The Israel Diamond Institute Group of Companies (IDI) today launched the third stage in its “Together Works” strategic marketing plan.
Being rolled out throughout 2009, “Together Works” provides support to Israeli diamond manufacturers and exporters while offering real-time assistance and services to the Israeli Diamond Industry’s international trading partners. Stage 3 of the program introduces an unprecedented service especially geared to the Asian markets, a key export target for Israeli diamantaires.
Stage 3 also launches a new seasonal magazine called "Reflections – Diamonds. Fashion. Trends. Clearly." to promote the beauty of diamonds, focusing on jewelry retailers and their customers for 10,000 readers in the US.
In other IDI news, the group also announced a Russian version of the Israeli Diamond Industry Portal (www.israelidiamond.co.il), the definitive B2B website for the Israel trade. The Russian language website comes on the heels of successfully launching English, Hebrew and Chinese version of the website since 2003.
The Israel Diamond Industry Portal, www.israelidiamond.co.il creates a B2B marketplace for the exchange of business contacts and diamond requests that lead to actual transactions. With 7,500 registered users in 125 countries, the portal is a dynamic site, with content being updated throughout the day.
The informative section of the portal is open to all users. Russian members of the diamond and jewelry trade are invited to register as members, free of charge, to gain access to the secure section of the portal which offers information about Israeli companies, and entry into the diamond supply and demand platform.
Source: http://www.jckonline.com/
Today, for most jewellers, sourcing solitaires is a very tedious and time-consuming task. In such a scenario, buying solitaires online would be an idea to scoff at, a distant, unfulfilled dream. . But B2B portal www.tradersdiamonds.com is well on its way to making that dream come true, making the process of sourcing solitaires for jewellers as convenient as paying bills online.
Set up by Mr. Srinivasa Gopalan, a seasoned entrepreneur in information technology and founder CEO of Lister Technologies and Mr. Mithun Sacheti, a GIA educated jeweller gemmologist who belongs to well-known jewellery family, Jaipur Gems, Traders Diamonds is a pioneer in the online trading of diamonds for jewellers.
Mithun Sacheti, Director, Traders Diamonds gave Roli Gupta details about the Traders Diamonds brand, its raison d’etre and its vision for the future…
RG: What is Traders Diamonds?
MS: TradersDiamonds is a B2B website that sells certified loose diamonds to jewellers & other members of the diamond trade. This “exclusive trade-only” website allows traders to browse to a selection of close to 80,000 solitaires of every colour, cut, clarity grade combination in carat weight starting from 0.30cts to 10cts and above. Our model is based on aggregating the diamond inventory of manufacturers across the world and bringing it directly to jewellers in India using our website– www.tradersdiamonds.com.
RG: Why did you set up Tradersdiamonds.com?
MS: In the course of doing business in India for the last few years, I have met a whole lot of jewellers who get a lot of solitaire enquiries but they invariably prefer to let the business pass because solitaires are extremely time consuming and expensive for most jewellers – firstly because they are a high price item and secondly because of the various cut, clarity, color and size combinations, a jeweller will have to keep a very large number of pieces to be able to offer his customers a wide range which essentially means large investments in inventory.
Secondly, there are more than 5000 manufacturers in the world. A jeweller’s chances of getting the best priced diamond are proportional to the number of manufacturers whose inventory information he has. The market is highly fragmented and unorganized. So getting this inventory information is physically impossible. That means the jeweller often ends up buying a more expensive diamond, purely for lack of organized information. This was another opportunity area waiting to get tapped.
Thirdly once he receives the enquiry, the jeweller spends a lot of time calling different manufacturers to find the right solitaire for his customer. So, time that a jeweller would typically like to spend with customers is spent on diamond procurement. This again is a huge pain point with jewellers.
I have been in the US, where I have seen how online models have benefited the diamond trade. And I have seen how online companies which aggregate information on flights or financial products have changed industry dynamics in India.
So there is a need and we felt that an online model would address that need. And that is how TradersDiamonds.com came into being.
RG: What is its USP? What makes it different from the others in the same field? What sort of competition does Traders Diamonds have?
MS: TradersDiamonds.com has no like competition, as of today - one which offers an aggregated inventory online. That said, we do look forward to having that kind of competition. Then there will be more people working together to change the mindset of jewellers and convincing them about the benefits of an online model.
Competition however comes from the other diamond suppliers. There are basically two types. There are the manufacturers themselves, many of whom have a trade website as well. But their inventory is far limited as compared to ours and that gives us a huge edge. Then there are the brokers and wholesalers. Again, their database is limited to a few vendors and we can offer a far larger range of options. Secondly, our users can easily access our inventory whereas they can only call to get information from the brokers and wholesalers. In both cases, our larger inventory helps us to frequently find a lower priced diamond. Then, there are a few other trade portals which typically serve as aggregators. However these are subscription based and the subscription costs are fairly high. So a small jeweller who has only a few transactions may not find them expensive. Our model however is purely brokerage based and there is no subscription fee.
In addition to that, we have created a website which makes it extremely easy to search for diamonds. We also have a dedicated customer service team to help the jewellers with their requirements.
Our association with foreign manufacturers gives us another USP in terms of inventory of fancy shaped diamonds. We are far better positioned to offer a range of options in most of the popular fancy shapes, even in large sizes.
Finally, we have a dedicated team of GIA trained gemmologists. This team offers diamond advisory services to the jewellers, helping them with the finer technical issues. There are various issues like the grading of Zimbabwean stones, which jewellers are unclear about. Our advisory service often comes to their rescue.
RG: How do you plan to position it?
MS: Our positioning is very simple. We want to be the one –stop shop for all kinds of diamonds and solitaire requirements for all kinds of jewellers. Once a jeweller comes to us, he need not go anywhere.
We don’t want to be labeled as just an online retailer for the internet savvy jeweller. We have combined the advantages of the internet with good old diamond expertise and offline measures to be able to offer the best range of diamonds to all kinds of jewellers.
Source: http://diamondworld.net/
A New York-based manufacturer of fashion jewelry filed a lawsuit against Kohl's Corp, alleging the department store chain breached certain contracts.
Bijou International Corp, which said it entered an agreement with Kohl's in July 2007 to supply it with fashion jewelry as part of the chain's "Apartment 9" product line, is seeking to recover not less than $75,000 in damages.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Wisconsin on April 2.
Kohl's was not immediately available for comment.
Bijou also said in the lawsuit that it had been selected to make the "Simply Vera" Vera Wang jewelry for Kohl's, but the retailer decided to severe both agreements through a series of steps.
Kohl's launched the Simply Vera brand exclusively in its stores in September 2007. The company, like other department store operators, has faced steep declines in sales as consumers cut back on shopping for discretionary items.
Source: http://uk.reuters.com/
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