Are Millennials About To Disrupt The Diamond Industry?

The song goes; ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ but that isn’t true for Millennial women (or Millennials in general), 70% would consider buying lab-grown diamonds over mined ones. A statistic that is music to Type IIA diamond-maker ALTR ears. New diamonds can be created every 60-120 days thanks to technology that recreates the force nature exerts over a billion years, and it is that timeframe that is upsetting the $13 billion industry.

The killer feature? There are three really; you can buy more substantial and more personalized diamonds than ones found in mines across the world and the quality can standardized, all ALTR diamonds are Type IIA, the purest form of diamond known to man. Less than 2% of the mined diamonds are Type IIA. The created diamonds are graded the same way as ‘regular’ diamonds, and as of July 2018, the FTC ruled that lab-grown diamonds are real diamonds. ALTR isn’t the only lab-grown diamond company in the world, but it is the only vertically aligned created diamond brand allowing them to develop products of different varieties faster than other options.

Millennials are big believers in climate change and saving the planet from the impacts that businesses have on it. The diamond market does not come out well when you examine its environmental impact; poor conditions, child labour, corruptions, blood diamond trading, air emissions that are 1.5 billion times higher than those of a lab-grown one and massive amounts of water that are used to mine diamonds from the ground. Not a pretty picture so there is little wonder that alternatives are looked to with interest.

At Helzberg Diamonds, ALTR created diamonds’ major retail partner in the USA, ALTR has a higher sell-through and better conversion ratios than most of the comparable mined diamond products. The Average Unit Retail for ALTR at its Brand affiliates for the last 12 months is 37% higher than similar Mined Diamond in the bridal category.

The markets are cautious with letting in human-made diamonds. Time will tell if more retailers stock the diamonds and which the consumer prefers. The future of the diamonds industry is still healthy, demand is secure, but changes are indeed afoot. Good news for ruining the blood diamond trade but overall will the influx of diamonds destroy the image of diamonds in general? Time will tell, and consumers will have a lot to say in the outcome. If current the current research becomes a reality, diamonds may need a fresh branding job, a sentence that many people thought they would likely never read.

Courtesy: Forbes