MID BLOG

As the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic passes the half-year mark, there at last appear to a be growing number of signs that the markets, while still depressed, could make a modest recovery toward the end of the year.

De Beers’ latest Diamond Insight Global Sentiment Report indicates that that consumer desire for diamonds remains strong in the United States, China and India, and that sentiment to purchase diamonds is improving as consumers adjust to the “new normal.”

Despite the lockdown and the increased comfort with shopping using the Internet, more than 62 percent of American consumers would still prefer to buy diamond jewellery at a physical store rather than online, according to new research published today by De Beers Group in the second of its Diamond Insight ‘Flash’ Reports, which seek to highlight the evolving consumer perspective in light of COVID-19. But there is a provider, the store environment needs to be considered safe.

New York, the gateway to the world’s most important diamond jewelry market, kicked off Phase 3 of its four-stage reopening process, and as the city that had been hardest-hit worldwide by the COVID-19 pandemic struggles to resurrect its economy.

It is a statement that has fast becoming a mantra during this period of global pandemic and social distancing – “the world as we know it will be forever changed” – and increasingly it becoming clearer that the business environment which will be one of those to be transformed most significantly.

As more U.S. states are moving out of the COVID-19 lockdown, many of the consumers polled in a survey conducted on behalf De Beers indicated that there have been positive effects to their lives during the quarantine. Respondents noted focusing on more time with family, less time commuting, and feeling grateful for things they used to take for granted.

For more than 50 years, the task of marketing diamonds and diamond jewelry was carried out by one company, De Beers, which it one stage spent about $250 million per year generically promoting the diamond dream. The results were spectacular, transforming the diamond into one of the world’s most sought-after luxury products.

Mother’s Day has traditionally offered a strong selling opportunity to the jewelry industry, but with the world caught in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, questions were being asked whether 2020 would prove an exception to the rule. Actual sales data is not yet available, but indications is that consumers still celebrated their partners, matriarchs and grandparents, albeit modestly as one would expect in a time of economic hardship.