Diamond News: During the course of 2009 Diamdel continued to sell a full range of rough through both its traditional direct sales channel, and innovative online auction channel. Auction sales in particular played an important role in helping Diamdel provide access to rough to all those non sightholder companies who have registered with the company and maintained up to date demand profiles. Auction events have been held with partner Curtis Fitch throughout the year.
In 2009, 695 different lots were made available for sale in 75 individual auction negotiations, of which 580 lots (83%) were sold at their 1st presentation. 153 different bidders from Europe, the Middle East and Asia participated in these events and 88 different winners emerged, with representation from all regions. Despite the market conditions this year, the number of different companies that have bid and won at Diamdel auction events has been greater than 2008 (149 bidders, 79 different winners).
The fact that Diamdel had more different individual winners in 2009 than in 2008 continues to prove that Diamdel auctions provide a viable and very real opportunity for non sightholders to access the goods they need at prices they determine. To date, 134 different diamond companies have bought goods at Diamdel auctions.
In all auctions this year, rough has been made available in Diamdel assortment format and the company has continued to build its auctioning repertoire based on customer feedback, to include new auction designs such as two stage events, Japanese and Dutch formats to compliment the English format adopted at launch in Jan 2008. Diamdel auctions are designed to provide buyers with information during the event. This is important to enable participants to control their own bidding strategies and avoid ‘winners curse’ situations common in other sales channels. Further development of this capability is planned for 2010.
A De Beers statement says “We would like to reiterate that Diamdel’s objective with auctioning remains unchanged. This objective is to provide more customers more opportunity to buy more of the rough that they require for their businesses.”
