Why it’s time for the diamond trade to think beyond COVID-19 with long-term digital solutions
A diamond is forever. That’s the marketing slogan De Beers Group has been using for more than 70 years, and it has worked like a charm. Diamonds are in fact timeless, and thanks to modern technology, the diamond trade itself can become just as timeless by moving their trade platform online. This will allow companies to enjoy more efficiency, increased transparency, reduced costs, and build protection against future market disruptions.
Let’s rewind back to the beginning of 2020, when the diamond and gemstone industry relied on physical meetings and in-person trade shows. Digitization of the sector was minimal and many traders, manufacturers, and mining companies relied heavily on paper records and other antiquated systems. These are systems that still leave many sellers exposed to financial or reputational risk today. This is one of many reasons why the industry is gradually turning to blockchain solutions, which helps facilitate tracking from mine to consumer.
Some innovators have fought hard to adapt by taking advantage of going digital. World-leading supplier of responsibly sourced coloured gemstones, Gemfields, is one such example. Recently Gemfields worked with BidGemmer to implement a customized platform to strengthen trust among their customers when making remote transactions. They used BidGemmer to run online emerald auctions to analyze the status of a market hurt by the pandemic:
“We were very pleased with the performance of the new online bidding platform specially adapted for Gemfields by BidGemmer. We thank the BidGemmer team for their unrelenting work in the run-up to what we believe is the world’s first ever instance of rough emeralds being sold via online auction.”
– Adrian Banks, Gemfields’ Managing Director of Product & Sales
How Digitization Empowers Growth and Reduces Risk
It’s important to look beyond Covid-19, which has merely accentuated the challenges that already existed–a lack of automation of routine sales operations, difficulties maintaining and analyzing customer information, and the high costs associated with building software in-house or using a software consulting firm.
Companies like BidGemmer offer a software as a service (SaaS) model where all technological aspects are done for you so that you can focus on your core business. This allows for faster adoption of digital technologies. Everything is provided through a browser and works on any internet-connected device regardless of its location. Moreover, BidGemmer has been designed specifically to meet the unique needs of the gemstone and diamond industries. This gives BidGemmer a deeply tailored focus that simply doesn’t exist in most other online auction solutions.
There are numerous advantages to using our dependable and proven SaaS platform for gemstone and diamond industries:
- Access from anywhere
- Low infrastructure costs
- Rapid deployment
- Scalability
- Automatic and frequent updates
- Security at the highest level
- Industry-leading SLAs (Service Level Agreements)
Looking to the future
Now, more than ever, it is important the diamond and gemstone trade develop and refine their digital strategies and embrace the era of online sales and marketing. By leveraging the software as a service model, companies can improve sales, reduce risk, increase trust, and above all else, become more adaptable to constant change across the industry.
In the end, the digital transformation of the diamond trade is a journey towards a more sustainable future; one that will persist long after Covid-19 and any other global pandemic that might arise.
BidGemmer is an online auction platform built from the ground up to meet the unique needs of the diamond and gemstone trade. Request your demo today to see how it works.