De Beers Group Auctions is launching a portal that provides customers with an improved bidding experience through a range of functionality and user-experience enhancements.

According to the company, the portal uses modern technology and incorporates insights from customers. It provides among others information on all auctions on the portal; an efficient bidding process that allows easy reference to each lot using descriptions and pictures; and price protection, which gives registered buyers the starting price of the lot. “To protect their interests, only bidders will be given access to the lot price after they have placed their bids for the lot, thereby preventing non-bidders from accessing price data from the auctions,” De Beers noted.

The platform also ensures transparency where bidders will be informed if their bids have met the reserve price while an auction is ongoing. The price protection and transparency features eliminates the preliminary bidding round and simplifies the process.

De Beers also promises a secure portal, thanks to its technology partner, Curtis Fitch, which holds ISO 27001:2013 certification for Information Security Management.

James Kirby, senior vice-president of De Beers Group Auctions, said, “Our raison d’etre is to provide customers with a smart and seamless way to source natural diamonds. We plan to do that through continuous improvement of our industry-leading auction platform to allow customers to buy from us online with greater ease and unprecedented levels of product data with greater transparency. With the new platform, our customers can expect an enhanced customer experience, an integrated portal, a customised experience, and a scalable and robust environment.”