As an industry protagonist who supports the overall trade, enhances consumer education and upholds consumer trust in gems and jewellery, the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has been working over the years on the research of diamond grading and identification. In a bid to help the industry tell diamond stories better and raise consumer confidence, the institute launched a new digital programme M2MTM (Mine-to-Market) that could change the way diamonds are sold and traced.
Traceability
According to GIA, M2MTM tracks diamond origins with high-level process flow linking polished diamonds with the original rough by assessing the stones at various stages of production. Although it is not yet able to provide a complete solution to determining a diamond’s provenance, it works by miners or manufacturers providing GIA with diamond rough in sealed bags for evaluation before it flows to the market. Each rough stone goes through a data collecting process where its images, measurement and inscription are collected, together with a serial number issued by GIA. Then GIA returns the rough to the miners or manufacturers. Once the rough is cut, the manufacturers need to resubmit the polished stones to the lab for matching and grading.
“Through testing, information gathering and matching processes, we can confirm a linkage between the two. In that way, we are able to say this diamond is matched to this rough from which mine,” said Matt Crimmin, GIA’s vice president of regional lab operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The testing and grading processes are backed by commercially available devices and GIA’s internally-developed technologies in three areas, namely crystallography, morphology and spectroscopy, he stated.
Crimmin revealed that GIA only works with highly-reputable publicly-traded companies that provide correct diamond provenance information, so as to prevent contamination or missing of the rough. Although they do not audit mining company participants for now, they will extend the programme into other supply chains and may develop the auditing capabilities in future.
Storytelling platform
The diamond industry has an over-reliance on grading reports for so long while missing the emotional connection of diamonds with consumers. Crimmin told Hong Kong Jewellery that nowadays, consumer landscape and spending behaviours have changed. They expect individuality and better buying experience; they are much more-educated and conduct a lot more pre-purchase research on big-ticket items, which in all pose new challenges to retailers. “Getting back to telling stories about diamonds, explaining diamond heritage, engaging consumers in a digital level are the ways to assure the future of the industry,” he emphasised.
M2MTM programme incorporates a consumer-oriented mobile app that gives users a new way to learn the grading reports, history and stories of the diamonds from mine, the cutting process to the market, and most importantly, the retailers’ stories and services. It also has customised features that allow users to upload their own texts, videos and pictures relating to the diamonds or diamond jewellery, showing emotional moments or relationships the stones represent.
In addition, a web-portal for retailer and manufacturer participants allows them to manage inventory, unlock stone data, upload company information, etc. To deal with a large volume of diamonds, GIA also offers RFID smart-card grading reports to make accessing diamond information easier. Programme participants can also package brand information and sharable stories of stones in a hard-bound book for buyers.
Crimmin thinks that the programme provides retailers with a storytelling platform to make a digital connection with consumers which is a missing channel at present. Also, as a non-profit organisation, GIA guarantees the third-party credibility that consumers are seeking for throughout the programme.
A marketing platform, M2MTM can also be regarded as a CRM (client relationship management) platform, an inventory management platform, a content analytics engine, or a test environment. But essentially it is a way to connect consumers for the trade, Crimmin noted.
Future development
Officially launched in JCK Las Vegas in June 2017 after a soft launch with 40 retailers in the United States, M2MTM has gained positive feedback in general from the States, mainland China and Hong Kong. According to Matt Crimmin, some retailers are trying to figure out how would it work with their existing programmes and some are on the fence waiting to see how the market option would be. “This is different from any products GIA has brought to them”.
Crimmin reveals that they plan to adopt as many retailers as possible and then start getting the feedback from users. “We are constantly thinking about ways to add in more functions, integrate with social media and develop more tools for retailers…It’s a constant development cycle,” he projects.
One function he foresees is on the data usage aspect. M2MTM stores personal data of consumer usage of the app in cloud servers that cannot pass among users even if the diamond is transferred. In future, GIA will share the data with the retailers to help them understand their consumers better, and engage more effectively with them.
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