Two Industry Veterans Form Exclusive Online Diamond Source
January 11, 2011By Hedda Schupak, Editor, The Centurion
Dillon, CO—Jacques Voorhees, founder and former CEO of the online jewelry network Polygon, and Bill Boyajian, former long-time president of the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), have joined forces to launch the DailyDiamondReport.com.
Jacques Voorhees
William E. Boyajian
The new trade-only online service addresses two issues in the marketplace: the need to move stones as rapidly as possible from the grading labs to the market, and the need to give retailers some respite from voracious Internet price shopping.
The Daily Diamond Report (DDR) service, which formally launched January 10, provides an exclusive list of newly-graded diamonds directly from the diamond grading laboratories of GIA and the American Gem Society (AGSL). Stones come from more than two dozen Diamond Trading Company sightholders and other large manufacturers.
DDR stones are automatically posted within hours of grading, have not yet appeared anywhere else on the Internet, and therefore cannot be shopped on multiple business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) websites.
Stones will remain on the DDR site between one and seven days before disappearing, Voorhees told The Centurion. Suppliers have a preference setting to choose the length of time, and during that time the stones cannot appear anywhere else online.
A wide variety of stones is shown. While better or more unusual stones are of greater interest in an environment like that, says Voorhees, stones listed the first day ran the gamut from .29 ct. to 16 cts.
"Who needs to be told that another .25 carat, H SI2 has just left the lab?" he joked. "It's all over the board, but in general there aren't very many small stones, and [the stones] seem to be more in the larger sizes and better qualities."
Retailers or manufacturers who wish to know more about a stone can click on it for more information from its grading report, or to send an inquiry to its owner. Inquiries go straight to the supplier by phone or email; DDR is not involved, says Voorhees.
Finally, the site is designed to both encourage trade dialogue and keep the conversations private. Prices are not shown on the site, so interested parties must contact the owner of a stone, either via email or phone. But it's a trade discussion, not a free-for-all for curious shoppers.
"Consumers shouldn't have access to the site," says Voorhees. If one gets in, it will be a mistake. But no prices are shown, so it's not too much damage. If one does get in and calls a supplier, the supplier will have to deal with them. But kind of like a trade show, you try not to let that happen."
The Daily Diamond Report is part of VeriChannel LLC, a company launched by Voorhees and Louis Valentine (co-founder of GemFind), together with Boyajian. In addition to DDR, VeriChannel also offers the Jewelry Industry Search Engine (powered by Google).
There is no cost to register. Learn more at DailyDiamondReport.com
http://www.news.centurionjewelry.com/articles/view/two-industry-veterans-form-exclusive-online-diamond-source
