9 drilling network Chen Bin uncover the inside story of the diamond industry: low quality tax evasion and serious tax evasion

Sina Technology news on the morning of October April 13, although Diamond e-commerce has been obtained VC, but still cannot eliminate the pain experience of 9 Diamond CEO Chen Bin in the early start of business: before the national adjustment of diamond import tax, tax evasion is serious in the whole industry, and many diamond smuggling are involved. The quality of most practitioners in the industry is low and the relationship is complex.

Although the 9 Diamond network was established in March 2005, it was not seen in the industry at the beginning. Many people have raised questions: Is it possible to sell diamond online? At that time, the diamond jewelry industry was dominated by small enterprises, which were distributed in various provinces and cities, causing serious tax evasion and smuggling. On the other hand, e-commerce itself is not mature.

Chen Bin recalled that at that time, the import tax for national diamond jewelry classes was 17%, and high tax rates led to rampant smuggling. "The diamond is so good for smuggling. It's okay for a few carats. Hundreds of thousands or even millions of people can come in. Corporate tax evasion is also serious, so there were not very large jewelry and diamond companies at that time ."

On the other hand, Chen Bin expressed his feelings for the quality of industry practitioners through several activities of industry associations. "The diamond and jewelry industry is mostly engaged in smuggling in the early stages of reform and opening up. The quality is relatively low. Nine out of 10 people speak foul words ."

In general, local jewelry enterprises have a relationship between "black and white". Chen Bin believes that this is also the reason why traditional jewelry dealers do not do much. "In addition to Hong Kong, domestic jewelry enterprises are generally not easy to save, otherwise, local enterprises will not be able to survive by using government relations or even illegal means."

Chen Bin revealed that at the early stage of his business, government departments often checked his income data. He was also quite worried, because either of the reasons why he was "blacklisted" or "white-listed" was always hard. These situations improved after the country reduced the diamond import tax rate to July 2006 in 4%, and Chen Bin had to work hard for a year and a half.

Currently, the customer network adopts the online + experience store model. Chen Bin believes that this can greatly reduce the cost of the store and provide diversified custom services. The service method is more flexible, for example, it can be changed to a new one, this is what traditional industries do not want to do, "they also have customized services, but finally guide customers to buy finished products."

Chen Bin said that the 9 Diamond network will open an experience store in each city, the price of similar products can be reduced by 30%-50%, and the 9 Diamond network will buy and sell as middlemen and then earn the price difference. "We now have 7 experience stores, 3-4 production plants, and outsourcing packages for design and R & D ." Chen Bin believes that this is a asset-light model.

Chen Bin admitted that currently, consumers are still more traditional in jewelry e-commerce. Currently, their online orders only account for 10%, and 80% of consumers will go to real stores after reading them online. Chen Bin believes that the economic crisis has little impact on the diamond industry. He believes that when the 9 Diamond network has experience stores in 15 provinces, it can be considered to be listed. (