This fact is quite interesting - cutters are looking for more ways to sell their goods and some of them are selling directly to public. My point is that one should not be a JBT member to become a diamond broker. Of course you can offer also mounting and other services but it seems that the diamonds are not a rocket science to start selling them especialy using the Internet. However, not everyone can buy from the cutters. When people on Pricescope, for example, search for diamonds,they typically get 2 or more vendors selling the same diamond.
Some cutters offer their services directly to the public.
And most don't because they rather have vendors do the selling for them. I deal with this everyday, so I know who sells to the public and who doesn't. As for being a JBT member, most cutters prefer you to be part of the JBT because they feel a sense of respect for the trade and not some dot com company looking to make easy money. But, I was just trying to point out that consumers should know if people are truly in the trade or not. We promote the welfare of the jewelry industry in part through furnishing to our members highly specialized credit reports.