Now, this is something a lot of people may not know. And this is something may make some jewellers hate me. But here we go...
I think Investopedia can give a good definition on what is Multiple Listing Service:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/multiple-listing-service-mls.asp. In short, MLS is a listing service that consolidates data from multiple resources in one place.
As far as diamond business is concerned, this means that the MLS will contain resources from multiple diamond suppliers and these resources are then listed on the e-commerce site of an approved vendor. Now, here comes the fun part - The vendor gets to decide what sort of mark-up value they wish to impose on each item in the MLS.
For instance, the actual price of Item X listed by a particular supplier within the MLS is USD 900. There are 2 different e-commerce vendors that are tied to this particular supplier. Let's call them Vendor A and Vendor B. So, Vendor A decides to mark-up the price of Item X to USD 1300, while Vendor B decides to mark-up the price of Item X to USD 1500. So, in this case, you sure hope you can manage to buy from Vendor A if you want to buy Item X because you want to avoid paying USD 200 extra to Vendor B for the exact same thing, right? Heck, you might even want to get Item X for just USD 900, but sorry, that price is just for business partners only, who probably can sell diamonds at a very high volume, so it is not for normal customers. Unfortunately, in order to do this, you will have to really go through each of the e-commerce sites and check out the price individually. There are no price comparison engine built so far for diamond price comparison, unlike our local e-commerce marketplaces, whereby we can easily compare different prices using price comparison engine like http://www.jimatify.com/. I really like it by the way. So kudos to them for doing a good job! Now, if you think about it, it is just the same thing like buying Panadol tablets from either pharmacies like Caring, Watsons, or Guardian, whereby each of them can have different prices.
Anyway, the difference is that Caring, Watsons, or Guardian need to pile up the stocks in order to sell, but using MLS will only need an e-commerce site for customers to order and then the site vendor will proceed to order the item from the related supplier and ship the final item to you in the vendor's own exclusive packaging.
But do take note that not all vendors will share the exact same list of suppliers. For example, Supplier A works with Vendor A & Vendor B, while Supplier B works with Vendor B only. So in the MLS for Vendor A, there will not be any listing from Supplier B, while in the MLS for Vendor B, there are listings from both Supplier A & B.
Now, I have managed to discovered that Zoara so far offers a far more competitive price compared to one of the local jewelers and also one of the US vendors. For example, there is a RM 4000 - RM 5000 difference between the local jeweler and Zoara when we are talking about the exact same piece of 1 carat diamond, so that's actually a substantial savings even for a person who can afford a 1 carat I believe. So, usually, in such situation, there are two options you can do:
Option 1 - Buy from Zoara right away.
Option 2 - Use the "Price Match" policy that is offered by the vendor you originally wish to buy from (if they have one) if you discovered that the diamond you intended to buy is the exact same piece listed at a cheaper price in another vendor's site.
Now that being said, if you ever come across a particular GIA diamond that you wish to buy and want to do price comparison, feel free to let me know and I will search from Zoara. I am reachable via email at myengringexp at gmail dot com.
I think Investopedia can give a good definition on what is Multiple Listing Service:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/multiple-listing-service-mls.asp. In short, MLS is a listing service that consolidates data from multiple resources in one place.
As far as diamond business is concerned, this means that the MLS will contain resources from multiple diamond suppliers and these resources are then listed on the e-commerce site of an approved vendor. Now, here comes the fun part - The vendor gets to decide what sort of mark-up value they wish to impose on each item in the MLS.
For instance, the actual price of Item X listed by a particular supplier within the MLS is USD 900. There are 2 different e-commerce vendors that are tied to this particular supplier. Let's call them Vendor A and Vendor B. So, Vendor A decides to mark-up the price of Item X to USD 1300, while Vendor B decides to mark-up the price of Item X to USD 1500. So, in this case, you sure hope you can manage to buy from Vendor A if you want to buy Item X because you want to avoid paying USD 200 extra to Vendor B for the exact same thing, right? Heck, you might even want to get Item X for just USD 900, but sorry, that price is just for business partners only, who probably can sell diamonds at a very high volume, so it is not for normal customers. Unfortunately, in order to do this, you will have to really go through each of the e-commerce sites and check out the price individually. There are no price comparison engine built so far for diamond price comparison, unlike our local e-commerce marketplaces, whereby we can easily compare different prices using price comparison engine like http://www.jimatify.com/. I really like it by the way. So kudos to them for doing a good job! Now, if you think about it, it is just the same thing like buying Panadol tablets from either pharmacies like Caring, Watsons, or Guardian, whereby each of them can have different prices.
Anyway, the difference is that Caring, Watsons, or Guardian need to pile up the stocks in order to sell, but using MLS will only need an e-commerce site for customers to order and then the site vendor will proceed to order the item from the related supplier and ship the final item to you in the vendor's own exclusive packaging.
But do take note that not all vendors will share the exact same list of suppliers. For example, Supplier A works with Vendor A & Vendor B, while Supplier B works with Vendor B only. So in the MLS for Vendor A, there will not be any listing from Supplier B, while in the MLS for Vendor B, there are listings from both Supplier A & B.
Now, I have managed to discovered that Zoara so far offers a far more competitive price compared to one of the local jewelers and also one of the US vendors. For example, there is a RM 4000 - RM 5000 difference between the local jeweler and Zoara when we are talking about the exact same piece of 1 carat diamond, so that's actually a substantial savings even for a person who can afford a 1 carat I believe. So, usually, in such situation, there are two options you can do:
Option 1 - Buy from Zoara right away.
Option 2 - Use the "Price Match" policy that is offered by the vendor you originally wish to buy from (if they have one) if you discovered that the diamond you intended to buy is the exact same piece listed at a cheaper price in another vendor's site.
Now that being said, if you ever come across a particular GIA diamond that you wish to buy and want to do price comparison, feel free to let me know and I will search from Zoara. I am reachable via email at myengringexp at gmail dot com.
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November 16, 2017
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