Inquiring about online gems

[innerkitten]

I have recently inquired about a few pictured gems online and both times I got emails saying that those and similar were gone. Still they are on the web site a week later. Seems kind of like false advertising in a way.

 

[Mikesgirl]

Yeah, I've had that experience too. I don't know whether they just can't be bothered to clean them up faster, or if they are hoping that you'll buy something else once you are there.
I do know that the two diamond site I've purchased from pulled them from the list as soon as they were charged to my credit card, so I think it can be built into the system.

 

[tomatoe]

i think this issue has more to do with the technical aspects of the website and not so much that they want to purposely 'mislead' customers.

some sites are just simple webpages with links to pages and updates have to be done manually. and since it has to be done manually, it all depends on who is maintaining the website, how much time they have and if they are only looking after the website or doing other things as well.

the websites that are automatically changed have a database, java script, etc at the backend that will auto-update the coding language (eg. html) of the item that has just been bought and sold out. so u dont physically need some1 to constantly change the info/ quantity of items.

basically the website that can auto-update e.g. amazon is more comprehensive than the one that cannot. its like writing (no auto spell check) and using the pc to type (auto spell check) a document.

i am most prolly not very clear but hope it helps.

 

[niceice]

The problem you are experiencing stems from the fact that most on-line diamond dealers do not house an inventory, they merely republish the multiple listing services that are available to the diamond trade by subscription... Thus the accuracy of their "inventory" is only as accurate as the accuracy of the diamond cutters and wholesalers who advertise the diamonds in their physical inventory on the multiple listing services... These services charge the cutters by how many diamonds they list and how many times they upload changes to the server, thus many of the diamond cutters only do so every week or so in order to save money... They figure that if a customer calls for a diamond and it's already been sold, then at least they have the opportunity to sell them something else from their inventory, in short, they got a call they otherwise might have missed. This type of marketing strategy is misleading because it leads people to think that the individual web sites that offer diamonds to the public have "50,000 diamonds" that are actually in-house and available when in fact they might as well be a Real Estate office with 50,000 listings that were taken from the neighborhood phone book of possibilities.

The solution is to work with on-line dealers who have the diamonds that they advertise here on Price Scope in-house. We have asked Leonid several times to add a designation to his diamond listing service that separates the "have's" from the "have not's" on his search engine... Those of us who stock live inventory are NiceIce.com; GoodOldGold.com; SuperbCert.com and WhiteFlash.com with rare exception, if you see a diamond listed on our web sites, the diamond is in-house and available... The exception being that we sold the diamond an hour ago and just haven't made it on-line to update our inventory because we're busy trying to pack the order for Fed Ex. So you have a choice when you shop for a diamond, you can give your business to somebody who is serious about the diamonds that they sell and who invests the time to physically evaluate every diamond that they buy for inventory, or you can give it to somebody who was serious enough about making money to pay to have a script written that will take an existing list of diamonds, recalculate the selling prices and then republish the inventory list.

 

[innerkitten]

I have to agree with niceice, if your business is selling stones on the the internet then it makes sense to create a more user friendly site.

I'm starting my own soap company and one thing I'm learning is that sometimes you have to hire someone else to do various aspects of your business. It's almost impossible to do everything yourself like your logo design, website, etc.