Get ready to unveil the future of diamond retail with Andre from Nivoda, as he sheds light on an app that's changing the game for jewelers everywhere. Nivoda's diamond marketplace makes it easy for retailers to find the perfect stone for a customer in real time, with millions of diamonds able to be sorted by size, shape, quality, Lab or Natural, and more specifications from the convenience of a mobile or tablet device.
Andre also sheds light on their methods of communication as a global company, with offices located in more than 6 different timezones. These logistical hurdles are important to be faced head-on, and Nivoda seems to have figured out a method of blending multiple offices and cultures into one harmony.
Learn more about Nivoda here: https://nivoda.com/loupe
Send feedback or learn more about the podcast: punchmark.com/loupe
Learn about Punchmark's website platform: punchmark.com
Get ready to unveil the future of diamond retail with Andre from Nivoda, as he sheds light on an app that's changing the game for jewelers everywhere. Nivoda's diamond marketplace makes it easy for retailers to find the perfect stone for a customer in real time, with millions of diamonds able to be sorted by size, shape, quality, Lab or Natural, and more specifications from the convenience of a mobile or tablet device.
Andre also sheds light on their methods of communication as a global company, with offices located in more than 6 different timezones. These logistical hurdles are important to be faced head-on, and Nivoda seems to have figured out a method of blending multiple offices and cultures into one harmony.
Learn more about Nivoda here: https://nivoda.com/loupe
Send feedback or learn more about the podcast: punchmark.com/loupe
Learn about Punchmark's website platform: punchmark.com
Welcome back everybody to In the Loop. What is up everybody? My name is Michael Burpo. Thanks again for listening to In the Loop. This week I'm speaking with Andre from Nevada and Nevada in case you haven't heard of them yet, they are a diamond marketplace and they allow retailers to order, you know, single diamonds from a variety of specifications off a really easy to use app, off your phone or off a tablet, and sometimes right in front of a client, so you can actually get exactly what it is that they're looking for, based on the exact specifications that you might have asked for. So, for example, you could search by lab grown or natural or melee or even just colored stones. So it's a really innovative approach and I think that they've started to really transform the retailer approach to selling individual diamonds, and I really enjoy speaking with Andre also about how they execute on this and how they are able to work together on a variety of different time zones and communicate across that type of border as well as different cultures, depending on where their different offices are located. It's a really fun talk. I think you'll enjoy it. Make sure you check them out at nevotacom slash loop that's L-O-U-P-E, and just see what they have to offer. Thanks so much. Enjoy the conversation.
Speaker 1:This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the Julia Industries favorite website platform. Whether you're looking for better e-commerce performance, business growth or campaigns that drive traffic and sales, punchmark's website and marketing services were made just for you. It's never too late to transform your business with a user-friendly, point-of-sale integrated website platform designed for growth and results. Sign up for your free demo today at punchmarkcom. While enjoying this week's episode, take a moment and leave us a star rating on the Spotify mobile app or, if you're on Apple Podcasts, leave us a star rating and a review. It's the best way to help us grow into. Show that you really enjoy the show. Thanks, and now back to the show. Welcome everybody. I'm joined by Andrei Woonz from Nevota. Nevota kind of making a lot of noise lately. I feel like you guys really have had like a seems like a really big last year. First of all, andrei, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great.
Speaker 1:Thanks for asking. How are you? I'm doing very well, I mean COO co-founder. Can you kind of set up for the listeners what it is that Nevota does and the problems you guys were setting out to solve for them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. We are a B2B marketplace for the diamond jewelry industry and we are the best online platform to buy diamonds.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's amazing, and you guys are, you know, located all over the world, and I guess one thing I'm curious about is when it comes to a B2B market, how is that facilitated? Is that you guys have a specialized website? Is there a subscription that goes along with this? How does that work out?
Speaker 2:We have an online platform that people in the industry can register on. They have to pass our KYC checks and then they have free access to the platform, where they can browse up to 1.5 million diamonds that are available all over the world. They can add them to their cart, check out and have them delivered to them in a few business days.
Speaker 1:Wow. And so when it comes to having you say you know that many diamonds are available, is that something? You guys have them, you know on hand, or are they kind of memoed to you from you know different dealers, and then it's just about centralizing it and then getting them shipped out. What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, good question. So we don't keep them in-house because that would be a massive amount. Bit of a yeah. Yeah, so they're actually still with the manufacturers. So the vast, vast majority of diamonds in the world are polished in India. So a large part of the supply is concentrated in Surat and Mumbai in India and whenever someone checks out on the platform, our people actually go to that supplier, collect the stone, qc them as per their customer's preference. If it's a natural stone, we make sure that it's actually a natural stone and not a lab ground, for example, and then we take care of the shipping, the exports, the import into the country, for example the US, and final delivery to the customer.
Speaker 1:So what was the specific problem you guys were trying to address? Because obviously, diamonds kind of like the backbone of the entire jewelry industry. It is kind of what pushes things into the next kind of price bracket when it comes to pushing jewelry up a little bit more. What is it that you guys were trying to solve when it came to creating the Vota?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So Dave, who is the CEO?
Speaker 2:He was running an online retailer and as an online retailer, you want to be as competitive as possible on price, and what that means, given sort of the fragmented supply of diamonds globally, is that if you want to find the best price goods, then most likely those are not going to come from the same set of suppliers.
Speaker 2:So, for example, if he sold 50 engagement rings in a day, then he had to go and buy those diamonds that would go into those rings from 45 different suppliers, and those suppliers were either in India, in Hong Kong, sometimes in the US, like all over the world, and that meant having to reach out to those companies, passing their KYC checks, making international wires to 45 different companies and dealing with 45 different shipments and imports into the country. So there's a lot of operational overhead and hassle and cost to fulfill those orders, and that's time that you then can't spend dealing with customers, making additional sales and doing what you'd like to do most as a jeweler. So that was the specific problem that he faced and he was like okay, we can solve this in a different way. Let's bring this into the 21st century, let's bring this online, let's build one platform where everything is grouped together and it's as easy as doing almost an Amazon checkout.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I guess centralizing things is definitely such an important move. I never really thought of it for diamonds and I think that when I was speaking with your coworker ahead of time, kind of as I was sketching out this episode, I think you guys had mentioned that you were starting to consider going into colored stones and semi-precious stones as well. What's the status on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. Our vision is to be a one-stop shop for a jeweler, which means that any product that they sell or that they use is what we want to be offering on the platform. So at the moment, it's natural diamonds, lab-grown diamonds We've just started with melee, with very small ones and colored gemstones is what we're working on at the moment and in the future, later this year, we're also looking at test-running jewelry pieces to complete the whole scope of products.
Speaker 1:Wow. And so you mentioned lab-grown diamonds, kind of a hot topic right now, and I'm always curious to hear it from your guys' perspective. Obviously, the price keeps fluctuating and changing. We have no idea what 2024 is going to end with the price of lab-grown diamonds. Is it going to level off? Is it going to continue to dip? How do you guys kind of see that? Is it just about staying nimble and updating your prices frequently, or do you have a different approach to it that allows you to kind of safeguard yourself from the changing price?
Speaker 2:Right. So we update prices every five to 15 minutes, wow. And we're sort of on the level of integration that we have with each of the suppliers. And you're absolutely right, like especially on lab grown. You know, it's been trending down, although I must say that the last couple of months it's been tapering off a little bit. So obviously impossible to tell if that's gonna stay the same into well, into this year, but it seems that we are sort of starting to hit a little bit of a plateau, at least for some of the fast selling categories. But yeah, it's critical to make sure that the prices are accurate and they're supplied to natural as well as a global marketplace. We have to make sure that things can change on a whim and they have to be reflected accurately on the platform as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I guess I'm always curious about that is we obviously want to offer any product that someone is looking for. I think that that's one of the key things I've learned about vendors is that if there's a market for it, we need to have it, because otherwise it'll just go somewhere else. When it comes to lab groans, is it just you know, hey, we're going to, we have that available if you're interested. Or do you find that it's about, yeah, like in keeping them very separate, you know, having all natural, and is there like a toggle to not show any lab groans if that's not something that they're interested in? Or is it just, like you know, just a search and you can find and filter out by by what you're looking for?
Speaker 2:Right? That's a great question. Yeah, I think it's very, very important to keep them separate. So what we've done early on when we added them to the platform, is make sure that they are in a completely different section and they are also indicated with a sort of there's a different color on them. So it's very clear for people searching that they're looking at either a natural or a lab-brown stone. And, like I mentioned earlier, we also have physical quality control checks in place to make sure that if someone is buying a natural, that it is a natural and it's not accidentally, for example, swapped for a lab-brown stone. Yeah, Because there are such, you know, different price points and different stories behind them. We find it very important to keep them completely separate. So at the moment, it's not possible to search for them at sort of. You know, when you do a search for a one-carat GVS-1, you're not going to see natural and lab-browns mixed together. You're either searching for a natural one-carat GVS-1 or a lab-brown one-carat.
Speaker 1:GVS-1. Interesting. That's a great approach. I think that's one thing that we've kind of seen is a solution is that when people go into it, they usually have that variable predetermined in their mind and I find that you know, kind of offering what it is that they were looking for instead of both is definitely one of those kind of things that it just clears the confusion out. But I guess, when it comes to the execution on this, I have a bunch of questions about the mobile app. Is the mobile app launched at this point or is it in the progress?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's available for both iOS and Android.
Speaker 1:And is it running on? So I'm assuming it's running on a mobile phone. Yeah, that's right. Do you find that? Is that going to be something that you find a like the cash register is going to just kind of end up as you know, a jeweler's phone? Is that going to kind of be the future solution that you hope? Or, like you know, we see a lot of people using tablets, whether it's that stationary platform that you know that spins, and they turn it around asking if you want a tip, or just kind of using it almost like a clipboard. Is that kind of the future you foresee, like the retailer is going towards? Or you know what's your kind of outlook on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's all about making the sales process for the retailer as efficient and as easy as possible, and nowadays that means that, you know, very often people are on the move or they're just, you know, walking around and not stationary behind the desktop, so they need to be able to, you know, make the sales, send out the quotes, confirm a stone. Whatever it is that they need to do. They need to be able to do that wherever they are, and that's really what drove the development of the mobile app is making sure that everything that's on the web platform is available on the mobile app. There's no difference in functionality there Because, yeah, a lot of people use both, and there's actually also a significant group of people that only use the mobile app, which is something that I didn't expect, to be honest.
Speaker 2:So I definitely think that the future is more and more, maybe not necessarily mobile, because obviously there is always a use case for, you know, having a big screen and being able to look at a lot of data at once, but I think any solution and any platform should be able to work on, you know, multiple devices and sync Effortlessly and then be able to. You know, I'm doing something on my laptop here and I'm you know when I'm outside, I can just continue with that on the phone, and that's really what we're trying to to build.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and as you guys are offering a very comprehensive solution, I would be kind of a miss just to float this idea. It sounds like you guys will have everything that you need to have a marketplace that could potentially go to Consumers. Is that something that you guys are ever going to eye up, or is it purely going to stay with the retailers and we're going to offer this as a solution to retailers?
Speaker 2:Yes, that's right. We we definitely want to stay in the B2B space and only offer solutions to retailers and not to and consumers.
Speaker 1:Nice, that's awesome to hear. So I guess, with a mobile app, do you find that this is just something that kind of goes into their costs and the ability to quickly order additional stones and like, for example, buying a you know a semi-mount from one vendor and then you know meeting with the, with the, the shopper, and you know asking them what it is, what their ideal stone is for their budget, and then purchasing that off the, off the mobile app, like how do you kind of see it fitting into you know a retailers workflow? How does that typically work out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the second part that you mentioned is more. We see that more happening on the tablets, so you know it's sitting with the customer and browsing through the available options and then selecting something that they like and placing that order. The mobile app is more for when they maybe, you know, when they've sent out a quote to a customer and the customer confirms like hey, yes, I want to make this purchase, that they're able to quickly secure that stone when they're on the go, or even, you know they just meet someone and want to fire off that quote quickly, to do that from from the phone as well. That that's sort of what we're seeing at the moment in terms of the most common usage.
Speaker 1:What about? Is there a limit to the number of Tablets or phones that can have this app through using a single seat, or do you have to purchase, you know, individual seats for every single phone? We've heard that from certain businesses.
Speaker 2:No, there's no limit on number of seats that you can have. What is important, though, is that you have different user accounts for different people using it. So if you have three sales people, then those three sales people would have their unique login, their own login ID, but they can be used on an infinite number of devices.
Speaker 1:Man. That's fantastic, andre. Andre, we're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back. I want to hear all about your guys' operations as a global business and to hear how you guys handle that hurdle. So everybody, stay with us. We'll come back in just a minute. This week's episode is brought to you in part by Accessibi Punchbox ADA Compliance Partner.
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Speaker 1:And now back to the show. Alright, everybody Back. Still speaking with Andre from Nevada, and I wanted to talk to you about. You guys are a truly global company. From just my preliminary research, you guys have an office in, I believe, london, hong Kong, mumbai, amsterdam, new York. How is it that you guys can operate efficiently across the nation? I mean, the number one thing I've learned time zones are a real problem sometimes. How is it that you guys are able to stay nimble and kind of work in those guidelines?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, actually we've expanded into a couple of more places this year, so I think we're at 11 different countries at the moment, so it's indeed a big challenge. I think what we found is that it's important to have one central system that everyone works on. That removes the need to communicate. So a large part of, obviously, our communication would typically be around the movement of orders. Someone places a purchase. We have to make sure that, as it processes or proceeds through the different stages, that there's no delays, that everything is going from A to B the way it should be.
Speaker 2:So we spend, we invest a lot of time and a lot of development into our own platform which we use to keep track of all of the orders, and that really reduces the need to have to talk to people or be dependent on talking to people.
Speaker 2:And other than that, a lot of the communication we do is on Slack Lots of different channels there where people come together and talk about the projects that they're working on and then, obviously, having calls throughout the day at times that work for everybody. There's only maybe two, three hours where you can expect people to reasonably join, so it's not always possible, but, yeah, it's working really well for us and it's also super exciting because you get exposure to different cultures, different perspectives, and it allows us to learn as a company about the global market. If you're just in New York, you may not have the context and the understanding of someone in Melbourne or in Dubai or in Mumbai, and now we are able to sort of share and learn and come up with a solution that works for yeah, for a larger part of the of the market as a result. So we're really happy with the setup.
Speaker 1:That's super cool, I. I mean, our company is increasingly remote and working from all different time zones, but we Everybody speaks English with us because we are US based. I can only imagine is that a hurdle as well? Is English kind of the centralized language, or do you find that you know everybody, each community kind of has their own languages, and then there's like a spokesperson from those communities that kind of comes together and speak some with one language, or how does that work out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. No, we definitely have English as the as the main main language. It's also sort of a prerequisite to be able to work With the company, because otherwise it's it's going to be really difficult. But one of one of the the exciting things and and sort of, I think, underappreciated challenges of having a global, you know, company or dealing with different countries is that you also have to provide support in all those different languages. So we're active in Europe, but there's a ton of languages in Europe that we have to support and yeah, that means that you know, we have German speakers, spanish speakers, french speakers On our support team as well and yeah, you do see that when those people team up, they tend to default to their own language. You know, I'm Dutch, so I speak Dutch with the people in the office here, but whenever we're on calls, everyone speaks in English and that's sort of the common language that we all share.
Speaker 1:Man. It's really a purely a marvel of, I guess, the 21st century that that can exist, because I mean, even if you go back, you know, 20 years ago, I don't really think that this was as as possible how to kind of you know, take place, in that it's not even as in the foreground as you might expect. So that's I gotta applaud you guys for making that work. That sounds like a real Challenge, but also sounds like you guys have handled it really well, so congratulations on that. Now I was going to ask about what's kind of next for you guys. You guys have already won Let me get this right professional jeweler awards and UK jewelry awards. You guys are already very accomplished.
Speaker 1:What's kind of next for you? You have a this app that's kind of transforming the industry. You have International offices. Seems like you guys are working rather smoothly. I see your names popping up in a lot of different groups. As far people recommending you for your diamond services, I guess is. Is there something that you have your eyes set on? You guys have already conquered colored stones. It seems like what's what's next for you?
Speaker 2:yeah, so We've been able to achieve quite quite a lot in the last Seven years or so and also extremely thankful to you know, one, those one, those awards. I think that's sort of a Testament to the level of service that we provide to customers and we're really, really happy with that. In terms of what's next, you know, we always try to innovate on Delivery time, so making sure that we can deliver the products faster to customers, make sure that we have the best price impossible and make sure that the sales process that we enable is the best it can be. So, when it comes to delivery time, two things that we're looking to scale this year, particularly in the US, is our Nevada Express offering, which is stones that are available for overnight delivery. So they are in New York already ready to be shipped out the same day Wow.
Speaker 2:And an often heard request that we have is For a memo offering on the platform. So we'll be looking to add that as well, and then separately, when it comes to the sales process, like I mentioned earlier, our platform allows a retailer to run a zero inventory business model, and Especially the tablets app that we have, which we call the voter showroom. We've got big upgrades coming to that, where it allows people to use that tablet in store, you know, browse from the 1.5 million diamonds and also gemstones that we have in their own branding, at their own markup, and be able to make that sale with, with the, with the customer in the store, and it's got big upgrades planned for that as well man, since you got a lot going on, that sounds awesome.
Speaker 1:I really am excited to kind of follow along. I think that there's a lot more that you guys are going to be able to come out with. So Before we go, andre, is there anything else that you want to let people know? Working people find out more about Nevada if they're interested in adding this to their business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so everyone can go to the voter comm. Sign up for a free account. You'll be contacted by one of our amazing sales team who will help you, you know, get set up, understand your business and look how we can best support you in your diamond purchasing needs.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Thanks everybody for listening. I really enjoy this. I really like hearing about international businesses. I think it's a it's a really modern kind of Solution and problem that people are kind of tackling and it's one that I'm interested in kind of learning it more about, but also about the diamond business. I can only imagine what it's like having to put you know thousands of diamonds through through the mail On a regular basis. I can only imagine the the headache and stress that goes along with that. But you guys seem to handle it quite well. Yeah, thanks, all right, everybody. I think we'll end it there. Everybody will be back next week, tuesday with another episode. Cheers, bye, all right, everybody. That's another show. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1:This episode was brought to you by punch mark and produced and hosted by me, michael burpo. My guest this week was Andre from the Voda, and you can learn more about the Voda by visiting the Voda comm slash loop. That's N I V O D, a comm slash loop and that's L O U PE, and check them out, see what it looks like and let them know that in the loop set. Yet this episode was edited by Paul Swars with music by Ross Cochran. Don't forget to rate the podcast on Apple podcasts and Spotify. It is the best way to help us grow and check out more about in the loop on punch mark comm slash loop. Again, that's L O U PE Thanks. We'll be back next week Tuesday with another episode. Bye.