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How Subscription-Based Services Can Solve Your Inventory Challenges

By Itay Ariel and Reut Rothstein, HRA Group

Subscription-based services have changed all of our lives. They are so entrenched in our daily living that often we don’t even know we are using them. Do you still purchase Microsoft Office anymore or ask to borrow the new CD of your favorite band? Do you know anyone who doesn’t have an Amazon account?

These questions may trigger feelings of nostalgia, but it was not so long ago that our lives looked completely different. Convenience and value have become must-have requirements in our daily transactions. And that’s why now is a good time to consider embracing subscription-based models in your business.

Diamonds have always been seen as the ultimate luxury good—the pinnacle of success and desire, worn by celebrities and royals alike. Today, the luxury space is crowded. Handbags, expensive phones, and other goods are part of the luxury market, and digital e-commerce has brought on further competition. Margins have eroded and the supply chain has been forced to capitalize on every dollar of investment.

We started noticing these trends a few years ago. The processes in our supply chain, once providing ample margins for all, no longer benefit all parties. These pressures have increased in recent years with COVID-19.

A subscription-based system can help retailers curate the perfect inventory for their customers, without having to choose how to optimize their hard-earned dollars on limited inventory. They can focus on creating a beautiful environment that honors their consumers’ desires, rather than focusing on getting their aged inventory out the door.

Consumers view access as the primary goal; access to their favorite music, their favorite products, their favorite movie or even subscribing to their favorite clothes. A subscription-based service allows the customer to view merchandise they want to buy when they want to buy it.

With a subscription service for diamonds, retailers enjoy the following benefits:

  1. It will save them money. Retailers select their perfect assortment of diamonds that remain in the retailer’s showcases at all times without having to purchase them or invest in the inventory. This will free up capital for retailers to invest in other opportunities like retail expansion, renovation or other opportunities outside of the diamond industry.
  2. It will save them time. Gone are the days of buying trips to diamond centers around the world, costing time and money, as well as hours quality-controlling each selected diamond. With a subscription service, all of that work is done for them and diamonds arrive perfectly quality-controlled according to their unique standards, ready to be
    showcased.
  3. Access to expertise and information. Using a subscription service will provide retailers with access to a breadth of expertise and information. Analyses of sales, inventory turn, aged inventory, and trends are examples of easily accessible information.

Moments of desire are created when a customer walks through a retailer’s trusted doors and sees the diamond they have imagined in their mind. There is no substitute for the experience of touching and seeing a beautiful diamond right before your eyes and in your hands. Not on a screen. Not the next day. Now.

We need only to look at other industries to know that subscription services are no longer the way of the future, but the way of now. If you’d like to know more about Dialog, a subscription service for the diamond and jewelry industry, contact us at [email protected].