Web Review: www.Diamond.com

By Gil Galanti

As the new millennium kicked off so did one of today’s strongest e-commerce players in the fine jewelry, watches and diamond segment. It was in 2000 that Odimo, a privately held company based in Florida, whose principal shareholder and business partner is The Steinmetz Diamond Group, launched Diamond.com.

 

Providing professional functionality, graphic design and online assistance for its customers, The Diamond.com strategy, as described on its “about” page, offers “extraordinary value” on certified diamonds, along with a selection of fine jewelry and brand name watches”. Sounds a bit corny? Not necessarily.

Unlike many retailers who buy their diamonds from a variety of sources, Diamond.com buys virtually all its inventory directly from The Steinmetz Diamond Group, one of the world’s largest international diamond manufacturers.

The Steinmetz Group use Diamond.com as their direct channel to consumers, providing online shoppers with a continual access to what they claim to be “the single largest inventory of certified diamonds in the world” and more flexible pricing.

“In terms of online retail, prices of goods on Diamond.com are pretty much typical for platforms on which diamond manufacturers sell directly to consumers” says Tamar Katzav, Chief Operations Officer at IDEX Online and editor of the IDEX Weekly Market Report. “This represents a discount of a few percent when comparing to other websites which buy their diamonds from a variety of wholesalers, distributors and brokers, such as BlueNile.com.”

Ranked by Alexa amongst the 18,000 most visited websites on the Internet, Diamond.com holds one of the best domain names any diamond merchant could wish for. However, in a price sensitive environment like the Internet, my opinion is that its strategic association with a leading diamond manufacturer can be considered as an overwhelming advantage over the majority of similar sites. This is vertical integration, big time, happening now. Are you in?

IDEX Website Review is an objective evaluation, expressing clear and balanced opinions on retail diamond and jewelry websites. All articles published in this review are solely under IDEX’s editorial control and are not commercially influenced.

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