More than any other sector in the jewellery industry, coloured stones present a set of inherent challenges that are difficult to overcome. Upward of 80 percent of rough stone production is in the hands of artisanal miners, unlike diamonds and precious metals where major producers own or control most of the output. Furthermore, many of the artisanal miners operate in under-developed economies, where the ability to track the movement of merchandise is limited, if it exists at all. The opacity is further clouded in the midstream, where small and medium-sized traders are dominant, and merchandise typically changes hands multiple times before making its way downstream.

However, end consumers are typically unimpressed by the objective difficulties that the coloured stone sector faces, and disregarding their demand for more transparent supply chains carries with it a high degree of risk. The solution to the problem comes with setting reasonable expectations, accepting that under current conditions full traceability is not possible in most cases, but transparency is, on condition that all players in the supply chain can carry outreasonable due diligence. There also are a growing number of technological solutions.