A college trio in the city of Harbin, northeast China, has launched an online jewelry platform, upgrading their original offline shop, reported the Harbin Daily on April 17.

"Facing great difficulties, we’ve never retreated over the past two years,” said Ma Dong, one of the shop founders. “Our platform for trading of collectables and jewelry is soon to be put into trial, and I believe the future is bright.”

Ma, Jiang Shuai and Gong Mingze are senior students in the Heilongjiang University of Finance and Economics.

In order to launch the platform, they sought out specialized manufacturers from Beijing, Guangzhou, Yunnan and even from Poland and Russia.

To date, the shop has signed contracts with more than ten manufacturers to provide more than ten thousand jewelry items for online sale.

At the end of last year, an investor in Harbin made an upfront investment for the new venture.
 
A well-known domestic internet company also began to list the platform, which could be up and running in late April of this year.

The original offline boutique, named Zhulianbihe, which means pearls and jewelry, a perfect match in Chinese, was set up in 2015 to sell jade and other items.

The business outlook continued bleak until early last year, when the shop made a profit as it became more popular and benefited from good management.

In the last two years, of more than ten shops located near the university, Zhulianbihe was one of only two to survive.

After a period of operating the offline shop, the idea of going online came when the three founders realized that there was no e-commerce platform similar to Taobao and JD.com in China offering trades for jewelry and collectables with guarantees for customers.

"The online shop will strictly check on manufacturers, test every product and fix prices based on the quality. In trading, consumers will pay the platform and the manufacturers won’t be paid until the products are received and confirmed as satisfactory by the consumers,” Ma said.

He Mengling contributed to the story.