Mr. Nilesh Chhabria, the Chief Operating Officer (COO), of Finestar Diamonds, shares his insights on the challenges faced by the Diamond Industry in the Digital Age and how Finestar Diamonds is innovating technologically to stay ahead in the market. The Company’s visionary Managing Director Mr. Vinod Jain and Mr. Gaurav Jain are Leading it to the pathe of fast growth.
Major concern of the industry at this juncture is the shrinking margins and the only way to hold on is by reducing operational cost. Therefore bringing in a major part of your business through the company’s website is the way ahead.
Bringing them on the website is one thing but actually using the data of his digital footprint and crawling into the user’s behaviour and further decoding and acting on it is the other.
As these are what will set you apart as you have already started thinking like the client and further deliver him even before he asks for it. But selling diamonds via the website sure does have its set of concerns.
As our industry has to understand that user interactivity & user experience is the most essential part of online business as we may just lose the business by actually doing the harder job by getting them on the website.
The visual experience should be trustworthy and transparent as whatever the customer sees is what he or she should get. Once the trust level has been achieved and they become comfortable with the experience of buying diamonds through the website, they would also prefer doing business the same way as this means that they do not need to travel or call the merchandise on consignment to actually look at the stone which could cost them more.
That is the reason why so many companies offer discounts or come up with promotional campaigns for website purchases
But we believe that reducing prices should not be the alluring point of sales, it should be beyond these discounts. It should be about the experience or information which can be given beyond any diamond grading certificate can give.
Over the years many clients had an issue to buy diamonds online as it never gave the real experience of seeing it with your naked eyes. Major concerns used to be taking a decision of buying the stone with images or videos of the stone which can be deceiving at times as this visual experience is not sufficient enough.
The Asian market is heavily dependent on GIA plotting image, the comments and the key to symbols to buy diamonds, but there is no way a client could define where these symbols are on the stone by just looking at the image.
The difficulty was always about knowing where actually the inclusion is:
- Whether is it black or white?
- What is the degree & nature of the inclusion? Is it minor, medium or major?
- Is there something beyond the inclusion which is not mentioned?
- Are they open cavities?
All these questions made it difficult to take a decision on confirming a stone on the website and only images and videos alone won’t be able to do the job.
There was an absolute need to synergize what the details were given on the diamond grading certificate and the visual experience on the website as this is the biggest dilemma.
I am talking on behalf of my own personal experience and landed up buying stones from multiple websites and receiving something unsatisfactory.
Finestar relentlessly focused on discovering, developing and delivering innovative solutions that connect them to their clients through the advanced use of technology.
Finestar has an inventory of 1 cart + diamonds in the colour range from D – H, Clarity majorly in VVS – VS merchandise creating a niche in fine merchandise category.
We sell 75% of their merchandise through online platforms. To increase this percentage, Finestar had to come up with a digital solution which enhances the online buying experience which is real, innovative, user-friendly & trustworthy.
on the Basis of a number of feedbacks and surveys done by Finestar they came up with a solution and developed Finestar Xray.
Finestar Xray is a unique solution which is the answer to the major concerns any client buying a stone through a website.
As the word suggests, it is an Xray of a diamond and does show the internal framework of a diamond. It is basically the digital image overlapping the GIA plotting image.
By doing this we can actually see where exactly the inclusions are in the image by simply dragging it over each other.
You can also reduce the opacity degree level and get to see the exact positioning. Also, there are buttons given below by pressing on them we could actually know what king of inclusion it is? whether it is a white or black inclusion and the degree whether it is a minor or major which is clearly stated. This solves the dilemma as all stones whether a 1 ct of 5 ct stones image size is the same so differentiating whether it is a major or minor can be clearly solved.
All the key to symbols given in the GIA certificate is put up as buttons in the bottom and by clicking on them it defines the location on the GIA plotting. Along with this if there is any other hidden information, we would be showcasing on the x-ray.
This is the most transparent, innovative & clear technology that is going to be available which will make buying diamonds on website a lay man’s job.
This should and will revolutionize the diamond-selling experience and further convert most of the clients on to our website.
For amateur or newbies, this experience would be probably much better than actually holding the stone in your hand.
We plan to accelerate the rollout of such other technologies and other integrated solutions in the coming future as well.
Below are the links of the 2 stones where one is Round and the other is fancy in shape.
Emerald shape :
https://www.finestardiamonds.com/user/xray.aspx?pid=1196813367
Round Shape :
https://www.finestardiamonds.com/user/xray.aspx?pid=2308479290
Below the inclusion header & the key to symbol please click the below buttons
There are 2 places to drag so please do there as well.
