How far are you willing to reveal [pearl farmer / trader] / to pay [pearl buyers]?

[Pearl_Researcher]

All of a sudden, one question with two perspectives come up. The following question is inspired by the fact of how willingly we are to give up our privacy in
return for convenience and power of information with the help of information and communication technologies. Also, the fact that information also brings value ties with what certified gemstones (e.g. GIA diamonds) create a powerful business opportunities, just like the 10 billion RMB revenue within 10 years in China's online sales of GIA diamonds. There was also one thread about embedding their own logo onto the surface of a pearl nucleus. After cultivation, you can read it through the x-ray.

For pearl farmers and traders, how far are you willing to reveal your pearl's information in order to maximize the profit for each pearl sold to a customer? Here are some things for you to consider, every single pearl can be track or traced. Pearl buyers would know where you bought your pearls. Yet with the pearls able to be uniquely tracked or identified, customers would also know that you are trustworthy and they are not cheated.

For pearl buyers, how much extra are you willing to pay or spend in order to guarantee the pearl you are buying? Remember, you are not going to just be paying for certifying a pearl's visual characteristics, but also the knowledge of the pearl's history.

Apparently, the above questions are not suitable for non-cultured pearls.

Thanks!

 

[pattye]

Under the topic of Pearling Industry News there are several discussions of the potential ways to mark/trace individual pearls.

 

[pattye]

Are you actively buying/selling pearls? What feelings do you have on the subject you've presented?

 

[Pearl_Researcher]

I would look at this from the following social phenomenon:

- people are giving up privacy in exchange for greater convenience and information

[e.g. Facebook, apps, freebies with sign-up]

Thus, I hypothesize that pearl traders might want to reveal more information (e.g. track-and-trace or certification) about their pearls in hopes to sell their pearls higher. While the general public is willing to sacrifice more (e.g. money and time of research) in order to feel truly empowered with their informed purchase.

 

[Ramona]

I am a member of a tribe that is dying out: I absolutely value my own privacy and turn irate if companies/government violate it by tracking information behind the backs of consumers/people. And I can be quite radical when feeling irate as to completely sever ties with said entities. So, I am not really willing to give up my information readily nor do I necessarily expect it from most companies. Younger generations may not even know what privacy is and they may look at information differently.

As to traceability of product, I'd probably just gather information about a company myself. That has nothing to do with privacy, but with the history and story the company puts out in the open. I think tracing pearls is only useful if a certain product is often misrepresented or is very upscale. I am not sure in todays economy most people would pay extra. If a farm wants to position itself in a niche market (e.g. sustainable pearls), it probably works best by directly marketing their product to the public and sell an "image" that best represents what they are doing. It should be possible to ask for a higher price once you identified who your customers are and how to reach them. One example I really like outside the pearl field (as I wear their products since 20 years) is the clothing company Eileen Fisher. They manage to sell high-priced clothes regardless of economic conditions by creating good quality and novel clothes that also come with a story. Having said that I think you will never be able to sell successfully and at a higher price if you do not try to create high quality, constant innovation, and provide very good customer services that are targeted at retaining customers. I would invest there.

 

[pearlescence]

We've had this debate about traceability in another thread. I think it would be a very niche market. Most people probably don't care about blood diamonds (Naomi Campbell?) they just want max diamonds for min price.
You will always get those who want and will pay for couture, then there are those who want good quality more mass produced and the ones who are happy with basics.
A seller is never ever going to appeal to everyone. Certification and traceability are very very niche.

But not sure how certification etc is affected by considerations of privacy.
Privacy affects people, individuals. A company cannot have privacy. That's straightforward law
You are talking about a company's confidential information and trade secrets: these are very different matters.

(And don't get me started. My LLM dissertation was on privacy)

 

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

For pearl farmers and traders, how far are you willing to reveal your pearl's information in order to maximize the profit for each pearl sold to a customer?

For pearl buyers, how much extra are you willing to pay or spend in order to guarantee the pearl you are buying? Remember, you are not going to just be paying for certifying a pearl's visual characteristics, but also the knowledge of the pearl's history.

Apparently, the above questions are not suitable for non-cultured pearls.

I disagree, they are indeed suitable questions for natural pearl marketing.

I have leases and permits to operate in designated areas. I live under a microscope of public scrutiny not so much about pearl farm technology, but land use policy, sustainability, environmental controls etc., after all my sites are owned by the crown ( a term for "the people") of Canada. I have no issues whatsoever about full disclosure. In natural pearling, most harvesters prefer not to divulge locale, mainly for conservation reasons, but therein lies an issue. If conservation truly is a concern then at the very least, documentation supporting sustainability and licensing should accompany the product.

Right or wrong, natural pearls will raise suspicions. I would always prefer to get that out of the way first, before going to market. I can only control what I do, but when a pearl leaves my hands or someone produces fakes, my choices become limited. With that, I've developed a high level database system for photographing, measuring and describing each and every pearl individually. It's a lot of work, but it's still easy, because the basis of my research is dependent upon the accurate recording of species, time and place of harvest.

Lab certifying each and everyone one of my pearls is out of the question, even absurd. After all, I harvested them myself so their authenticity is not in question. If my clients can't get their heads around that, I can't help them. It would quadruple the cost. With other natural pearls, the mere suggestion of certification indicates suspicion on some level. Not often, but on occasion I'll get emails of images of pearls claiming to be "Lagoon Island Pearls", but not once were they genuine. Most are bad fakes, some a little more elaborate.

To address this issue and to answer your second question (which definitely applies to me) as I am preparing to release a several natural pearls over the next term. Each and every pearl is assigned a lot number, photographs and measurements of all three axis and description. Even at 5 min. per pearl, I can only do twelve or thirteen pearls per hour so it's very labour intensive and time consuming. Given the day to day work necessary on the grounds, the added burden of grading and recording makes for really, really long days. It's worth it though, because I won't necessarily have to deal with fakes or charlatans. I would like to believe, that any pearl I send to a crafter, collector or broker will have the ability to draw reference to my database to their authenticity, without the suspicion, cost or risk associated with gem labs or shady dealers. The type of certification my be referenced every time a pearl changes hands.

In cultured pearls, one will have to go to great lengths to certify at the source. Kamoka's experiment with tagged nuclei is very impressive (kudos Josh, Mikeyy) but I'm certain the cost is a considerable issue. Perhaps in the future when mass production brings down the cost and a growing consumer base demands these things we'll see them used more widely.

Thanks for bringing up the topic.

 

[pearlescence]

There's another big difference which your post throws up, Dave. The law. In the USA certificates for pearls and other stuff are the norm because there is no consumer law requiring goods to be this that or the other or anything, but in Europe the law requires that anything I sell is what I say it is, (along with a lot of other stuff)so that I never get asked for certificates. Customers here are incredibly well protected. In any case, unless it is from somewhere totally independent a certificate is only as good as the reputation of its issuer.

 

[DaveTT]

Thanks for a interesting thread.
In the near future I will be going on many pearling expeditions and hopefully I will be able to show you many beautiful wild pearls, and yes I will take pictures and document every single pearl and also keep the mollusk / shell the pearl came from.