Demand for engagement and wedding diamond jewelry is stronger than ever, presenting an unparalleled opportunity for the trade. Today’s couples may be well-informed and have larger budgets, but they’re still looking for guidance in their hopefully once-in-a-lifetime ring purchase. Diamantaires and jewelers ought to nurture their position in this sector, which has emerged as the primary growth engine of the market.
Research regarding the U.S. wedding market, conducted separately by De Beers and The Knot, a wedding services website, reached comparable conclusions that shed some light on the trends to look out for.
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Perhaps most significantly, both companies recognized that the wedding market extends well beyond the engagement ring purchase. The Knot identified three additional business opportunities when looking at bridal jewelry, including the wedding band, other wedding jewelry – such as earrings, bracelets, necklaces and hair pieces – and jewelry for occasions beyond the wedding, such as anniversary bands.
The implications for a jeweler are quite obvious. For them, weddings are as much about building relationships as for the bride and groom. “The groom has so many anxieties about this purchase that if he can find a jeweler he can trust, it’s a relationship that can last a very long time,” Rebecca Dolgin, editor in chief and vice president of XO Group, which publishes The Knot, said in a presentation given recently at JCK Las Vegas.
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“Three additional business opportunities when looking at bridal jewelry, including the wedding band, other wedding jewelry and jewelry for occasions beyond the wedding.”
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Astonishingly, out of approximately 14,000 brides and 1,700 grooms surveyed for The Knot’s 2013 Engagement & Jewelry Study, only half said that their jeweler did some follow up after their engagement ring purchase. That is surely a missed opportunity, as Dolgin suggested.
Stephen Lussier, CEO of De Beers Forevermark brand, agreed and stressed that engagement ring customers are probably the easiest target to generate incremental business. “You know who they are, that they’re going to spend money and that they want a diamond,” he said at a De Beers presentation during JCK Las Vegas.
Indeed, following the engagement, De Beers estimated that about 80 percent of wedding rings today contain a diamond, while around 20 percent of women buy another piece of diamond jewelry before the wedding.
[two_third]Still, the diamond engagement ring is the core purchase that begins the relationship between the jeweler and the couple, and it naturally accounts for the largest portion of revenue in the bridal jewelry market. According to De Beers, it was also the sharpest growth point in the diamond jewelry market between 2011 and 2013 – showing “very strong” growth in both price and the volume of pieces sold, continuing the long-term trend seen in this market. During the past decade, the average amount of money spent by couples on diamond rings has increased 40 percent while the carat content has gone up 60 percent as well, Lussier reported.[/two_third][one_third_last]
“The diamond engagement ring is the core purchase that begins the relationship between the jeweler and the couple.”
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