Matthew Gordy Stuller was 15 when his mom dropped him off at the library in his hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana, so he could catch up on studying. An indifferent student, he ditched his books to wander around downtown and spotted a “going steady” ring in a jewelry store window that he thought might win over a particular girl. He persuaded the store owner to sell him the $39.99 ring, which succeeded in charming the young lady, for $5 down and $5 a week. “I’ve always been somewhat of a romantic,” he confides.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1369322608/1728887664/articles/6QUa4SaiR1728909050181/1979924901.jpg]
Yet sentiment has little to do with how Stuller, now 73, has become America’s wholesale jewelry king, with a net worth that Forbes estimates at more than $1 billion. Instead, he has built his fortune through a relentless focus on manufacturing processes, logistics and satisfying his retailer customers’ every need.
Stuller met that $5 weekly nut by delivering papers, mowing lawns and washing cars. He showed up every Saturday at 10 a.m. at the jewelry store to make his payment, then hung around to help. “They always needed their windows cleaned,” he recalls. Before long, he had a paid part-time job at the shop, where the bench jeweler taught him how to polish jewelry, size rings and set stones. “I loved it,” he says.
By his senior year of high school, Stuller was holing up late at night in the janitor’s closet at his father’s dental practice, repairing jewelry and experimenting with lost-wax casting (used by dentists to produce bridges and crowns) to fabricate missing parts like clasps and links. He still needed to buy certain items. Yet when he called the big distributors, he found them rude. “It was like you were interrupting their day. ‘What do you want?’ ”
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1369322608/1728887664/articles/6QUa4SaiR1728909050181/2499838779.jpg]
Stuller knew he could do it better. So after graduating 68th in a high school class of 69 and enduring one semester at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, he dropped out to start selling wholesale to bench jewelers out of the back of his new . “Originally it was just strictly gold parts, because that’s all I could make,” he says. Soon after, he found a jewelry company in New Orleans that was going out of business and bought its inventory and rolling display cases with a postdated check for $4,500, which he barely covered with a loan from a local bank at which, not coincidentally, his father was a big customer. A few years later, when his dad retired, Stuller bought his dental offices to house his ever-expanding collection of equipment, including ovens, polishing devices and a centrifugal casting machine.
His dad also helped with a key piece of advice: Never take on a partner. “You will outwork a partner,” his father reasoned. So why share equity? Today, a half-century later, Stuller’s eponymously named, still 100%-family-owned company remains headquartered in Lafayette, where it has its biggest production complex: 600,000 square feet of laboratories, manufacturing and packaging, employing 1,500 workers.
Add in production from smaller plants in Mexico, Thailand and India, and Stuller fulfills an average 6,000 orders a day including nearly 130,000 items, some sourced from other manufacturers. A primary ingredient: gold bars. Stuller melts enough to make more than 200 pounds per day of gold alloys for casting.
The company books about $800 million in annual sales and throws off $80 million to $100 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda), Stuller says. Forbes estimates it’s worth at least $800 million. (The remainder of his fortune comes from the profits he has taken out of the operation.)
Stuller’s website highlights his wide range of products: jewelers’ tools, unmounted gemstones, engagement rings, bespoke bracelets. He says every jewelry retailer buys from him, even Tiffany, Harry Winston and Cartier. His biggest client is Signet Jewelers, the parent company of mall-based giants Kay Jewelers, Zales and Jared.
His secret sauce? Logistics. For years, Stuller personally hauled hundreds of tiny boxes to the post office. Then he started putting couriers on Greyhound buses. In 1981, he had a eureka moment when he met Fred Smith, founder and CEO of then-10-year-old FedEx. Today dedicated FedEx and UPS jets sit on the tarmac at the Lafayette airport waiting until Stuller’s last-minute packages get loaded at 8 p.m. If customers in the continental U.S. place orders by 5 p.m. their time, Stuller guar...
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1369322608/1728887664/articles/6QUa4SaiR1728909050181/1979924901.jpg]
Yet sentiment has little to do with how Stuller, now 73, has become America’s wholesale jewelry king, with a net worth that Forbes estimates at more than $1 billion. Instead, he has built his fortune through a relentless focus on manufacturing processes, logistics and satisfying his retailer customers’ every need.
Stuller met that $5 weekly nut by delivering papers, mowing lawns and washing cars. He showed up every Saturday at 10 a.m. at the jewelry store to make his payment, then hung around to help. “They always needed their windows cleaned,” he recalls. Before long, he had a paid part-time job at the shop, where the bench jeweler taught him how to polish jewelry, size rings and set stones. “I loved it,” he says.
By his senior year of high school, Stuller was holing up late at night in the janitor’s closet at his father’s dental practice, repairing jewelry and experimenting with lost-wax casting (used by dentists to produce bridges and crowns) to fabricate missing parts like clasps and links. He still needed to buy certain items. Yet when he called the big distributors, he found them rude. “It was like you were interrupting their day. ‘What do you want?’ ”
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1369322608/1728887664/articles/6QUa4SaiR1728909050181/2499838779.jpg]
Stuller knew he could do it better. So after graduating 68th in a high school class of 69 and enduring one semester at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, he dropped out to start selling wholesale to bench jewelers out of the back of his new . “Originally it was just strictly gold parts, because that’s all I could make,” he says. Soon after, he found a jewelry company in New Orleans that was going out of business and bought its inventory and rolling display cases with a postdated check for $4,500, which he barely covered with a loan from a local bank at which, not coincidentally, his father was a big customer. A few years later, when his dad retired, Stuller bought his dental offices to house his ever-expanding collection of equipment, including ovens, polishing devices and a centrifugal casting machine.
His dad also helped with a key piece of advice: Never take on a partner. “You will outwork a partner,” his father reasoned. So why share equity? Today, a half-century later, Stuller’s eponymously named, still 100%-family-owned company remains headquartered in Lafayette, where it has its biggest production complex: 600,000 square feet of laboratories, manufacturing and packaging, employing 1,500 workers.
Add in production from smaller plants in Mexico, Thailand and India, and Stuller fulfills an average 6,000 orders a day including nearly 130,000 items, some sourced from other manufacturers. A primary ingredient: gold bars. Stuller melts enough to make more than 200 pounds per day of gold alloys for casting.
The company books about $800 million in annual sales and throws off $80 million to $100 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda), Stuller says. Forbes estimates it’s worth at least $800 million. (The remainder of his fortune comes from the profits he has taken out of the operation.)
Stuller’s website highlights his wide range of products: jewelers’ tools, unmounted gemstones, engagement rings, bespoke bracelets. He says every jewelry retailer buys from him, even Tiffany, Harry Winston and Cartier. His biggest client is Signet Jewelers, the parent company of mall-based giants Kay Jewelers, Zales and Jared.
His secret sauce? Logistics. For years, Stuller personally hauled hundreds of tiny boxes to the post office. Then he started putting couriers on Greyhound buses. In 1981, he had a eureka moment when he met Fred Smith, founder and CEO of then-10-year-old FedEx. Today dedicated FedEx and UPS jets sit on the tarmac at the Lafayette airport waiting until Stuller’s last-minute packages get loaded at 8 p.m. If customers in the continental U.S. place orders by 5 p.m. their time, Stuller guar...
You're reading a preview of
Forbes (Digital) - 1 Issue, October - November 2024