These days, every time we look around we see another diamond marketplace jumping into the space. At first, we were distressed – after all, that’s competition for VDB, and how many diamond marketplaces does the industry really need?

And then we gave it some thought, and we realized that we really weren’t seeing new competitors. Sure, there are more diamond marketplaces springing up, but Virtual Diamond Boutique has some things going for us that make us way more than a marketplace. In fact, the marketplace is just our foundation. It is a foundation that offers search and sourcing – so in that regard we are somewhat comparable to other marketplaces (but not really – we’ll explain more in a minute!) What’s really different though is that we use our foundation to offer business solutions and selling tools that you can’t get anywhere else!

How Our Marketplace is Different

Let’s start here. Our marketplace has four channels: diamonds, lab-grown diamonds, color gemstones, and finished jewelry. Combined we have over 1,000,000 products! That’s a lot of items. So we have more.

But how we display our items is also hugely different from those other marketplaces. From the beginning we wanted to be more than just another spreadsheet. We created the first (and still only) visual marketplace with visual search. Sure, you can see all the same details (more, actually) that you can find on some other marketplace’s spreadsheets. But each set of details is displayed along gorgeous photography and 3-D imagery. You don’t have to wait for the memo to arrive to see what you’re getting – you can see it all right there, on your computer or mobile device – in beautiful living color.

Our Technology Bias

Most marketplaces you’ll encounter were created by diamond folks who want to sell more diamonds. Hey – no criticism here! We want to sell more diamonds too (for our supplier partners). VDB is made up of diamond folks with a history in wholesale and retail diamond dealing. But when we started this company, we realized we had to be a technology company, not just a diamond seller using technology. We have an incredible technology team working across three continents, developing the technology that makes the VDB experience so easy, so intuitive, so fun, and so effective.

It’s this technology bias that makes it possible for us to extend our technology to our customers and partners in the form of white label and custom applications. Everything you love about VDB can also be yours – in your own brand, featuring your own products, for a fraction of the cost it would take for you to create the same toolset yourself.

So we’re jewelry folks. And we’re a technology company. Like peanut butter and chocolate, we’re the perfect combination!

Our Customer Bias

You have undoubtedly encountered this situation:  If you have “Point of Sale System A,” you can use “Marketplace X.” Or “if you have website system B,” you can use “Marketplace Y.”

That’s nonsense! You shouldn’t have to change the way you operate to accommodate a marketplace, nor should you have to settle for a marketplace just because it’s the only one available to you! We think you should be in charge of your platform and technology decisions – not your vendors!

That’s another reason we knew we had to be a technology company . . . because we knew we had to make it easy for you to run your business, using whichever point of sale or website system you choose.

VDB integrates easily with any type of website. Some of our integrations are practically plug-and-play, like our Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento integrations. But if you have a different type of website, that’s OK, because with just a touch of development effort using our open API, we can integrate to practically any website out there!

It’s your business. You choose the tools you use for reasons that matter to you, and VDB is here to help you connect to whatever website platform you decided upon.

Value Add

The term value add is one of our favorites at VDB. As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, there are new marketplaces springing out of the woodwork these days. But do they also come with selling tools you can use in the store, on Zoom calls, or online? Do they help you create matches, search for suites, build collections, and share those collections? Do they function as productivity tools, keeping all your vendor communications in one organized place? Do they make your sourcing job faster and easier?

Not only are we constantly improving our underlying technology for all the reasons described above, we are also constantly on the hunt for more value add . . . for you. We know how hard it is to run a jewelry retail store (we did that) or to be a diamond dealer (did that too!), and we know that you don’t have enough time in the day for all the things you must accomplish. So we keep building value add experiences into the VDB platform.

Our goal is for you to see VDB as an indispensable part of your every-day experience. Need a diamond? Search for it on VDB. Need to build a suite, or match a stone? Let us help. Want to share your Ipad screen with a customer and conduct your search together? Easy peasy. Did you see something while doing a search with one customer that you know would be perfect for a different customer? Flag the item and email her the link next chance you get. Did you just read our article on improving your Shopify site (link) and want to expand your product offering right away? We’ve got you covered.

When we say we’re more than a marketplace, this is what we mean. Our customers tell us every day that they wouldn’t want to live without VDB. And that, at the end of the day, is what we’re working for.