Man Leaves Diamond Business To --- Well ...

 
Here is a variation of what’s become a very common, very depressing story – but with a unique twist. (And before we go on I should note that, while I am going to keep this tasteful, the topic is, umm, a little on the risque side. So be forewarned.)

Bruce D. Verstandig has been in the diamond business for nearly 30 years. His family had a sight in the eighties, and he was on the board of the Diamond Dealers Club and MJSA. But now he’s giving it up, with the exception of his “used jewelry” site, jewelryway.com. Last year he shut his office in 589 Fifth Avenue, and he is selling the URL he controls, jeweler.com (and says any interested parties should contact him.)

“My wake up call was in December 2006,” he told me. “I sold a private three carat E SI1 for $54000 and I made $1,800 in profit. I looked at that, and thought something is wrong with his picture.”

“Jewelry is a contracting business. It’s a business of power. You have to sell a lot because you operate on very thin margins. I wasn’t a Rosy Blue or a Gitanjali. I used to love this business, but now the fun part, the negotiating, is all gone. In my early days, if I made a mistake I could make it up on something else. Today you are lucky if you can recoup it later on.”

He continues: “What really changed the business is the online world. Today Blue Nile dictates the price. Not Rapaport.”

So instead Verstandig is converting what was once a sideline into a business. The company he runs, Together Pleasure, runs a trio of web sites which dispense sex advice and sell what we’ll call related products. The sites are “geared for the mainstream,” he says (think along the lines of a “Dr. Ruth”), and offer advice for delicate subjects people are reluctant to talk about.

“I feel I’m helping people’s lives, as well as being a capitalist,” he says, noting that he forsees the sites becoming a $100 million business in a three to five years years.

As for the jewelry business, Verstandig says he’ll keep a foot in it.

“They say once you are in the diamond industry, you can never get out. In a way the businesses are similar. Jewelry just gets you there. These sites do the rest.”