Hidden Polygon

Years ago I was invited to a wedding in Honolulu.  It was my first trip to Hawaii and I hurried to the local bookstore (this was before Amazon, when we had local bookstores) to buy a guidebook.  There on the shelves, almost lost between the predictable “Fromer’s” and heavy “Lonely Planet,” was a small paperback called “Hidden Hawaii.”   This book ignored the famous tourist spots such as Waikiki Beach, and revealed instead the out of the way places, the secret coves, the undiscovered rainforests, that the average tourist never finds.  I bought the book, went to those places, and realized “Hidden Hawaii” delivered on its promise.  These areas were truly special and most people didn’t know about them.

I was thinking about this book recently while considering how so many of the services we provide at Polygon are likewise “hidden.”   Even the Polygon locals (that would be, our long-time customers), generally are not aware that Polygon is much more than the Trading Network community. 

A travel book entitled “Hidden Polygon” might not be that successful.  But I realized that as a company we needed to do more to communicate our full array of products.  Here are some examples of businesses using the hidden services of Polygon to achieve their marketing objectives. 

TradeLock

As we all know, DTC’s Diamond Promotion Service provides information that helps jewelers sell more diamonds.  This information—increasingly delivered via www.dps.org— is targeted to legitimate retail stores, and would be inappropriate for a consumer audience.   DPS screens out consumers, and restricts the content to the trade, via Polygon’s TradeLock service.  TradeLock is a unique password protection system that can be applied to any website, and will ensure that only qualified trade professionals are allowed to enter.  TradeLocked sites can also have sections that are further restricted, perhaps to a defined customer list, so the site owner can serve up different information to different groups within the trade. 

SiteInfusion

Bulova has hundreds of different watch models, each with specific product details that need to be communicated accurately to the consumer.   Bulova’s own website does this, of course, but the company has gone much further.  Via Polygon’s patent-pending SiteInfusion technology, Bulova is able to syndicate their product content automatically and directly into thousands of retail store websites that carry the Bulova brand.   Bulova’s own promotional message thus is able to be embedded inside the websites of its retailers, all of it appearing under the retailer’s own name and logo.   This technology solves the two biggest online challenges a supplier faces: keeping control of the brand on the Internet, and leveraging the promotional value of retail store websites to reach local markets.  SiteInfusion is also used by trade groups such as ICA, AGS, and Gem-A, as well as diamond and jewelry brands such as CanadaMark and Ritani. 

Private Data-Feeds

A well-known diamond manufacturing firm in New York has realized that in today’s world their large inventory has to be leveraged with 21st century technology.   Using Polygon’s “Private Data-Feed” service, that inventory is now being sent in real time to (1) a large insurance company, (2) a retail store chain, and (3) Amazon—among other destinations.   In today’s world, diamond dealers don’t just memo out a few stones around the country and hope they’ll sell.   Diamond dealers populate other companies’ inventories electronically.   Polygon’s “Private Data-Feed” service is an easy way to make it happen.

“Hidden” InventoryPower

InventoryPower is a system that let’s Polygon members—with appropriate permissions—download inventory off CertNet and have it appear inside a B2C searchable database on their own websites.   But some Polygon members are using what we might call a hidden version of this service.   Rather than Polygon’s B2C interface, these retail stores have their own customized online tools for consumers.  In other words, they don’t need the full InventoryPower, they just need the CertNet data.  Hidden InventoryPower populates these retailers’ sites with the diamonds, while letting them showcase the stones however they wish.

Custom Websites

In the late nineties Polygon created “template” websites for tens of thousands of retail stores.  That served a purpose then, when almost no retailers had websites of their own.  Today, almost everyone has a site, and Polygon’s Web production division (called “WebActive”) now focuses on custom work.  An example is the site referred to previously: www.dps.org, which is built and maintained by Polygon.

And More…

Hidden Polygon also includes B2B and B2C online catalogs, shopping carts, full e-commerce systems, “find-your-nearest-retailer” search engines, and integration between grading lab databases and CertNet.   As with Hidden Hawaii, these exotic and off-the-beaten-path services, aren’t for everyone.   But for those companies looking to leverage online technology to increase profits, it’s useful to keep in mind that there’s more to Polygon than meets the eye. 

To find out more about Hidden Polygon click here or call 1.800.221.4435.

Jacques Voorhees
Founder & CEO