While the product has entrenched itself in the market, retailers and consultants are assessing the next phase of the category’s development.
Being late to the party can be an advantage, says Constance Polamalu while relating her journey on the road to selling lab-grown diamonds. As chief operating officer of Zachary’s Jewelers in Annapolis, Maryland, Polamalu took time during the pandemic to assess opportunities in the lab-grown market.
“Our area tends to be a bit delayed in following trends and there wasn’t a big advocate for lab grown here at the time, but it was looming,” she recalls.
“There were these hot-pocket cities like San Francisco where jewelers were disrupting the market and actively teaching consumers about their options.” Those efforts influenced the broader shift in consumer habits that Polamalu witnessed. Whereas consumers had once been shy about displaying wealth, the availability and affordability of lab-grown diamonds pushed them to buy larger pieces, wear them in everyday settings, and flaunt them on social media.
For the rest of this article: https://nationaljeweler.com/articles/13914-state-of-diamonds-what-s-next-for-lab-grown-diamonds