A jewellery display is judged at 30 cm, under a lamp, by a customer holding a loupe. That is a different standard from a supermarket shelf, and it changes the edge finish, the material grade and the packing.
Four things come up on almost every enquiry in this sector. None of them is solved by choosing a thicker sheet.
Faces are protected with film until install, and edges are flame-polished rather than sanded so there is no visible scratch direction.
Colour is matched to a retained swatch under the same lamp the case uses. Warm and cool whites make the same sheet read differently.
Base weight is designed in: a thicker base or a metal insert is specified at drawing stage, not fixed by adding putty later.
No tooling means each SKU can run at 10–50 pieces, which is what a collection launch actually needs.
All of the below run on the same machines, in the same plant, with no operation subcontracted. Full detail sits on the Retail displays & POP line page.
A jewelry display has one job: make a small, expensive object look worth its price under a spotlight. That is an optical brief, and it changes what matters in the build.
Under a retail spotlight an edge that is sanded at 800 grit reads as dull and slightly grey. The same edge flame-polished reads as glass and throws a bright line that lifts the whole unit. On jewelry work we flame-polish visible edges as standard and diamond-polish where the edge is a design feature — a crisp flat mirror line rather than a rounded one. The cost difference is roughly 2.5 times on the edge operation, and it is visible from two metres away.
A watch or ring on a flat shelf catches a hard reflection from an overhead spot. Angling the cradle 15–20 degrees off horizontal moves that reflection out of the customer's eye line, which is why every watch display stand we build has an adjustable cradle rather than a fixed one. The same logic applies to a jewelry display tray: a shallow tilt reads better than a flat tray, and a flocked insert at 10 degrees holds the piece without hiding it.
Brand colour on a jewelry display is matched on cast sheet against a physical swatch, never against a screen. We cut the swatch from the actual production sheet and courier it for sign-off before cutting, because tinted sheet reads deeper than a printed chip and a frosted finish shifts perceived colour by about one step.
| Element | Build | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Watch display stand | Cushion at 15–20 degrees, diamond-polished edge | Moves glare off the dial; the edge throws a clean line |
| Jewelry display tray | Flocked insert, 10-degree tilt, compartment pitch on a machined comb | Holds pieces in place and keeps slots even |
| Ring or earring riser | 5 mm cast, flame polish, soft-pad seat | No contact mark on a plated surface |
| Lockable showcase | LED channel in the carcass, 3 mm diffuser gap, cam lock | Even light without hot spots; overnight security |
| Window display case | UV-stabilised sheet, rebated base | Slows yellowing in daylight; cover cannot slide |
These are small, hand-finished pieces, so labour dominates. On a typical counter unit: sheet 15–20 percent, cutting 10–15 percent, edge polishing 20–30 percent, bonding 15–20 percent, inserts and pads 8–12 percent, packing 8–12 percent. Polishing and bonding together are more than half the price, which is why a design that reduces joint count is the most effective cost lever available.
A unit built as one bent piece instead of three bonded pieces typically comes out 30 percent cheaper and eliminates the two seams that would have shown in grazing light. The trade-off is tooling for the bend jig, which pays back at around 30–50 units. Below that, bonding is cheaper.
The second lever is the insert. A flocked insert is inexpensive; a shaped EVA insert cut to a specific ring profile is not, and it only makes sense where the piece is a hero product. Third: lighting. An LED strip in a jewelry counter adds 15–20 percent and is the single biggest perceived value gain — more than doubling the wall thickness would.
Where we push back is on polishing hidden faces. It is common to see a drawing calling for a polished finish on all faces of a unit that sits against a back panel; that is 10 percent of the price for something no customer will ever see.
| Item | What we need | Why it changes the price |
|---|---|---|
| Piece dimensions | Object size, and how much margin you want around it | Sets the unit size and the insert geometry |
| Brand colour | Pantone code, or a sample of the existing display | Custom tint carries a one-sheet minimum; stock colours do not |
| Lighting | Whether the unit is lit, and with what | LED channel and diffuser gap change the carcass construction |
| Insert type | Flocked, felt, or shaped EVA | A shaped EVA insert is significantly more than a flocked sheet |
| Rollout | How many stores, and how alike they are | A multi-store programme needs a jig and a master swatch |
Send a photo of the counter where the unit will sit, not just the product. The height of the counter and the position of the spotlights decide the riser height and the cradle angle more than the product size does.
The acceptance points below are recorded per batch, and the record travels with the packing list.
Yes, and on cast sheet only — extruded sheet will not hold a tint closely enough. Send either a piece of the existing display or the Pantone reference; we cut a swatch from the actual production sheet and send it by courier for your sign-off before cutting, because a colour approved on a screen is not a colour approved. Clear, tinted and opal sheet all take a match; frosted finishes shift the perceived colour by roughly one step, so a frosted part is matched from a frosted swatch, not from a clear one.
Three layers, and the cheapest one does most of the work. Faces leave the plant under PE film that comes off on site, never in the workshop; each piece is foam-wrapped individually instead of bulk-packed, because the scratches that show up in a store almost always come from parts rubbing in transit rather than from the customer; and visible edges are flame-polished rather than sanded, so there is no 800-grit scratch to catch a spotlight. On launches of 200 pieces or more we also ship a touch-up kit — acrylic polish and two felt blocks — because a 30-second fix in the stockroom is cheaper than a return.
Ten to fifty pieces per SKU is normal, because no tooling is involved — only cutting, bending, polishing and printing. That lets a launch run several SKUs without committing to a mould.
Yes. The standard construction is a 5 mm carcass with a routed LED channel and a 3 mm diffuser gap, a lockable door on a cam lock recessed into a 3 mm wall, and a cable exit at the rear. The cam lock needs 25 mm of clear space behind it, so the unit has to be at least 150 mm deep — below that we use a magnetic catch plus a security seal.
One insert for a sample, 10 to 50 for a production run. A flocked sheet insert is cut to the compartment layout with no tooling beyond the cutting program, so the minimum is economic rather than technical. A shaped EVA insert is different: it needs a cut file per cavity, so the practical minimum is closer to 50 pieces.
