The idea of jewellery Internet network in Russia came into life about three years ago. At that point in time its main target was to prove that the World Wide Web should be treated as a proper work tool in jewellery business, rather than a mean of entertainment.

Most common way to express jewellery companies' fairly sceptical attitude to this new project was the phrase : " Jewellery - is a kind of family business and should not allow any interference from the outside".

Fortunately not everyone in Russian jewellery industry shared this rather narrow-minded approach. The management of Russia's Assay Office was one of the firsts who realised and took the advantage of the Internet technologies. The website of Russian Federation Assay Office designed by our experts, had a virtual guest room for its visitors, and soon became one of the first regularly visited jewellery website, as well as on-line jewellery forum.

During the 2nd International Business Conference "Russian Market of Precious Metals and Gemstones " in November 1999 it became obvious that it was necessary to employ the cyber-space in order create the ever-active version of the conference, that would be available 24 hours a day all the way through the year. This would provide a truly unique opportunity for Russian jewellers to participate in discussions on-line, to express one's opinion on a certain matter and to receive information on future events and on the process of registration. Such venture was created and launched early in the year 2000.

The second objective achieved was to create a unified information system for the jewellery industry. Nowadays Jewellery Internet in Russia covers over 300 various online ventures, from individual jewellers' homepages to the websites of such leading Russian jewellery companies as Russian diamond monopolist "ALROSA", JSC " Uveliry Urala", " Smolensk Kristall", CJSC " Adamas". But tying all the information on jewellery industry in one knot is not enough to conquer the minds of Russian jewellers. Our goal is to create the information network where the experts national as well as worldwide are able to get the latest news of the industry, to recieve the information on future events and to find easily those exact 300 WebPages in endless cyberspace.

Of course the Russian Internet- Runet, is partly behind its older western colleague in terms of development rate . But this could be seen as a positive point. This gives us a great advantage of avoiding several mistakes made by foreign Internet companies that in several cases lead to the bankruptcy. Despite of all obstacles and errors experienced by foreign Internet companies the volumes of e-sales continue to grow tremendously.

According to the data of National Retail Federation and Forrester Research, interactive sales reached the level $4,3 billion this April, which is 23% more than in March. The Internet became the central discussion theme at four international jewellery forums that took place in March and April 2001 during BASEL 2001 World Watch and Jewellery Show, at the Gold Producers' Conference organised by "Financial Times" and during symposiums of Internation Jewellers Confederation CIBJO.

As the legislative background for the Russian Internet continues to improve we are coming closer and closer to achieving International standards. State Duma has approved the legislative project " On Electronic Digital Signature " after its first reading. There is no doubt that such act is positive step towards the development of e-commerce in Russia. While trying to keep up with the latest innovations, many " dot.com" companies concentrated entirely on new technologies, leaving behind the most important in any business - establishing relationships with the customers. This approach resulted in closing of a large number of Western Internet companies. Nevertheless it is clear to the majority of well-established foreign companies that investing in e-commerce can be quite profitable in practice.

Despite of all recent cataclysms the number of Internet users continues to grow at tremendous rate. E-mail and other electronic services have now become almost indispensable part of our everyday life. According to Pew Internet & American Life Project, over 93% of people in USA regularly use e-mail, while only somewhat 52% shop on-line.

Apart from В2В ( Business to Business) we intend to carry on with active development OF В2С ( Business to Customer),that seems to be the most attractive at the moment from the point of view of on-line jewellery sales. Th exclusive Pilot version of this tarde ground on our website only proved the customer's interest in his kind of service. In this case Internet gives us a wonderful opportunity to breakthrough the traditional practice of jewellery sales and create something new and exciting.

Unfortunately the main obstacle preventing Russian companies from participating in international Internet-projects is Russian legislative base. However, one should be optimistic as sooner or later this issue is going to be solved and the Internet users will have a complete access to international market.