According to the company, a range of polished stones manufactured directly from De Beers’ rough stock would be offered.
A De Beers spokesperson told Jeweller the diamonds available for sale would “reflect the material produced from manufacturing a broad range of De Beers rough diamond products”.
“While the volumes will be limited, the range of goods available for sale will cover a wide spectrum of sizes, colours, clarities and cuts,” the spokesperson said.
All diamonds would carry grading reports from De Beers’ International Institute of Diamond Grading and Research (IIDGR) and the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).
De Beers Auction Sales executive vice president Neil Ventura said the pilot program would help assess the consumer demand for buying polished diamonds through its online auction channel.
“We have a limited amount of a wide range of polished diamonds, so it makes commercial sense for us to trial this auction on our existing platform,” Ventura said.
“We are interested in testing the level of demand from polished buyers for diamonds that have a clear and attractive source of origin, and that offer the assurance of product integrity that dual certification provides.”
He added the program would give the company more information about polished prices, while assisting buyers to “fill supply and inventory gaps” if they were unable to source goods from the company’s rough auctions.
Testing new opportunities
The De Beers spokesperson also stated that no time limit on the pilot had been set as the company wanted to review the “strength of demand”.
“Whether we take it [the pilot program] forward will be guided by our customers’ response to it. If it’s successful then we will have established a new initiative that’s of benefit to us as a business as well as to the wider industry,” the spokesperson said.
As previously reported by Jeweller, De Beers launched another pilot program in November last year that allowed third party companies to sell polished diamonds through its online auction business.
The pilot program was an extension of its scheme that launched in June 2016, which enabled diamond miners, manufacturers and dealers to use De Beers’ online auction platform to find buyers for certain types of rough stones.
Registered De Beers auction buyers will be eligible to bid in the first polished diamond sale, scheduled to take place on 29 June.
The company traditionally sells about 90 per cent by value of its rough diamonds through its Global Sightholder Sales business, while the remaining 10 per cent is offered to registered buyers via the online auction platform.
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