September Jewelry World News

Have you been feeling like sales are sluggish this year and you don’t totally know why? 

You aren’t alone! 

The whole industry is experiencing some interesting financial times, often related to overspending on inventory (hint, hint, overspending on inventory is an industry-wide issue – even the big guys do it). I have some big swirling thoughts about how we can all work on shoring up our inventory and budgeting practices while also working on a sales strategy, but that is for another newsletter.

What happened to jewelry sales in September and before:

• Soft jewelry sales overall in terms of number of pieces selling, but consumers are trying to get more bang for their buck. Also interesting to note is that yellow gold is trending up, but white gold is trending down.

• The same article talks about what overall diamond sales have looked like recently.

Jewelry crime news

Helpful hint – be reeeeally careful about taking on too much cash and not reporting it and also don’t be a noted terrorist:

• Arrest in NY for money laundering via a diamond company.

• From April – Diamond companies sanctioned and dealer charged with money laundering. This article is from months ago, but it does a pretty decent job of showing how porous the Kimberley Process is and how relatively easy it is to get around it.

And speaking of how people are getting around the Kimberley Process – Russian Sanctions!

Russian sanctions update:

• This is thorny, but in general it’s a good thing that the G7 agreed on the sanctions. In the past, Belgium has been more resistant. The harder part will be engaging India on the sanctions as Gujarat, India cuts 90-95% of the worlds diamonds – both natural and lab grown

• A diamond’s country of origin is determined by the place where it was “substantially transformed”, so once a diamond crosses a border to be cut and polished, the new country of origin is where the diamond was cut.

  • This is going to affect the industry as a whole, that much we know. How much will this affect indie jewelry designers? We won’t know probably just yet. There is a possibility of price increases.

  • Is it a good thing? I’m not sure yet. It is a step in the right direction, one that should have been taken years ago when it affected other countries. How much people will adhere to the new sanctions is another question.

  • OK, here is one more article from the jewelry industry perspective

Do you have any September jewelry news that you think I missed? drop a link in the comments below!

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