Drop Shipper Question

[Radiantdita]

Found any interesting stone through a local contact. Being an informed consumer, got the GIA cert and ran a search on PriceScope. Found the same stone listed in the virtual inventory of B2C at a much lower price than offered to me. My contact, who has the stone out on memo, went back to the wholesaler, and was told B2C was never given permission to list the stone for sale.

I’ve checked out B2C and they generally have decent reviews, but I did find some gripes about advertised stones not being available.

Your thoughts? Is B2C doing bait and switch advertising or is the wholesaler trying to make more money?

 

[Diamond_Hawk]

Found any interesting stone through a local contact. Being an informed consumer, got the GIA cert and ran a search on PriceScope. Found the same stone listed in the virtual inventory of B2C at a much lower price than offered to me. My contact, who has the stone out on memo, went back to the wholesaler, and was told B2C was never given permission to list the stone for sale.

I’ve checked out B2C and they generally have decent reviews, but I did find some gripes about advertised stones not being available.

Your thoughts? Is B2C doing bait and switch advertising or is the wholesaler trying to make more money?

Hello Radiantdita,

Thank you for posting about this!

I am in touch with the listing and wholesaler relations department at B2C and will see if I can figure out what is happening here. B2C lists over 100,000 virtual diamonds from vendors all over the world, but I can assure you unless a wholesaler has an agreement with us that our servers can talk to their servers it is simply not possible to list their diamonds on our site.

The other issue presented is a concern that some people may call to inquire about or order a diamond and then find out B2C cannot immediately secure that diamond for the customer. There is a very easy explanation for this from B2C (or any retailer with a virtual inventory).

Let’s say a diamond is listed on the B2C website and a customer wants to find out more. So, they call the 800 number and are given some statistics, they get comments from a gemologist report saying it is eye-clean (yay!) or perhaps has an unexpected slight brown tint (boo!) ... but in any event, they decide, “yes! This is the diamond I want. I shall place an order.”

Once the order is placed B2C then contacts the wholesaler with the customer’s order. The wholesaler writes back and says “well, that particular diamond has been sent out for potential sale to another vendor, we won’t know for 72 hours if it is available.”

To compound that issue, some wholesalers are overseas and may be closed for 12 or more hours from the time of the order, making it a full day before B2C can get word back to the customer on the diamond’s status.

Imagine, if you will, that person X has called to place an order from an online retailer on the diamond currently in your contact’s possession. The vendor would have to call person X and say “that diamond is not currently available as it is out on memo. But, in the mean time we can recommend two or three other similar diamonds from our inventory.”

While it is unfortunate for the customer the specific diamond was not available, it is not in any way a bait and switch-type scam.

If you have the specific GIA report number you can post, we can communicate with the wholesaler and report status back here, or you can call our customer service line and speak to any of our staff (please reference this PS post) and they can research it for you or will pass it on to a supervisor who can.

I hope that helps clear up any confusion. Best wishes.