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In House/Vetted Diamonds

act1980

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Can someone please tell me what this means exactly? Thank you!
 

molinePDG

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In house stones/diamonds/whatever means that the company has immediate physical access to that portion of the inventory.

With diamonds, many vendors -- due to cost of having a varied inventory, etc. -- will list a "virtual inventory" - stones which they have access to ordering in for review, but not those that are immediately on site available.
 

act1980

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In house stones/diamonds/whatever means that the company has immediate physical access to that portion of the inventory.

With diamonds, many vendors -- due to cost of having a varied inventory, etc. -- will list a "virtual inventory" - stones which they have access to ordering in for review, but not those that are immediately on site available.

Thank you, makes sense now.
 

Rockdiamond

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Can someone please tell me what this means exactly? Thank you!
A more complete answer....
The overwhelming majority of websites offering diamonds are drawing the offerings from a list that is shared among thousands of users.
In some cases, the largest sellers may have exclusive access to a portion of the list.
If one of the sellers offering the stone online has access to it ( not always the case) they may be able to call the diamond in and vet it.

The far smaller percentage are sellers that actually own diamonds. Such as branded diamonds- Super Ideal, fancy color, antique, or specialty diamonds.
Such sellers usually have the diamonds in house. I'm sure that the sellers/brands commonly recommended here that have invested in their own diamonds vet them carefully.
 

Garry H (Cut Nut)

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And to add a little more - if a diamond is in-house and the vendor owns it - it is almost certainly a better diamond.
At anyone time there are hundreds more "virtual" diamonds listed on PriceScope (some by more than one vendor) that are sitting in the manufacturers safe in India or a wholesaler somewhere else in the world.
One problem with virtual diamonds is that they build up in inventory if they are not quite right. The owner drops the price by 1% a week. After 3 months they become especially attractive to newbie consumers. They rarely have any accompanying detail or images to allow you to see what is wrong with them.
I have spent a lot of the past 20 years trying to eliminate them. They get good diamonds a bad name!
 

Rockdiamond

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One problem with virtual diamonds is that they build up in inventory if they are not quite right.

Great point Mate!!
It's especially apparent in the case of SI clarities....
If we put 10 SI2's on the table- from an original assortment- probably 5 would be eye-clean.
now, if it was me, I'd be buying a few of those eye clean ones......the next buyer will be looking at only 3 eye clean ones.
Over time, the pool of SI diamonds on the virtual lists have less and less eye clean ones.
 

Texas Leaguer

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In addition to the benefits already mentioned, a vendor that has the inventory in-house can guarantee delivery, can provide different types of additional imaging and evaluation, and if they have a showroom that you can visit, you can view and compare the diamonds in person.
 

Garry H (Cut Nut)

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In addition to the benefits already mentioned, a vendor that has the inventory in-house can guarantee delivery, can provide different types of additional imaging and evaluation, and if they have a showroom that you can visit, you can view and compare the diamonds in person.

Yes. The same virtual diamond can be under offer and waste the consumers time. Or as often happens the listing was not updated by the B2B or B2C sites and it was sold a week or 2 ago.

This is why PricScope rejects companies who want to be on here when they do not have deep in-house inventory.
 

Rockdiamond

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Time and time again, I see a consumer agonizing over a group of stones listed on one of the super low priced "virtual" sites- and I can easily see that some or all of the stones they're considering are on the "Rap" list- and in some cases, I know for sure, unavailable.
I feel bad for the consumers in these cases
 

Garry H (Cut Nut)

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Time and time again, I see a consumer agonizing over a group of stones listed on one of the super low priced "virtual" sites- and I can easily see that some or all of the stones they're considering are on the "Rap" list- and in some cases, I know for sure, unavailable.
I feel bad for the consumers in these cases

Can you communicate this to Andrey and me offline please David.
 

Garry H (Cut Nut)

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Can you communicate this to Andrey and me offline please David.

OK, David has alerted me to a genuine case.
A online vendor is listing a diamond at what appears to be a bait and switch price.
However the diamond is still listed on the B2B platform RapNet(r) and he has the stone.

The good thing, relevant to this topic is that the stone is not listed on Pricescope. Our CEO, Andrey, has for example recently bought a vendor into check for not updating their list - it means when a sold diamond is there and it was sold ages ago - that is not fair.

So this retailer may or may not be cheating, but the point is that we encourage you to support our vendors because we truly believe they are a great range from high end super dooper cuts and white glove service - through to some well experienced, low margin, drop shippers, who manage excellent relationships with their vendors and ask the right questions to support their consumers.
 

Rockdiamond

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Thank you Garry!

I did want to clarify that what I was referring to specifically- was when people honestly assisting others shopping find such a stone on a site that is offering stones that they can not supply, and usually at prices well below legitimate prices.

The issue is NOT with PS sponsors or stones listed on PS database.
Rather the issue is with stones found on sites that people find doing general searches. I'm not faulting PS members finding stones outside the PS database. The diversity of stones people find is an amazing component of the value that PS offers.

In the specific case that Garry and I discussed, the stone happened to not have been on Rapnet ( I just checked)- and that's actually important. It's also still for sale a site I easily found. Other places that still have it listed do show it as unavailable.

The point is that we can find cases of sites offering stones days and weeks after the actual owner who is listing the diamond on the wholesale B2B platform has withdrawn it from the list.

The PS sponsors are among the reputable sites that are able to offer stones from the database, yet maintain a current inventory.
Even then, with the best technology, personnel, and intention, sometimes stones get sold that somehow were already sold- but it's an honest mistake because the best sellers are meticulous in keeping current.
 

Texas Leaguer

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I need to preface this by saying I have been involved, in one way or another, in operating virtual diamond inventories for the past 20 years. In the early days I was operations manager for the diamond division of a company that was among the first developers of the virtual diamond model (Asfhford.com).

Though today several companies have helped to make this model much more reliable, any time you do not physically control the merchandise, there are inherent shortcomings and potential problems. Not the least of which is deliverability. And, unfortunately, every time there is an unavailable situation, from the customer’s point of view it feels like a bait and switch.

The supply chain has many potential glitches. To run optimally it requires all participants to be meticulous in keeping their information up to date. But with dozens, even hundreds of suppliers in the chain, many of whom are mom and pop operations, expecting such fidelity is not realistic. While the best sellers do manage their data faithfully, it’s the old GIGO truth - their output to the market is only as good as their inputs from their network of suppliers.

Exacerbating the pain for customers of any failures is the fact that the product is expensive, of extremely high emotional importance, is often time dependent, and is paid for upfront. Adding to the problem is that many sellers make efforts to represent the inventory as in-stock, or at least are not very transparent about the fact the product is not on hand and may in fact be on a different continent. Thus, customer expectations are often not in line with the true nature of the transaction. It is not surprising then that companies selling primarily virtual inventories often acquire some scathing reviews over time.

On the flip side, the level of vetting, the extra services available, and guaranteed delivery, add significant value to shopping in-house diamonds. This value is often not fully appreciated or factored into comparisons between different offerings.
 
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