not sure how to phrase..suppliers to Pricescope vendors

[ElleElle]

Hi! Hard question to ask but wondering... when I do a search for a rb stone through the Pricescope diamond search engine, is it possible that the vendors are sharing the same suppliers? I noticed that some of the stones look exactly the same but are available from two different vendors. If so, does anybody know who GOG shares suppliers with?
Thanks!

 

[thecat]

GOG in-house stones belong to them. So they aren't sharing suppliers with anyone if you're referring to their in-house inventory.

 

[denverappraiser]

Everybody shares vendors with everybody.
What you are seeing gets called the virtual inventory. Some dealer owns a stone that they want to sell. They list it in a database for sale. There are 3 or 4 such databases and the big ones have thousands of suppliers listing tens of thousands of stones. The dealer isn’t buying the stone until you do, they’re just repackaging and relisting the data.

Why, I hear you cry, can’t you just buy directly from the seller? Who needs the dealer?

Because they don’t WANT to sell directly to you. Consumers are, frankly, an pain in the tushie. They ask a lot of questions. They want lots of unusual data. They make returns for frivolous reasons. It’s overall very time consuming to deal with them. When GOG calls up their suppliers, the whole transaction takes about 30 seconds. They’re hiding behind a database because GOG, and others, are providing a valuable service to them. The dealer network is valuable to both sides.

This is the way it works at brick and mortar stores too. Inventory is the curse of jewelers and, if they don’t have what you’re looking for, they look it up in the database and order it in on ‘memo’. This is a consignment arrangement where they bring in a stone to show you. If you buy, they take their cut and pay off the vendor, if you don’t buy the stone goes back to the seller who tries again somewhere else. The same stone can get shown in nearly every store in the country.

Alternatively, the store can simply buy or manufacture their own inventory. Once they own it, it's exclusively theirs. You'll normally see this on the 'branded' type goods like the various signature lines. A typical store will have a combination of these two. There's some in the safe and there's a whole bunch more that can be ordered in.

 

[ElleElle]

Everybody shares vendors with everybody.
What you are seeing gets called the virtual inventory. Some dealer owns a stone that they want to sell. They list it in a database for sale. There are 3 or 4 such databases and the big ones have thousands of suppliers listing tens of thousands of stones. The dealer isn’t buying the stone until you do, they’re just repackaging and relisting the data.

Why, I hear you cry, can’t you just buy directly from the seller? Who needs the dealer?

Because they don’t WANT to sell directly to you. Consumers are, frankly, an pain in the tushie. They ask a lot of questions. They want lots of unusual data. They make returns for frivolous reasons. It’s overall very time consuming to deal with them. When GOG calls up their suppliers, the whole transaction takes about 30 seconds. They’re hiding behind a database because GOG, and others, are providing a valuable service to them. The dealer network is valuable to both sides.

This is the way it works at brick and mortar stores too. Inventory is the curse of jewelers and, if they don’t have what you’re looking for, they look it up in the database and order it in on ‘memo’. This is a consignment arrangement where they bring in a stone to show you. If you buy, they take their cut and pay off the vendor, if you don’t buy the stone goes back to the seller who tries again somewhere else. The same stone can get shown in nearly every store in the country.

Alternatively, the store can simply buy or manufacture their own inventory. Once they own it, it's exclusively theirs. You'll normally see this on the 'branded' type goods like the various signature lines. A typical store will have a combination of these two. There's some in the safe and there's a whole bunch more that can be ordered in.

Fabulous answer, Denverappraiser!!! Thank you so much for clarifying! Very interesting too!

 

[Diamond_Hawk]

Hi! Hard question to ask but wondering... when I do a search for a rb stone through the Pricescope diamond search engine, is it possible that the vendors are sharing the same suppliers?

ElleElle - In addition to Neil's terrific answer, let me add that often times the same diamond listed by different vendors will have a significant difference in price-point. Which may lead you to ask, why is this? It often has to do with customer service options (return-policy, warranty, shipping costs, etc...), if the company is a literal drop-shipper (which means the company never actually inspects the diamond before it is shipped to the purchaser), if the company does not drop-ship, but has an inspection of the diamond before the customer receives it or other general factors of company overhead: each company has a different algorithm to determine pricing based on a number of factors. For the consumer, it is never a bad thing to do research to see how many vendors are carrying the same diamond and what reasons (if any) make up a price difference.

 

[Rockdiamond]

Neal's answer does hold true for many, or even most of the people selling diamonds on the Internet- or even local stores nowadays. But clearly not all. if you take the larger brick-and-mortar operations that are still very successful – such as Tiffany's, they own their inventory and it is not available to anyone else. Cutters selling to Tiffany won't offer the stones they sell to Tiffany to other buyers.
Although it's far more difficult to do these days there are still smaller sellers that own inventory. When we buy a diamond from our sources it gets removed from the lists- if it was ever there.
Theres still cutters that won't list their goods on mass Db sites.

 

[ElleElle]

Hi! Hard question to ask but wondering... when I do a search for a rb stone through the Pricescope diamond search engine, is it possible that the vendors are sharing the same suppliers?

ElleElle - In addition to Neil's terrific answer, let me add that often times the same diamond listed by different vendors will have a significant difference in price-point. Which may lead you to ask, why is this? It often has to do with customer service options (return-policy, warranty, shipping costs, etc...), if the company is a literal drop-shipper (which means the company never actually inspects the diamond before it is shipped to the purchaser), if the company does not drop-ship, but has an inspection of the diamond before the customer receives it or other general factors of company overhead: each company has a different algorithm to determine pricing based on a number of factors. For the consumer, it is never a bad thing to do research to see how many vendors are carrying the same diamond and what reasons (if any) make up a price difference.

Interesting point, Diamond_Hawk. Thanks for bringing that to my attention!

 

[ElleElle]

Neal's answer does hold true for many, or even most of the people selling diamonds on the Internet- or even local stores nowadays. But clearly not all. if you take the larger brick-and-mortar operations that are still very successful – such as Tiffany's, they own their inventory and it is not available to anyone else. Cutters selling to Tiffany won't offer the stones they sell to Tiffany to other buyers.
Although it's far more difficult to do these days there are still smaller sellers that own inventory. When we buy a diamond from our sources it gets removed from the lists- if it was ever there.
Theres still cutters that won't list their goods on mass Db sites.

Got it. Thanks for the reply. So much that goes on behind the scenes that average consumers, like me, would have no clue about if it wasn't for this fabulous forum!