With the proliferation of diamond and jewellery websites recently in New Zealand and offshore there has been an increase in the use of virtual diamond inventory. This is the ability of internet based operations to link back to offshore diamond portals and list the corresponding diamond stock on their websites. A margin is then added to these diamonds. Many of these websites are being run by IT people with no prior experience in the diamond or jewellery industry. They see it as an ideal product to be sold on the internet as it is of high value, small and easily shipped to consumers.
This is why you see New Zealand and offshore websites purporting to have a stock or 30,000 or 40,000 diamonds when in fact they don’t own any of the diamonds. This is very unprofessional as this stock is from multiple suppliers and countries and the Jeweller has not seen the diamond and can make no comment on the actual diamond being quoted.
Professional Jewellers would never buy a diamond that they have not had the chance to view before buying. This is because Jewellers know that there are a large number of variables that make up a diamonds quality that are not recorded on a diamond grading report and that diamond grading reports are not all equal. The analogy is that you would not buy a house from the road – you would want to go inside and view the layout, quality of the build and finish etc. This is the same with a diamond. All diamonds listed on www.diamonds.co.nz are owned by us and along with our De Beers DTC Sightholder have looked at each diamond at least six times during its cutting process, grading process and final purchase. We know exactly what each diamond is and where we feel it is in the grading system. We have been buying diamonds for the New Zealand jewellery industry for 25 years.