MID BLOG

The 2022 end-of-year holiday season has drawn to a close, and the sales results are now trickling in. According to Mastercard SpendingPulse, U.S. retail sales excluding automotive increased 7.6 percent for the period year-over-year, running from November 1 through December 24. But jewelry sales dipped 5.4 percent.

The largest conflagration between East and West since the end of the Cold War and an ill-conceived public health policy that is isolating the world’s second largest economy would seem like a recipe for a less than sterling business environment. But diamonds and diamond consumers often react counterintuitively.

It was a year that many expected to be very different. The COVID crisis, which has dominated events though most of 2020 and 2021 appeared finally to be fading in the rearview mirror, and the almost all indicators were facing upward.

By many accounts, 2021 may be remembered as the year that Gen Z, the generation born between 1997 and 2012, came into its own. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey, it was the age group that posted the largest increase in jewelry demand in the United States, purchasing almost four times more than it had in 2020.

The total number of shoppers grew by nearly 17 million from 2021 and is the highest figure since NRF first started tracking this data in 2017. According to the survey, 76 percent of consumers say they shopped over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, up from 70 percent in 2021.

The indication on Black Friday Adobe Analytics that general retail sales in the United States were outpacing those recorded on the same day of the year both in 2021 and 2019, matched what De Beers research reported in the recent Diamond Insight Report, which indicated an increasing readiness of consumers to purchase diamond jewelry online.

Black Friday, the official start to the holiday season appeared start of the right foot, with overall sales rising 12 percent year on year in the crucially important U.S. market, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, and the strongest category performer being apparel, including jewelry, where sales were 19 percent higher than last year.

Asked whether the diamond jewelry they purchased during the course of 2021 was branded or unbranded, the American questioned said that about that two-thirds of all diamond jewelry acquisitions were branded. That was twice the proportion seen in 2015 and represents almost 80 percent of women’s diamond jewelry sales by value.

On November 24, 2022, Americans will gather at home for the traditional Thanksgiving Day meal, and several hours later will kick off what each year is the most five weeks in the calendar year, the holiday season. Typically, jewelry stores expect to make somewhat north of 20 percent of their annual sales during December.

Research commissioned by De Beers Group in 2022 and reported upon in its recently released Diamond Insight Report confirms that sustainability remains a key consideration for consumers, and is having a tangible impacts on their purchasing decisions.