Robert Hoberman authored the article, “Are B2B Sales Shrinking?” which was published in the April 2018 issue of Rapaport Magazine. You can download or read the article here.

The sourcing, manufacture, and sale of a retail jewelry piece involves numerous parties. Consider a diamond bracelet. At the commodity level, stones can pass through several dealers. Multiple assemblers might each be responsible for parts of the manufacturing process. After the bracelet is in its final form, it might be sold among wholesalers before reaching the retailer, who then sells it to the final buyer.

Each of these transactions — except the last — represents a business-to-business sale. If any part of the sales chain becomes inefficient and experiences a declining volume of transactions, a ripple effect will cause problems for other parts of the supply chain, and that’s what’s happening now . . .