“Just last week, three or four couples who have been married for several years came to us to upgrade the diamonds in their engagement rings,” said New York-based Diamonds & Fines Online. Joel Klein, CEO of distributor Ritani, said. Jewelry, including engagement rings.
“The natural diamond business is not in decline, but demand growth for laboratory diamonds is very strong,” said Klein.
Ritani, which processed more than 20,000 engagement ring orders last year, works with both natural and lab diamonds. The company has an inventory of over 300,000 of her diamonds, one-third of which are lab diamonds. Jewelry made with lab diamonds now accounts for more than 50% of Ritani’s sales, Klein said.
Industry experts say there are several factors driving the surge in demand for lab-grown diamonds.
Lab-grown diamonds look exactly like natural diamonds, the only difference being the price. Lab diamonds cost significantly less for much larger stones than mined diamonds of the same size, appealing to the environmental awareness and ethical sensibilities of millennials and Gen Z in particular.
Juliet Gomes, Ritani’s Customer Service Manager, recently helped a couple upgrade to a larger Lab Diamond. “If your original ring featured a 1-carat natural diamond, it is now replaced with a 3- or 4-carat lab-made option that costs the same or less than the original 1-carat original,” she said. I’m here.
Ritani offers customers the option to exchange their natural gemstones for upgraded stone credits. Some choose to replace it with a natural lab-created diamond, while others turn the original stone into another piece of jewelry, such as a pendant.
Lindsay Reinsmith, co-founder of San Francisco-based lab diamond jeweler Ada Diamonds, also said she often sees clients upgrading their rings from mined diamonds to lab diamonds.
“Not only is this a common occurrence, but we have also seen a significant increase in clients coming to us looking for lab diamonds who are planning a second marriage. I may have had diamonds that were hard-earned, but for my second marriage, I choose lab-grown diamonds.”
Not all customers who upgrade are focused solely on switching to a larger size stone. “They also look at the quality of lab diamonds and want to give them an element of sophistication,” he said.
First-time engagement ring buyers also tend to strongly prefer lab-grown stones.
July data showed that sales of engagement rings featuring manufactured diamonds increased 52% compared to last year. Meanwhile, sales of engagement rings with natural diamonds fell 28% over the same period.
Edahn Golan, industry analyst and founder of Diamond Research & Data, Edahn Golan, said:
The average total carat weight of lab-grown diamonds used in engagement rings in the United States is 1.42 carats and is priced at approximately $3,800. This compares to the average total carat weight of natural diamonds that sell for about $4,209, he said, of 0.081 carats, Golan said.
“It’s a big difference in visible size and low price,” he said.
In further evidence of the acceptance of lab-grown diamonds, Pandora, the world’s largest jewelery brand, announced Tuesday that it will launch lab-grown diamond jewelery in the United States and Canada on August 25.
Called Pandora Brilliance, the 33-piece collection includes rings, bangles, necklaces and earrings set with one lab-grown diamond in sterling silver, 14K yellow gold, or 14K white gold.
“Lab-created diamonds are just as beautiful as mined diamonds, but they are available to more people with a lower carbon footprint. We are proud to offer innovative jewelry that sets a new standard for how to reduce impact: the planet,” Pandora CEO Alexander Lacik said in a statement.
Source: www.cnn.com
