De Beers Group Auctions Launches New Auction Portal

(Press Release) - De Beers Group Auctions today announced the launch of its new auction portal. The new platform provides customers with an improved bidding experience through a range of enhancements to functionality and to the user experience. The portal harnesses cutting-edge technology and incorporates a range of valuable insights garnered from customer feedback.

The new platform provides customers with a suite of features that deliver a number of direct benefits:

• Easy Navigation: Registered Buyers can get an overview of all auctions that are happening on the portal. The "auctions ending today" page houses all the auctions due to close that day, enabling customers to access all auctions quickly and ensure they do not miss out on bidding opportunities.

• Efficient Bidding: Registered Buyers can quickly refer to each lot, with the description and pictures provided on the digital platform. As each lot closes separately, customers can save time, instead of staying in the auction until all lots in the auction event close.

• Price Protection: All Registered Buyers will have privy to the starting price of the lot. However, 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.

• Transparency: While an auction is ongoing, bidders will be informed if their bids have met the reserve price. With the price protection and transparency on reserve prices in place, the preliminary bidding round has been eliminated, simplifying the process for the bidders and saving time. When the auctions are closed, bidders can refer to their bid history. The bid history reflects the pricing information of the lots they have placed their bids on, regardless of whether customers have won or been outbid.

• Security: The diamond industry is built on trust, and the security of the digital platform is of utmost importance to Auctions so that Registered Buyers can place their bids on the platform with confidence. De Beers Group Auctions' technology partner, Curtis Fitch, holds ISO 27001:2013 certification for Information Security Management, as certified by the globally recognized BSI, themselves accredited by leading body UKAS.

• Human-Centred Design: De Beers Group Auctions has applied the Human-Centred Design approach, placing Registered Buyers at the heart of every development process. Registered Buyers' end-to-end journeys represented the start point for design, with user feedback on 'pains and gains' with the platform being incorporated. Once the platform had been designed, it was presented to Registered Buyers again and rigorous tests were conducted on the beta version.

James Kirby, Senior Vice-President of De Beers Group Auctions, said, "At De Beers Group Auctions, our raison d'etre is to provide our customers 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."

To watch a video overview of the new auction portal, including a summary of the improvements, please follow this link.