DistrictX: A Specialized B2B Marketplace for the Gem & Jewelry Industry
DistrictX is a sophisticated B2B networking and trading platform tailored specifically for professionals in the jewelry, gemstone, and luxury watch industries. It serves as a digital trade floor where manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers can list inventory, request specific diamond cuts, and facilitate high-value transactions within a secure, community-driven ecosystem.
The diamond trade runs on relationships and group chats. Dealers move stones through WhatsApp threads: photographs, asking prices and memo terms scattered across conversations with no search, no history and no reliable way to tell a serious counterparty from a stranger.
DistrictX gives that trade a floor. Manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers list inventory, post requests for specific cuts and specifications, and negotiate inside a closed network rather than an open marketplace. Dealer pricing is held separately from retail, so trade terms stay inside the trade.
The platform is a Next.js and TypeScript front end over a Node and PostgreSQL back end, self-hosted behind Nginx. Listings are media-heavy by nature, since a stone is sold on its video, so the delivery path for high-resolution assets, and the search that sits over them, took as much attention as the transaction flow.
Product & Engineering
Stack & toolsNext.js·TypeScript·Nodejs·PostgreSQL·Cloud·Nginx
LinksStart a projectA closed, verified network
Membership is the product. Trading happens between known industry counterparties instead of an open marketplace anyone can list on.
Sourcing requests, not just listings
Buyers post the cut, clarity and specification they need and let supply come to them, replacing the scattergun broadcast of a group chat.
Dealer and retail pricing kept apart
Wholesale terms stay visible only to the trade, which is what makes a public-facing marketplace unusable for these dealers in the first place.
The web platform gave the district a searchable, permanent record of inventory and counterparties, the thing a chat thread can never provide. It also set the data model the mobile app was later built on.
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