Despite the buzz over digital diamond tracking, today’s customers value honest conversations more than flashy devices.
The diamond industry, which is notoriously averse to change, is facing a new challenge when it comes to documenting a stone’s provenance: a lack of interest from customers. A 2024 report from McKinsey & Company declared that “diamond producers should continue investing in marketing and technology to ensure traceability while telling the unique story of their stones.” However, the reality for retailers is less clear-cut.
Asking for proof
Anthony Mock, owner of Mock & Co. in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, researched multiple companies that provide traceability certification, because he expected his customers to want that. However, he found very few interested clients.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time, close to 30 years, and I can probably count on my hand how many times a customer asked me for a Kimberley [Process] certificate or an origin [for a] stone,” Mock says.
In Annapolis, Maryland, Constance Polamalu has had similar experiences. Most of the customers who ask about traceability are Millennials, reports the chief operating officer of Zachary’s Jewelers.
“There are still some people who grew up in a time when there was a very popular, prominent movie,” Polamalu says, referring to 2006’s Blood Diamond. “But beyond that, I don’t see a ton of it. It comes from this well-meaning desire to feel good about something, to feel good about their purchase.”
Polamalu says her customers trust her, and she has never had anyone press her for documentation. “I have said it’s actually harder for me to buy diamonds outside of the Kimberley Process than it is to buy diamonds within the Kimberley Process.”
Trust is also important for clients of Matt O’Desky, owner of The Diamond Room, which has two locations in Texas. He rarely gets asked about traceability, and the only guarantees anyone has requested from him have been verbal.
“It’s never something I’ve been asked to put in writing or put on an appraisal or anything, [except for] two clients who specifically asked for Canadian diamonds,” he says. Clients will bring it up if a retailer has a marketing program that highlights traceability, he adds, “but if you don’t have it, no one’s going to ask for it.”
Price vs. provenance
There are some generational differences, says Mock, who has found that “younger people are starting to ask [about traceability] more” — though they’re mainly concerned about price. “They don’t even want a Gemological Institute of America (GIA) natural stone. They’re like, ‘Well, I just wanted it to be affordable.’”
Polamalu agrees: Despite “buzzwords about sustainability, about traceability, about ethics,” she hasn’t seen any measurable uptick in requests for traceability or any changes in purchasing behavior. People make a show of talking about sustainability, she says, “but at the end of the day, I think it’s more financial than anything.”
Lab-grown attitudes
For O’Desky, requests about provenance are more frequent with synthetic stones.
“I’ve had more people interested in where lab diamonds are being grown than where their naturals are being mined,” he says. “I would have specific people say, ‘I don’t want anything from China. I don’t want anything from Russia. I don’t want anything from India.’ I would have more people specify that than I’ve ever gotten with natural in 20-plus years.”
Yet most of the requests Polamalu gets for synthetic stones focus on price rather than traceability.
“For some time, there was a lot of talk about lab-grown, and people moving to lab-grown, allegedly because of the sustainability,” she says. “And I think that was really just a talking point. I see [with] the younger generation, if they choose to move toward lab-grown, it’s price-dependent. It’s got nothing to do with the ethics.”
The latest developments
Diamond-tracing technology has changed a lot in recent years.
“[Suppliers will] give you a card that has a QR code, and it’ll let you know the origin of the stone,” says Mock, adding that 10 or 20 years ago, retailers had to rely on wholesalers’ claims of ethical sourcing. “Now I can put the QR code in the bag.”
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE
Main image: David Polak/ChatGPT
Source : Rapaport