Pepetools: born in OKC and sold around the world

Last week, Pepetools celebrated the grand opening of its new warehouse that will help facilitate its growing ecommerce business. 

At the age of 18, Tony Aizenman immigrated to the U.S. with his family from the former Soviet Union country of Ukraine. Aizenman quickly found himself selling wholesale gold door to door. The life of salesman lead to Aizenman building strong contacts and relationships with jewelry stores and starting his life’s work in the industry.

In 1984, Aizenman moved to Oklahoma City with his wife, Irina, and started Aizenman’s Inc., and through the family’s hard work, the company grew into one of the region’s largest resellers of jewelry tools, supplies and more.

In the ‘90s, the Aizenman family started Pepetools when Tony noticed a need in the market that wasn’t being met—quality metalsmithing tools at prices people could afford.

Today, Pepetools is one of the premier original equipment manufacturers in the world. While the bulk of their business is centered on equipment for jewelry makers, they also manufacture equipment for industrial and medical uses. They ship their products across the globe from right here in Oklahoma City at their 20,000-square-foot-facility. Pepetools has also continued the tradition of being a family business as Tony and Irina’s son, David, has undertaken a critical role with the company and helped its incredible growth.

Pepetools is currently undergoing an impressive expansion in space and workforce to accommodate its thriving ecommerce market. VeloCityOKC recently sat down with the Founder & CEO of Pepetools, Tony Aizenman, to discuss how Pepetools got where it is today.

VeloCityOKC: In your own words, what exactly is Pepetools?

Tony Aizenman: We are an original equipment manufacturer (OEM). We make tools and equipment, generally for the jewelry hobby market, and we also cover industrial and medical.

You immigrated here in the 1970s. How did you end up coming to the United States?

I came here as a refugee from the Soviet Union. We left everything behind and came here with nothing. But we didn't come here for riches. We came here for freedom. Which is very, very important.

How did you get into the metal and jewelry business?

I've always been interested in arts and crafts, and I have an education in metallurgy. I love mechanical things. With my first business I started doing electroforming in New Orleans. I met my wife and the only way I could date her was if I would come to Oklahoma. So, I left my job, came to Oklahoma and I started selling jewelry.

I was working as a road salesman for companies. I then decided to set up a little manufacturing facility and it got burglarized. When I was buying new equipment from a supply house here, I decided if they can do it I can.

And so, with very little money—very, very little money—we started a supply house. And, lo and behold, we have done well with it. We were able to make a living. In the beginning, we had to bring our baby in. We were rocking the cradle and serving the customers.

You originally manufactured Pepetools equipment in your home country of Ukraine. How did that come about?

The Soviet Union fell apart, and all those countries became independent. A factory was shutting down and someone approached me about doing work there. That is how I got into manufacturing. I had a decent size facility in Ukraine. We were manufacturing practically everything that was needed at the time on the market, and we got a good reputation worldwide. Our product was considered to be the best. I had a huge crew of engineers. I had over 40 engineers and the facility was about 2 1/2 million square feet. I had 17,000 workers and at least 6,800 were involved in producing Pepetools products, which I helped to develop and engineer. But in the end, I shut it down and moved the manufacturing here because I want to manufacture in the U.S.

When did you move the manufacturing to Oklahoma City and what has that experience been like?

I started in 2010 and built the factory here from scratch. It has been great because I still have my contacts all over the world, but we do it all here and our product is considered to be the best in the industry. We probably ship to between 40 and 50 different countries in the world from Oklahoma City.

Pepetools sells direct to consumers. How did that come about?

The dealers that are the big box companies sell similar types of products and don't produce anything. What they do is kind of let the profits take over from the quality. They are buying as cheap as they can find. They have no respect and no interest in quality stuff. So, we started selling directly to the customer.

We still have dealers all over the world. Matter of fact, today we're shipping to Korea, Israel, and Switzerland. Dealers outside of the U.S. appreciate quality a little more.

Your company has become very important among home jewelry makers. What has that been like?

They are some highly educated people. Most of them are so talented. I'm not envious of anything except other people's talent. It's not bad envy, it's good envy. They are just incredible and we're finding them very interesting. They're not very forgiving. So, the equipment must be just perfect. People like to deal directly with manufacturers. They like to deal with people who know and understand the product. I'm helping a lot with customer service. When customers engage us, they talk to the person who designed that product.

Expanding to online sales is somewhat new for you and seems to have been very successful.

The success we have going on today, the credit goes entirely to my son, David. He understands things that I don't, which is the internet side of things. My VCR is still blinking so the internet is not for me. He found a very successful formula and we're basically looking at quadrupling our business in a very short period.

What do you attribute the success of Pepetools to?

I am a very big stickler for quality. The utility of the product, the quality of the product, the presentation on the product, the packaging of the product. I pay very, very serious attention to it. As I always have. It's a combination of things, but the quality of the product and outstanding customer service, those things are big contributors to our success.