At a time when consumerism is gradually ebbing, jewelry merchants have to continue to evolve.
Finding alternative products with lower prices and turning consumption into investment have become two sharp weapons for generation Z consumers to fight against consumerism. In addition, self-pleasuring has become a more important factor in their consumption behavior.
The sanctions against Russia due to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict have led to a huge supply gap in natural rough diamonds. Global production is expected to decrease by 30% year on year.
Under the influence of both supply and demand, lab-grown diamonds are gradually favored by the market. Shanghai Yuyuan Tourist Mart (Group) Co., Ltd. (Chinese:豫园股份) (600655. SH) launched its cultivated diamond brand "LUSANT," and Chinese jewelry giant Chow Tai Fook (Chinese:周大福) also briefly launched its lab-grown diamond brand "CAMA" for market testing.
In international markets, Danish jewelry brand Pandora announced in its second fiscal quarter of 2022 that it will launch a new line of lab-grown diamonds, "Diamonds by Pandora," in the U.S. and Canada.
De Beers, the world's largest diamond supplier, which had once fully resisted cultivated diamonds, launched its cultivated diamond brand Lightbox in 2018.
In the same year, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) jewelry guidelines revised the 62-year-old definition of a diamond, removing the word "natural" from the description and officially recognizing the status of lab-grown diamond.
With cultivated diamonds costing only one-third the price of natural diamonds, "carat freedom" has become the promotional philosophy of a growing number of lab-grown diamond manufacturers. Compared to natural diamonds, which firmly established in the high-end luxury market, lab-grown diamond brands target Gen Z and millennial consumers who have less purchasing power and are more fashion-conscious.