Is it better to buy in bulk or individual?

As with most purchases the more volume bought, the more cost savings are passed on to the buyer - Italian Charms are no exception. Here on ebay there are wholesale job lots of charms for sale, in the same way as there are job lots of all manner of other goods. These job lots are great way to kick start collecting or even to begin selling from stock, however a job lot is by it's very nature a volume of product chosen by the seller to clear out, so repeat buying of more specific charms can be tricky.

When sourcing individual charms for personal use and gifts, buying from a professional seller has many benefits not least the fact that a professional is more likely to state their terms of business in advance so that one knows all payment, guarantee, delivery and product details at time of purchase.

What type of Seller?

Try and identify a seller that specialises in the particular type of charm you are interested in, some offer a purely bespoke service (Photo Charms etc) others offer hand made charms from silver and gold, others are volume distributors of branded Charms and others their own brand of generic Italian Charms.

A seller with a large volume of individual charms, and a volume that regularly changes, demonstrates the fact that they have access to a design team to constantly update the designs, these designs may be in house or with the manufacturer they represent.

Branded or Generic?

Popular branded charms are Zoppini, Boxing, Linx, Passavinti, ReFlorence, Puzzle, Pugster, Ryry, Talexia, Toscana, Amorini, JJ Kent, Uberry and Unodomani. Charms are mainly manufactured in Italy and China. The better the quality control of the company the better the charm, low cost alternatives to charms hand made in Italy by Jewellers are often manufactured in China under an outsourcing arrangement i.e. all design, materials sourcing and Quality Control is done by a European/U.S. based company, actual manufacture by china based factory.

Some charms are bought "off the shelf" from china with branding stamped on at source.

As China becomes the worlds factory more and more branded charms will be manufactured there.