Wholesale vs retail: how the gem trade actually prices

The word wholesale has been so abused in the gem trade that it now means almost nothing. A genuine wholesale price is the per-carat price at which a cutter or rough-buying dealer will sell to a trade buyer who is reselling — not finishing the piece, not pricing for end-clients, and ordering more than one stone.

What inflates "wholesale" in the wild

• Broker margin layered onto the cutter's price (often 10–25%).
• Country-of-export markup once the stone moves through Antwerp or NYC.
• Dealer paying full lab fees and packaging that into the per-carat number.

How Chaos enforces a true wholesale floor

Every dealer on Chaos lists in their own name, with their own published response time and review history. Prices shown are the dealer's true wholesale to trade — never retail. Jewellers apply their own markup downstream. Dealers can set minimum-price rules per stone or per category to protect a wholesale floor on highly-competitive inventory, and those rules are honoured in every jeweller's feed.

For jewellers

Ask any "wholesaler" for: dealer name on the invoice, treatment disclosure, and a return policy. If any of those is missing, you're being sold retail dressed as wholesale.