Blue Nile Gets Into Diamond Buybacks

Seattle--Blue Nile announced that after seven months of testing, it is launching a diamond buyback program in partnership with a company called Mondiamo.com.

Based in New York, Mondiamo is owned by Adama Partners Inc., a venture firm that invests in, operates and builds businesses in the jewelry and gemstone markets. The company is the strategic advisor to The Fancy Color Research Foundation, which provides, among other services, a price index for fancy colored diamonds.

In a phone interview with National Jeweler Friday, Adama co-founder and Senior Vice President Oren Schneider said they have spent the last few years building a consumer-facing, online-only service for buying diamond jewelry that includes a proprietary algorithm for evaluating current market prices for diamonds. They started a “very low-key” beta test of the service on BlueNile.com in June 2016, he said.

Now, Mondiamo has launched its own website, which is powered by Blue Nile and uses the e-tailer’s live pricing data for Gemological Institute of America-graded diamonds to give consumers a guaranteed cash offer range for their diamond jewelry, sight unseen.

Consumers come to the website either through Blue Nile or on their own and input their GIA report number and the diamond’s carat weight. For non-GIA reports, they enter the name of the grading lab and report number along with the four Cs, with the price being adjusted based on a proprietary algorithm. (Offer ranges are not provided online for diamonds without grading reports, but those stones can be sent to Mondiamo to be evaluated and receive a cash offer too.)

Once a consumer accepts the offer, Mondiamo sends them a free and insured shipping kit and he or she then sends their stone to the company’s office in New York for authentication and final evaluation, with the diamonds graded by Mondiamo’s “highly experienced gemologists,” Schneider said.

He noted that by accepting and shipping the piece, the consumer agrees to the transaction pending the physical evaluation, adding that in nearly 100 percent of transactions so far, the payment was higher than the lowest amount offered.

Mondiamo gets a cut--15 percent of the total value of what they are a buying back (including the value of any precious metal or side stones) or $200, whichever is higher--and Blue Nile gets compensated for every referral, meaning every customer that comes to Mondiamo.com through Blue Nile.
In addition, everybody who sells a diamond through Mondiamo gets a $150 coupon code to use on BlueNile.com.

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