Over the last few years, growing awareness of lab-made diamonds has significantly eroded customer confidence in India’s diamond sector. Jewellers have taken cognisance of this market scenario and have now adopted measures to rebuild customer sentiment in the natural diamond category, turning to technology in a bid to boost transparency and benefit the larger diamond industry.
Although lab-grown diamonds have a sizeable market share in India, most often they are sold to customers as natural diamonds. With customers increasingly aware of the easy availability of lab-grown diamonds, they have become hesitant to buy diamond jewellery for fear of being sold the artificial kind, either erroneously or deliberately.
“There has been a lot of development in the lab-grown diamond space over the last decade, with laboratories managing to produce gem-quality diamonds. While there is a high intangible value attached to diamonds, many jewellery products are also passed on for their resale value. But we are now seeing that lab-made diamonds are getting mixed with the natural ones,” says Amarendran Vummidi, managing director of Vummidi Bangaru Jewellers (VBJ).
Pradeep Kothari, the owner of Nagpur’s Karan Kothari Jewellers, echoes Vummidi’s sentiment. “In 2015-16, there was panic in the market over lab-grown diamonds. The machines that were available at that time could only check the authenticity of loose stones and there was no provision to check diamonds that had been set in jewellery.”
Unable to check the authenticity of their diamond jewellery, customers became reluctant to buy more. But thanks to technology, things are now changing.
BUILDING TRUST THROUGH TECHNOLOGY
この記事は The Retail Jeweller の January - February 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は The Retail Jeweller の January - February 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
How Dubai Governs Its Gold
Dubai’s high standard of gold quality and trade transparency combined with a jaw-dropping 98% compliance level, makes a perfect case study for how India needs to emulate the best practices that lures buyers from world over to the ‘City of Gold’
HUID: Paralyzed by incapacity
The one clarity about hallmarking and HUID at present is that there is none. Here’s the long and short of the HUID capacity constraint.
Mozambican masterpieces by FURA
Rubies are rarer by far than diamonds — and some of the finest rubies today come from Mozambique. Mindful of the opportunities, FURA Gems, a fast-moving young mining company, is resolute in expanding the ruby market even as it gets ready to hold its inaugural ruby auctions in Jaipur this month.
HUID: India's quest for GOLD PURITY EXCELLENCE
The Indian gold jewellery sector’s journey towards hallmarking has been long, slow and bumpy. Although voluntary hallmarking became available in April 2000, compromised gold was still widely sold in the market — a fact of which neither public nor government was ignorant. In June 2021, however, hallmarking became mandatory. Manufacturers, jewellers and consumers now must quickly come to grips with the new purity norms, which juxtapose a unique six-digit ID for each item with the utterly inadequate state of India’s hallmarking infrastructure. The Retail Jeweller weighs the pros and cons of this sharp turn in the current, mid pandemic moment, when the gems and jewellery industry is more dependent than ever on gold sales.
INTERVIEW - SACHIN JAIN
De Beers is undergoing an unprecedented transformation by returning to the root and adding its tag of assurance to develop a fortified position for its partners and indisputable trust for consumers in years to come. Ahead of the De Beers Forevermark annual Forum 2021, Soma Bhatta speaks to Sachin Jain, MD, Forevermark India, about the massive internal and external changes that the organization is undergoing and what it means for De Beers’ Indian stakeholders.
INTERVIEW - AJOY CHAWLA
As long ago as the early 2000’s, Tanishq, the preeminent brand in organised jewellery retail, made known that gold purity standard in India is questionable. It equated purity with trust, winning over millions of customers. Will mandatory hallmarking erode that lead? Not so, Ajoy Chawla, CEO, Jewellery Division, Titan Company Limited, tells Soma Bhatta - trust is an edifice of many levels, and purity is only the first one.
INTERVIEW - COLIN SHAH
As IIJS 2021 gears up to resuscitate the trade sentiment with its comeback physical show in Sept 2021, Colin Shah, Chairman, GJEPC speaks to Soma Bhatta about its role in steering domestic policies, plans to scale up India footprint, and why it needs to first build domestic demand in order to become a reliable
INTERVIEW - SHAILESH SANGANI
IIJS 2021 has surprised the trade for many reasons: the highest number of exhibitors ever in the history of the show; forty percent larger show space and shifting base to Bengaluru after a three-decade plus unbeaten stint in Mumbai. Shailesh Sangani, convener, national exhibitions, GJEPC, speaks to Soma Bhatta about the key highlights, trade expectations and why retailers should brave the odds to visit the upcoming show.
GOLD: A Modern Rendition
World Gold Council’s ‘You are Gold’ Campaign to excite millennials about gold purchase.
From the earth, for the earth: How natural diamond miners are rehabilitating nature
Diamond is in a very eventful phase in its global trade history. There are discoveries such as the 1,098 carat diamond by Debswana, a joint venture between De Beers and the Botswana government. Natural diamonds no longer adorn a woman with its beauty only, the members of Natural Diamond Council are giving their all to conserve the environment with better technology. And this is exactly where Natural Diamond Council is making a difference inimitable in scale and heart. Let’s understand better.
