Mumbai: August traditionally has been a vacation month in the international diamond trade, but 2020 is proving different, as companies scramble to restock following the lockdown that cast a shadow over the first half of the year. To meet the demand, and with numerous retail markets showing signs of recovery and the end-of-the year holiday season fast approaching, UNI and EZCalc are organizing a summer-time Virtual Polished Diamond Tender.
The tender will take place next week. Viewing and bidding will begin on Wednesday, August 4, 2020, at 04:00 NYC time (09:00 UK, 10:00 Belgium, 11:00 Israel, 14:30 India, 17:00 Hong Kong time). It will close on Thursday August 6, 2020 at 24:00 NYC time (Friday, August 7, 2020, 05:00 UK, 06:00 Belgium, 07:00 Israel, 10:30 India, 13:00 Hong Kong time.
Participation is open to bona fide members of the trade, following registration at https://app.uni.diamonds/guest-user/login-form and completion of UNI’s Know Your Customer (KYC) online form, for which supporting documentation is required.
To view the tender online, users must login onto their EZCalc app to view and bid on the goods, or access through the UNI platform, linking to the section “EZCalc auction 08/2020.”
To start bidding the offer must be at least the minimum price displayed for the stone. If there are already bids on any diamond, subsequent bids must be 0.5% higher than the last bid shown.
All winning bidders will be notified 24 hours after the close of the tender, and the diamonds will be shipped to them via Malca-Amit, UNI’s logistics partner. All shipping and insurance costs are included in the price paid for the diamond.
“Given the extraordinary times in which we live, we felt that it is essential that we think outside of the box,” said Mahiar Borhanjoo, UNI’s CEO. “With bourses closed, the Indian industry idle for extensive periods of time and a moratorium in that country on rough diamond imports, gaps are beginning to open in the pipeline, and these could prove significant as the year closes out. An August tender, conducted virtually so as to dispel any health concerns, provides a timely and practical solution. The feedback that we have received from the industry for this idea has been overwhelmingly positive so far.”
A FinTech company focused on the diamond industry, UNI also has an online diamond buying and selling platform. UNI was launched at the beginning of October 2018 and currently is considered as the industry’s fastest growing B2B enterprise. Its UNI-Prime inventory, which includes its suppliers’ stock held in its own vaults, all of which has been subject to an independent gemological review and is displayed online, is complemented by UNI-Standard inventory, which is held by other manufacturers and suppliers with direct feed into the UNI database. Using the services of its logistic partner Malca-Amit, UNI provides a full-service delivery package, including insurance. Goods from the UNI-Prime inventory are fully traceable, using blockchain technology.
EzCalc is today the world’s most widely used diamond-search and pricing application. With more than 350,000 downloads in the 12 years since it was first introduced, it is used monthly by more than 7,000 professional buyers.
Early in 2020, UNI and EZCalc announced a jointly-developed system, which enables buyers, using computer or mobile devices to conduct searches according to quality and price criteria. After selecting and remotely examining goods from a database more than $1 billion, representing the real-time stock of multiple major and niche suppliers, they be able to complete a purchase and arrange its secure delivery wherever they choose.
