Published July 17, 2026 · CaratOS
Generic inventory software is built around a simple model: a SKU, a quantity, a price. That model works for a t-shirt or a bag of rice. It quietly breaks down for jewellery, where the thing that actually determines value - metal purity, weight, and gemstone detail - isn't a property of the SKU, it's the SKU.
A generic system asks "how many of this SKU do you have in stock?" A jewellery business needs to know, for a single physical piece: what metal, what purity (22K vs. 18K vs. 950 platinum), what weight in grams, what stones, what carat and clarity if diamonds are involved. Two rings that look identical in a photo can have meaningfully different values because of purity or stone grade - information a quantity-based system has nowhere to put.
Each physical piece - or each variant of a design - carries its own record: metal type and purity, weight in grams, gemstone details (type, carat, clarity where relevant), a unique SKU, and both listed and estimated price tracked separately. That last distinction matters on its own: listed price is what a customer sees, estimated value is what the piece is actually worth given current rates - and the gap between them is exactly what a jeweller needs visibility into.