s twin brother, Wayne, lived in Perth, Western Australia. In 1989, Wayne was recovering from an ankle injury, so Paul sent him some opals from his mine and a cutting machine.

“How do I cut opals?” Wayne asked. Paul’s reply? “Just use your common sense!”

Well, Wayne didn’t think he had any common sense to do the task, but nevertheless, he quickly found himself thoroughly enjoying cutting rough opals. Maybe it was natural intuition or persistence to learn the craft, but he learned as he went and found the process rewarding.

With the brothers both engrossed in the rough opal enterprise, in 1992, Wayne moved 4,000 kilometres to the Gold Coast, Queensland, with his wife, Estela, and their two boys, Jason and Mark in tow. New roots planted, they set up a cutting room at The Mark Building on Orchid Avenue in Surfers Paradise to begin building their company.

1992, Branching Out with Opal Wholesaling

In no time, the rough opal cutting enterprise was up and running. Paul would supply the rough opal to Wayne and Estela, who would get to work cutting 120 opals every day. Working in a rhythm, Wayne would rub down the rough opals and pass them over to Estela, who would shape and polish the opals on the dob sticks.

In the 90s, Surfers Paradise was full of Japanese tourist shops, so Paul would supply opals to the jewellery manufacturers in town.

After Estela had cut 1,000 opals, she went and sold the opals to the shops since she had accumulated a breadth of knowledge accompanied by cutting experience to appreciate the rare opal colors.

One day, Chris showed them a red on black opal that he was proud of, and Wayne said “it’s orange not red.” Chris’ own face flared red and wild, and since then, there has been an ongoing joke about how red (or orange!) an opal is.

Quickly, the family became opal wholesalers across Australia and New Zealand. The twin brothers accrued hundreds of wholesale accounts and they each began travelling and selling monthly. This is what first led Paul to the Tucson Gem Show in 2008, which we’ll elaborate on later.

The brothers discovered that some clients would buy more from one twin than another, so both would carry all their stock to accommodate each client’s needs. At the end of the month, they would balance who owed each other and settle up. Back then, the paperwork was complicated or at best ‘sloppy’, so it was difficult to get accurate sales. The twins played the guessing game many times, as thankfully, money wasn’t the issue, so it didn’t matter if one got paid as it would eventually all balance out.

Paul had established opal mining partnerships, so sometimes the split was 60-40, but the twins both thought they had the higher number of sales, and this became another ongoing family joke. But the family’s profitable opal business wasn’t solely motivated by money, but by the lifestyle and enjoyment that aligned closely with their family values. The brothers relied on a strong system of trust and transparency, and this became a vital component of their relationship and the family business. Because of this trust, business was easy and rewarding.

As the family expanded the operation, they employed Patrik in 2006 to help service the client base. Today, Patrik has his own site “Rolling Stone Opals” on Opal Auctions.

The business continued to expand and thrive, and along with hiring Patrik, opened an opal cutting factory in HCM, Vietnam, with a staff of workers cutting and polishing opals, while making silver and gold opal jewellery.

Business was great, and the family was selling silver opal jewellery to hundreds of shops across Australia. But unfortunately, the family’s success was cut short after five years, when Chinese sellers undercut their prices by half, and they couldn’t compete with these slashed prices.

Heading to Vietnam to close the factory, Wayne took samples of the Chinese silver jewellery they couldn’t compete against and showed it to the workers. To everyone’s shock, a Vietnamese jeweller cut the silver pendant in half, and exposed that the metal was actually a pewter in rhodium plating – not genuine silver! Can you believe it? Neither could Wayne! But of course, it all made sense in that moment that the Chinese sellers could only halve our prices because the jewellery wasn’t genuine silver.

What did we do next?

2003, Pursuing E-Commerce and Planting the Seed for Opal Auctions

Wayne attended the Las Vegas Gem Show in the US to sell opals but did not sell any because he quickly became distracted by talk of the internet and online business. A wonderful venture blossomed from this experience. At the show, there were seminars from eBay sharing information about the internet and the lucrative potential of e-commerce.

The events were so exciting that Wayne forgot to sell any opals, and instead spent his trip going from seminar to seminar and chatting with people full time to learn as much as he could.

One day, he went for coffee and all of the tables were full, so he sat next to a guy who was going around asking for close out stocks to purchase. Wayne had many chats and found out that this guy was buying stock for Bidz, an online jewellery company. The man suggested that Wayne and the family business should open an online opal site because selling online was the future.

At the seminars, Wayne also met a retired NASA scientist who shared with him many entertaining stories about how he used mathematical equations for everything. His position also included how much oxygen an astronaut requires when in space. He told stories about how they would monitor Russian spaceships and listen to the astronauts when they ran out of air and died. What did this have to do with selling opals online?

When Wayne visited the man’s home, his bathroom walls were full of mathematical equations, and he said that eBay’s formula wasn’t sustainable as the sheer volume of sellers could not make enough income.

Initially, Wayne wasn’t sure what he meant by eBay’s formula being unsustainable, because in those days, many businesspeople said eBay was for slaves only, and that only eBay will make money online, not the sellers. Looking at eBay today, you have to wonder if these businesspeople were correct?

These two men influenced Wayne to start Opal Auctions, and what he learned was that to compete, the business had to have a better system than eBay. How would we take a completely fresh approach that succeeded against the e-commerce giant that was eBay?

At Opal Auctions, we decided from the beginning that our Sellers must be verified with product knowledge, and that only approved professional laboratories would handle certificates.

estella sedawieWe started the Opal Sheriff and Verified program in 2005 to include authentic descriptions of every stone sold through our platform. eBay, on the other hand, didn’t roll out this type of system until October 2020, a whopping 15 years after we started ours!

In a winner takes all business environment, Wayne realized that our auction website needed to be more than just user-friendly to succeed; it needed trusted systems that prioritized time and information for buyers.

In 2003, he joined eBay and started selling but was hopeless at anything online, so his two teenage sons, Jason and Mark, helped set up eBay, email, and payment systems. Wayne realized that he’d have to venture away from eBay to make a profitable business. But how?

Remember that in 2003, the cost of a computer was $4,000, and a monthly internet plan (that was extremely slow in those days) was $500 per month. The computer was in Wayne’s son, Mark’s bedroom, and they had an uphill battle to work through all the bugs and tech issues. But like all business ventures, we all learnt a lot, and in 2004, we purchased a Spanish system for our online auctions and officially launched Opal Auctions in 2005.

As you can imagine, our start-up was anything but smooth and we had so many technical problems. For example, we built a video system in 2008 that cost us $15,000 just to make super basic videos filmed on a $3,000 camera. Fast forward to today and you can film superior video content on your mobile phones. But at the time, we had to work with the technology available, not knowing then that it would drastically improve over the coming years.

For the first five years, we lost a lot of money just trying to build the new online sites. But we all persisted because we believed in the potential of the online business when done right – for the users with transparent information and trusted buyer programs.

Once we got up and running and worked out all the kinks, we started to put the site out for sellers to join the platform. Our brother Paul and his partner Sally Patel were the first to join our online auction platform.

From there we continued to expand the family business. Both of Paul’s sons, Peter and Ross, are sellers and Sally Patel’s family of seven became individual sellers based in Australia and Tucson, Arizona, USA. We have always built our business around family values and that is what has remained constant through all of the shifts and turns in the evolution of Opal Auctions. The passion for opals is rooted not only in the family business, but our family history as well.

Ross cut his first Opal at 8 years old, and his son Hamish just carried on the family legacy by cutting his first opal at 8 years old, too.

What can we say, opals are in our blood! So, how did we get everyone else to jump onboard with Opal Auctions? We knew we needed to raise awareness about our company, so Wayne packed up once again for a trip, this time heading to the United States to attend the Tucson Gem Show in Arizona.

2006, Tucson Gem Show: A Disaster Turned Success

Wayne travelled with Patrik from Rollingstone Opals to launch Opal Auctions at the world-famous Tucson Gem Show in the US.

Upon arrival, things got off to a bleak start. They knew they had something special, but convincing others proved to be a difficult task. They were placed in a dead-end location at Days Inn, with little foot traffic. It was depressing, and the first client in a business suit told them that the internet was designed for war, and that Opal Auctions would never work.

The second client owned four shops in California and said that people would not buy opals online.
Finally, their third client saw some potential, and said they had a brilliant idea, amazing stock, and wished them the best of luck. They were happy to have some positive feedback… until they noticed that right after he left, their best rough black opal was missing! He had sweet talked them and stolen it right from under their noses.

What a disappointment! Making matters worse, they hadn’t filled out their forms for electricity for the show, so the bill was $1500 instead of $500.

Obviously, this was their last Gem Show in Tucson! Paul participated in Tucson shows for 20 years, but now, with online selling going so well, he’s stopped selling at Trade Shows.

The business started to pick up some momentum with the online auction site, but in those early days of e-commerce, technical difficulties were never far behind.

In 2007, the site crashed, and we lost most our buyers, as our Australian server could not handle requests. Around the same time, Steve joined us and taught himself computer coding. Today, he is our head coder and manages our massive server that can handle thousands of requests per minute, and he is forever building more improvements to our site.

2008, Bringing in More Family

By 2008, our system had greatly improved and was expanded to include more unique features. We had come a long way from our first system in 2004. In fact, we began a system called “Know Your Customer” before it was fashionable and status-quo for online business. With this program, all sellers had to be verified first, and our Opal Sheriff program and Item Watch program proved successful. Needless to say, Wayne was very fortunate and grateful to have met those two guys in Las Vegas who encouraged him to be more creative and push the envelope on his ideas.

In 2012, Paul’s sons officially joined our team.

Before joining the team, Ross was an engineer at Holden in Melbourne, Australia, and undertook a Gemmology course. He is now one of our gemmologists, as well as working with his wife Terese, who holds a double degree of IT and Accounting with years of experience with small business and the corporate sector. Together, they are an ideal team that handles the SEO, marketing, and improvement division. They have overseen many user-friendly aspects added to our platform.

ross sedawieterese sedawiePeter has been opal mining in Lightning Ridge for over 15 years. He is an accomplished and skilled opal cutter and is now our head cutter at Opal Auctions headquarter office where we cut around 4,000 opals per month. Peter took over his grandpa’s Opal Auctions selling site called “Anembo Opals.”

xvvwicrmm1l06pbj.jpgWe have been through many ups and downs since those early days when Paul started opal mining at the Four Miles opal fields, but nothing could have prepared us for what was to come in 2020.

2020, Thriving Through the Pandemic

The Coronavirus pandemic had a massive effect on our buyers and sellers worldwide. There are so many traditional buyers who did Trade Shows that stopped buying. However, these were replaced by people buying and starting their own online business selling on social sites.

wayne sedawieYou can never predict the impact a worldwide health crisis will have on the global economy, and we weren’t sure what to expect for our family business. Fortunately, due to the heightened activity in online selling, our sales leapt up around a 70% per month average from previous years.

In April 2021, Paul made the largest donation to date to the Australian Opal Centre at Lightning Ridge -- the largest and most diverse donation of rare opalised fossils and opal-related curiosities ever gifted to a public institution.

In June 2021, Opal Auctions won the Family Business award in Gold Coast, Australia where the head office is based.

Looking back at our family’s journey in the opal industry and e-commerce opal market, we have covered a lot of ground, physically and digitally! We have always believed that when a family comes together utilizing everyone’s talents, skills, gifts, and determination, while always putting family first, a business will be unstoppable.

It hasn’t always been easy, but we’ve stuck together through the ups and downs. Opals run through our veins and colour our lives, and we don’t plan on stopping any time soon!

Paul compiled online opal gallery of his most prized opals collected over the years, which you can view at the link below.

Click To Download The Ebook

“一家人一起工作势不可挡”

——韦恩·塞达维 2012

事件时间表

iilybs1v4lkmidgf.jpg 1986 年 – Paul Sedawie 在四英里蛋白石矿场开始了蛋白石采矿企业

1992 年 – 拓展蛋白石批发业务

2003 年 - 追求电子商务并为蛋白石拍卖播下种子

2006 年 - 图森宝石展:灾难转为成功

2008 – 引入更多家庭

2020 年——在大流行中蓬勃发展

1986 年,这一切是如何开始的:Paul Sedawie 开始了一家蛋白石采矿企业

有时,我们出发的路线不可避免地要绕道而行。如果你很幸运,那条弯路会通往宝藏。这正是居住在澳大利亚墨尔本的 Paul Sedawie 身上发生的事情,他非常渴望在金矿开采中碰碰运气。虽然保罗没有淘到金子,但一系列事件让他找到了比他想象的更美丽的东西:蛋白石。不仅仅是蛋白石,而是将建立家族遗产并成为宝石行业主导企业的蛋白石。

1986 年,保罗有一个去淘金的梦想,鉴于最近的离婚,他决定现在或永远不要。他开始向北寻找黄金,途经闪电岭著名的蛋白石矿镇。然而,他的道路被大洪水中断了,他无法继续前进。由于他的黄金梦想似乎遥不可及,他选择留在附近的城镇。

幸运的是,他遇到了他的学校好友 Bob Young,后者让他住在他的营地,并说服他放弃对黄金的追求,转而在著名的四英里蛋白石矿场开采蛋白石。然而,好运并没有因为他们的小型千斤顶操作而持续多久,直到他遇到了另一位蛋白石矿工克里斯,他们联手创建了一个蛋白石开采业务。

保罗·塞达维克里斯在世界蛋白石之都闪电岭出生和长大,他是第二代蛋白石矿工,他了解这片土地的地形和最好的蛋白石开采方法。

目前,Chris 是 Opal Auctions 的卖家,名为“Opal Rush”。在 Opal Auctions 于 2000 年代初期在线推出之前的几年,Paul 和 Chris 在蛋白石领域寻找世界知名的澳大利亚蛋白石。

保罗对蛋白石采矿和生活方式非常着迷,以至于他对黄金的渴望很快变成了对蛋白石的痴迷。但他对蛋白石的热爱早在他开采蛋白石之前就开始了。

保罗还记得十二岁时购买了他的第一块巨石蛋白石。在尘土飞扬的旷野中,他将全部注意力都集中在挖掘只有这片干旱地区的气候和地质才能生产的著名蛋白石上。

将黄金和千斤顶的操作抛诸脑后,保罗在闪电岭的四英里蛋白石场投资了一个大篷车和必要的设备。像所有新的追求一样,开采黄金——或者在这种情况下,蛋白石——需要时间、坚持和努力。一开始,保罗和他的同事们会早早起床,吃过早餐,然后直奔井下开始挖矿。经过一个多星期的挖掘,团队发现了他们的第一块蛋白石!

虽然它可能不是质量上乘的难以捉摸的黑蛋白石,但这颗半克拉的石头是成功的灯塔,为保罗带来了未来的希望,这就是为什么他仍然拥有第一颗蛋白石作为纪念品的原因。

一个月后,他们出土了一颗大水晶蛋白石。兴奋地克服了,他们原以为这块石头能卖 1,000 美元,但不幸的是,标本里到处都是沙子,只卖了 100 美元。保罗知道会有相当多的不安和巨大的学习曲线,但他坚持了下来。他知道蛋白石开采是一项极其艰苦的工作,每天在矿洞里工作让他对矿工的工作充满敬意,并了解寻找蛋白石的难度。

在恶劣的条件下艰难地开采了九个月后,保罗改变了他的努力,开始处理粗蛋白石。

与此同时,保罗的孪生兄弟韦恩住在西澳大利亚的珀斯。 1989 年,韦恩从脚踝受伤中恢复过来,所以保罗从他的矿场和一台切割机寄给他一些蛋白石。

“我如何切割蛋白石?”韦恩问道。保罗的回答? “就用你的常识吧!”

好吧,韦恩不认为他有任何常识来完成这项任务,但尽管如此,他很快发现自己非常享受切割粗糙的蛋白石。也许学习这门手艺是天生的直觉或坚持,但他边走边学,发现这个过程很有收获。

1992 年,兄弟俩全神贯注于粗蛋白石企业,韦恩带着妻子埃斯特拉和他们的两个儿子杰森和马克搬到了 4,000 公里的昆士兰黄金海岸。有了新的根,他们在冲浪者天堂兰花大道的马克大厦设立了一个剪裁室,开始建立他们的公司。

1992 年,拓展 Opal Wholesaling

很快,蛋白石原石切割企业就开始运营了。保罗会将蛋白石原石供应给韦恩和埃斯特拉,他们每天要切割 120 颗蛋白石。韦恩有节奏地工作,将粗糙的蛋白石磨碎,并将它们传递给埃斯特拉,埃斯特拉将在多布棒上塑造和抛光蛋白石。

90 年代,冲浪者天堂到处都是日本的旅游商店,所以保罗会向镇上的珠宝制造商供应蛋白石。

Estela 切割了 1,000 颗蛋白石后,她将蛋白石卖给了商店,因为她积累了广泛的知识和切割经验,可以欣赏稀有的蛋白石颜色。

一天,克里斯向他们展示了他引以为豪的黑色蛋白石上的红色,韦恩说“这是橙色不是红色。” Chris 自己的脸红得发红,变得狂野,从那时起,一直有一个关于蛋白石有多红(或橙色!)的笑话。

很快,这个家族就成为了澳大利亚和新西兰的蛋白石批发商。这对孪生兄弟积累了数百个批发账户,他们每个人都开始每月旅行和销售。这就是保罗在 2008 年首次参加图森宝石展的原因,我们将在后面详细说明。

兄弟俩发现,有些客户从一对双胞胎那里购买的东西比另一对多,因此两人都会携带所有库存来满足每个客户的需求。在月底,他们会平衡谁欠彼此并解决。那时,文书工作很复杂,或者充其量是“草率”,因此很难获得准确的销售额。这对双胞胎玩了很多次猜谜游戏,谢天谢地,钱不是问题,所以一个人是否得到报酬并不重要,因为它最终都会平衡。

保罗建立了蛋白石采矿合作伙伴关系,所以有时分成 60-40,但双胞胎都认为他们的销售额更高,这成为另一个正在进行的家庭笑话。但该家族盈利的蛋白石业务并不仅仅由金钱驱动,而是由与他们的家庭价值观密切相关的生活方式和享受所驱动。兄弟俩依靠强大的信任和透明度体系,这成为他们关系和家族企业的重要组成部分。由于这种信任,生意变得轻松而有益。

随着家族扩大业务,他们于 2006 年聘请帕特里克 (Patrik) 帮助为客户群提供服务。今天,Patrik 在 Opal Auctions 拥有自己的网站“Rolling Stone Opals”。

业务不断扩大和蓬勃发展,并在聘请 Patrik 的同时,在越南胡志明市开设了一家蛋白石切割工厂,员工负责切割和抛光蛋白石,同时制造银和金蛋白石首饰。

生意很好,这家人向澳大利亚数百家商店出售银蛋白石首饰。但不幸的是,这个家族的成功在五年后戛然而止,当时中国卖家将他们的价格降了一半,他们无法与这些降价竞争。

在前往越南关闭工厂的途中,韦恩采集了他们无法与之竞争的中国银饰的样品,并将其展示给工人。令所有人震惊的是,一名越南珠宝商将银吊坠切成两半,并暴露出金属实际上是镀铑的锡——不是真正的银!你相信吗?韦恩也不能!但当然,在那一刻,中国卖家只能将我们的价格减半,因为珠宝不是真正的白银,这一切都是有道理的。

我们接下来做了什么?

2003年,开拓电子商务,为蛋白石拍卖埋下种子

韦恩参加了美国的拉斯维加斯宝石展以出售蛋白石,但没有出售任何蛋白石,因为他很快就被互联网和在线业务的讨论分心了。一次奇妙的冒险从这次经历中开花结果。在展会上,eBay 举办了研讨会,分享有关互联网和电子商务利润丰厚潜力的信息。

这些活动是如此令人兴奋,以至于韦恩忘记了出售任何蛋白石,而是将他的旅行从一个研讨会带到另一个研讨会,并全职与人们聊天以尽可能多地学习。

一天,他去喝咖啡,所有桌子都满了,所以他坐在一个四处走动要求购买股票的人旁边。韦恩聊了很多次,发现这家伙正在为在线珠宝公司 Bidz 购买股票。该男子建议韦恩和家族企业开设一个在线蛋白石网站,因为在线销售是未来。

在研讨会上,韦恩还遇到了一位退休的 NASA 科学家,他与他分享了许多关于他如何将数学方程式用于一切事物的有趣故事。他的职位还包括宇航员在太空中需要多少氧气。他讲述了他们如何监视俄罗斯宇宙飞船并在宇航员耗尽空气并死亡时倾听他们的故事。这与在线销售蛋白石有什么关系?

当韦恩拜访该男子的家时,他的浴室墙上满是数学方程式,他说 eBay 的公式不可持续,因为卖家数量庞大,无法赚取足够的收入。

最初,韦恩不确定他所说的 eBay 不可持续的公式是什么意思,因为在那个年代,许多商人说 eBay 只为奴隶服务,只有 eBay 会在网上赚钱,而不是卖家。看看今天的eBay,你不禁怀疑这些商人说的对不对?

这两个人影响韦恩创办了 Opal Auctions,他学到的是,为了竞争,该企业必须拥有比 eBay 更好的系统。我们将如何采取一种全新的方法来对抗电子商务巨头 eBay?

在 Opal Auctions,我们从一开始就决定我们的卖家必须经过产品知识验证,并且只有经过批准的专业实验室才能处理证书。

埃斯特拉·塞达维我们于 2005 年启动了 Opal Sheriff and Verified 计划,包括对通过我们平台销售的每块石头的真实描述。另一方面,eBay 直到 2020 年 10 月才推出这种类型的系统,这比我们开始使用了 15 年之久!

在赢家通吃的商业环境中,Wayne 意识到我们的拍卖网站需要的不仅仅是用户友好才能取得成功;它需要可信赖的系统,为买家安排时间和信息的优先级。

2003 年,他加入 eBay 并开始销售,但对网上的任何东西都无望,所以他的两个十几岁的儿子 Jason 和 Mark 帮助建立了 eBay、电子邮件和支付系统。韦恩意识到他必须冒险离开 eBay 才能开展有利可图的业务。但是如何?

请记住,在 2003 年,一台计算机的成本是 4,000 美元,而每月的互联网计划(当时非常慢)是每月 500 美元。电脑在韦恩的儿子马克的卧室里,他们进行了一场艰苦的战斗来解决所有的错误和技术问题。但和所有商业企业一样,我们都学到了很多东西,2004 年,我们为我们的在线拍卖购买了一个西班牙系统,并于 2005 年正式推出了 Opal Auctions。

可以想象,我们的启动并不顺利,而且我们遇到了很多技术问题。例如, 我们在 2008 年建造了一个视频系统,仅仅为了制作用 3000 美元的相机拍摄的超级基本视频就花费了 15000 美元。快进到今天,您可以在手机上拍摄出色的视频内容。但当时,我们不得不使用可用的技术,当时并不知道它会在未来几年内大幅改进。

为了 前五年,我们仅仅为了建立新的在线网站就损失了很多钱。但我们都坚持了下来,因为我们相信在线业务的潜力如果做得好——为用户提供透明的信息和可信赖的买家计划。

一旦我们启动并运行并解决了所有问题,我们就开始将该网站发布给卖家加入该平台。我们的兄弟 Paul 和他的合伙人 Sally Patel 是第一个加入我们的在线拍卖平台的人。

从那时起,我们继续扩大家族企业。 Paul 的两个儿子 Peter 和 Ross 都是卖家,而 Sally Patel 的七口之家成为了位于澳大利亚和美国亚利桑那州图森的个人卖家。我们始终围绕家族价值观开展业务,这也是 Opal Auctions 发展过程中的所有转变和转变始终保持不变的原因。对蛋白石的热情不仅植根于家族企业,也植根于我们的家族历史。

罗斯在 8 岁时切磨了他的第一块蛋白石,他的儿子哈米什也在 8 岁时切磨了他的第一块蛋白石,从而继承了家族遗产。

我们能说什么,蛋白石在我们的血液中!那么,我们是如何让其他人加入 Opal Auctions 的呢?我们知道我们需要提高对我们公司的认识,所以韦恩再次打包旅行,这次前往美国参加在亚利桑那州举行的图森宝石展。

2006 年,图森宝石展:灾难变成功

Wayne 与来自 Rollingstone Opals 的 Patrik 一起前往世界著名的美国图森宝石展上推出 Opal Auctions。

抵达后,事情开始惨淡。他们知道自己有一些特别之处,但事实证明说服他人是一项艰巨的任务。他们被安置在 Days Inn 的一个死胡同,几乎没有人流。令人沮丧的是,第一个西装革履的客户告诉他们,互联网是为战争而设计的,Opal Auctions 永远行不通。

第二个客户在加利福尼亚拥有四家商店,并表示人们不会在网上购买蛋白石。
最后,他们的第三个客户看到了一些潜力,并说他们有一个绝妙的主意,惊人的库存,并祝他们好运。他们很高兴得到一些积极的反馈……直到他们注意到他离开后,他们最好的黑蛋白石原石不见了!他和他们谈过甜言蜜语,然后就从他们眼皮底下偷走了。

多么令人失望!更糟糕的是,他们没有填写演出的电费表格,所以账单是 1500 美元而不是 500 美元。

显然,这是他们在图森的最后一次宝石展!保罗参加了图森展览 20 年,但现在,随着在线销售进展顺利,他停止在贸易展上销售。

该业务开始通过在线拍卖网站获得一些动力,但在电子商务的早期,技术困难从未落后。

2007 年,该网站崩溃了,我们失去了大部分买家,因为我们的澳大利亚服务器无法处理请求。大约在同一时间,史蒂夫加入了我们并自学了计算机编程。今天,他是我们的首席编码员,负责管理我们每分钟可以处理数千个请求的大型服务器,并且他将永远对我们的网站进行更多改进。

2008年,引进更多家庭

到 2008 年,我们的系统有了很大的改进,并扩展到包括更多独特的功能。从 2004 年的第一个系统开始,我们已经走了很长一段路。事实上,我们在一个名为“了解你的客户”的系统之前就开始了在线业务的流行和现状。有了这个计划,所有卖家都必须首先经过验证,我们的 Opal Sheriff 计划和 Item Watch 计划证明是成功的。毋庸置疑,Wayne 非常幸运也很感激在拉斯维加斯遇到了这两个人,他们鼓励他更有创意并勇于挑战自己的想法。

2012年,保罗的儿子们正式加入我们的团队。

在加入团队之前,Ross 在澳大利亚墨尔本的 Holden 担任工程师,并参加了宝石学课程。他现在是我们的宝石学家之一,并与他的妻子 Terese 一起工作,后者在 IT 和数据输入方面拥有丰富的经验。他们一起是处理 SEO、营销和改进部门的理想团队。他们监督了添加到我们平台的许多用户友好方面。

罗斯塞达维特蕾莎·塞达维 Peter 在 Lightning Ridge 开采蛋白石已超过 15 年。他是一位技艺精湛且技艺精湛的蛋白石切割师,现在是 Opal Auctions 总部办公室的首席切割师,我们每月切割约 4,000 颗蛋白石。彼得接管了他祖父的蛋白石拍卖网站,名为“Anembo Opals”。

xvvwicrmm1l06pbj.jpg自从保罗在四英里蛋白石矿场开始开采蛋白石的早期以来,我们经历了许多起起落落,但没有什么能让我们为 2020 年即将到来的事情做好准备。

2020,共渡难关

冠状病毒大流行对我们全球的买家和卖家产生了巨大影响。有很多参加贸易展的传统买家停止购买。然而,这些被人们在社交网站上购买和开始自己的在线业务所取代。

韦恩·塞达维您永远无法预测全球健康危机对全球经济的影响,而且我们不确定对我们的家族企业会有什么期望。幸运的是,由于在线销售活动的增加,我们的销售额比往年平均每月增长约 70%。

2021 年 4 月,保罗向位于闪电岭的澳大利亚蛋白石中心做出了迄今为止最大的一笔捐赠——这是有史以来向公共机构捐赠的最大、最多样化的稀有蛋白石化石和与蛋白石相关的珍品捐赠。

2021 年 6 月,Opal Auctions 赢得了总部所在地澳大利亚黄金海岸的家族企业奖。

回顾我们一家人在蛋白石行业和电子商务蛋白石市场的旅程,我们已经涵盖了很多领域,物理和数字!我们始终相信,当一个家庭聚集在一起,利用每个人的才能、技能、天赋和决心,同时始终将家庭放在首位,企业将势不可挡。

这并不总是那么容易,但我们在起起落落中团结在一起。蛋白石贯穿我们的血管,为我们的生活增添色彩,我们不打算很快停止!

保罗编译了他多年来收集的最珍贵蛋白石的在线蛋白石画廊,您可以在下面的链接中查看。

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