Diamonds & Google Glass – No We Ain’t Talking About A Diamond Studded Glass

Use of Technology in Diamond Retail is not something new, but most of it was limited to innovative online diamond jewellery retailers. Ironically, online is not the only world where the diamond jewellery buying is being revolutionized with the help of technology. Apparently as reported by the JewelleryMagazine, a New York based company called DSC (Diamond Concierge Service) has integrated Google Glasses into the scheme of things for choosing the perfect diamond for their customers. This, in our view is truly revolutionary and opens up a gamut of possibilities to be exploited in this field.

Ron Khordi, founder of DSC, presented the technology during the recently concluded jewellery show JCK Las Vegas. What Kordi explains is that customers are looking for their perfect solitaire diamond while watching TV or playing with their kids in their homes. In the current scenario, these customers are left with the only option of shopping online on numerous reputed online jewelers like Blue Nile, James Allen, etc. Thus the potential business for offline retailers is getting lost to online players and through the use of smart technologies like the one demonstrated by Khordi, this lost business can be regained. Khordi demonstrated how a 10x or 20x magnification jewellery loupe can be attached to the frame of a Google Glass worn by the diamond salesperson and how the video recorded through the salesperson’s Google Glass can be live streamed to the customer’s mobile phone. This is sensational in terms of innovation factor. However, later in the text, we will tell you why we feel this may fail to revolutionize the jewellery “retail”. In essence what is being done is that the diamond as seen through the salesperson’s expert eyes can at the same time be inspected by the interested customer, enabling the customer to decide if they would want to buy this piece or not. This video below explains and demonstrates the use of Google Glass in buying diamonds –

 Why This May Not Revolutionize Retail:

The success of this experiment lies on the hypothesis that the customer knows what they want. In reality, choosing the right diamond can be a big technical question which the customer may have no answer to. Understanding and inspecting imperfections of a diamond require expert knowledge, just viewing the diamond in 10x or 20x magnification is not sufficient. If you watch the video closely, the salesperson diligently explained the positive and negative traits of the solitaire diamond under inspection.  Thus what we at KuberBox believe is that this technology can play a great part in assisting the final sale, but they solely cannot be the reason for the sale. Imagine a customer who is raising questions on the quality of the diamond, its lustre or brilliance. How great would it be for retailers to be able to invite them to inspect the piece through a live video on their mobile phone, explain the piece of diamond in and out and thereby win the customer’s trust for engaging with 100% transparency. It can play a big role in closing the deal, be it for offline or online players. With the prices of solitaires being in the range of thousands of dollars, investment in such technology might be well worth for the jewellery retailers. One should, however, note that such an arrangement would be feasible only for solitaire diamonds and not the smaller diamond which is generally used in diamond jewellery in India. For example, it would be a bad idea to inspect the diamond of “Royal Swan Stud Earrings” because these diamonds are so small that the customer may not be able to appreciate any of the positives of these diamonds on a video.

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Whereas, for “Vow Men’s Ring”, it would be fit to demonstrate the diamond through a video since the diamond size is big enough to be appreciated by the customer.

Why It May Revolutionize Wholesale Business & Eliminate Brokers:

Although the chances of it making into mainstream retail are thin, this technological implementation has a big chance in jewellery trade. The wholesale and manufacturing business may receive a huge boost by using this and in turn achieve the target turnover rate for their inventory. Diamond & gemstone traders are most of the times scouting for great diamonds and stones to include in their inventory. This is currently being enabled by brokers, who carry the inventory of the seller (businessman/company) to the buyer (businessman/company), letting the buyer physically inspect the stones before making an offer to purchase. This stretches the intent-to-purchase period while bloating the prices by approximately 2% (brokerage). The technology demonstrated by Khordi has the potential to disrupt this arrangement and enable the buyer to quickly inspect the stones and make an offer on his/her mobile app.

We applaud DCS & Mr. Khordi for their efforts to innovate in the diamond industry through the use of Google Glass and for trying to marriage technology with retail.