Here in North America, the wholesale diamond trade has been primarily based in Los Angeles and New York City, in their respective jewelry districts. There used to be a long line of traders that would exchange any provided diamond previous to it would finally meet the consumer at a local jewelry save. Nevertheless, times have changed, and also the industry is completely distinct these days. What’s changed? Well ever since the world wide web was introduced into this trade, diamond trading would never be the same again.

Ahead of the net came about, a diamond wholesaler would import both polished diamonds, and rough diamonds from other countries for instance Israel or South Africa. These wholesale diamonds would then arrive within the hands with the larger wholesalers based out of Los Angeles or New York, who would then sell to smaller local wholesalers. So if a keep was dependent in Chicago or Detroit or just about any city in America, there was a wholesaler you could rely on to have diamonds in stock. The retailers relied on these smaller wholesalers to give them diamonds on “memo”, or rather on consignment, so as soon as the diamond was sold the wholesaler would get paid. A business enterprise partnership was built between the retailer as well as the regional wholesaler and everyone was happy to become producing a profit. There was no require to get diamonds from a bigger diamond wholesaler mainly because the retailer required to possess that diamond in their showcase on consignment without having putting forth any funds, where as the largest wholesalers and diamond importers had much stricter policies on payment.

And so began the chain of sellers that any specific diamond would turn out to be property to. From the time a diamond is discovered in the ground, to when it’s purchased by a young lad looking to propose, it has changed hands at least eight times. These middlemen included the cutter, polisher, the lab the diamond is sent to grading for, several wholesalers and other traders, before it lastly gets to the jewelry keep and for the end purchaser.

What made diamonds trade hands even far more was the practice of some diamond dealers to keep on sending exactly the same diamond in for grading at multiple labs to acquire even a much better grade.  You see diamond grading is just an opinion with the grader working that day at any provided lab, and some labs are more strict then others. In case you were a big wholesaler that a lab was dependent on for enterprise, it was not uncommon for that lab to grade their diamonds easier for fear of losing their organization. This is why all jewelers inside trade know that EGL and IGI certified diamonds usually are not for being trusted 100% but must be visually inspected. GIA certificates on the other hand are like gold and are treated as such since that lab was the leader as well as the undisputed authority on diamond grading and still would be to this day.

Now enter the world-wide-web age, and also the diamond trade is forced to rapidly evolve. Now, consumers armed with an web connection need to have only to search on the web, sort by price, and suddenly they had thousands of diamonds to pick from. They became far more educated about the con game of non-GIA graded diamonds, and demanded every diamond to be GIA certified. And if they didn’t want to shop online, all they had to do was bring a full print out with the results they discovered on the net and use that to haggle with their neighborhood jewelry store.

What happened was that basically a lot of jewelry shops just could not compete. Even prior to the recession of 2007 took hold, jewelry stores around 2003 started off to feel the pain of online sellers and have seen their market share slip every single year considering that then. Hundreds and thousands of middle men involved inside diamond trade also got squeezed out. Retailers began to carry much less diamonds on memo at higher price tag points in their store, and started paying cash for less diamonds but from bigger wholesalers with a lower cost so they could compete with the online sellers. Those diamond dealers in the jewelry districts of New York and Los Angeles now buy directly from the cutters themselves. So exactly where is the diamond marketplace now going to you might ask? That’s tough to say, but one thing is certain, and which is that the buyer can no longer be fooled into purchasing diamonds that are not accurately graded, and they’re demanding greater costs. That is certainly why Los Angeles wholesale diamonds seller, Luxe Wholesale Diamonds has often been an advocate for the buyer, and brokers only the incredibly very best diamonds for our clients.