Natural Diamond Council to offer educational tools to retailers to foster natural diamond knowledge from April 3

Getting educated on benefits of natural diamonds deemed essential to sales conversion, according to third party research

As part of its new Education Partner Program, the Natural Diamond Council (NDC) will offer educational tools to retailers and sales professionals to foster natural diamond knowledge, with an aim to increase sales. The programme will be launched on April 3, 2023.

According to a new study by CXG, a leader in the luxury consumer insights space, getting educated on the benefits of natural diamonds is essential to sales conversion. Findings proved that 93% of customers were more inclined to make a purchase of natural diamond jewellery when they felt sufficiently educated on natural diamonds by a sales advisor. With this knowledge, the NDC has seen a significant opportunity for a more comprehensive education on natural diamonds while shopping for them. According to NDC, the consumer will now be even better educated on some of the most major purchases they’ll ever make—natural diamonds to last generations.

This education goes beyond the 4Cs, into new territory that hasn’t necessarily been considered before: the positive socio-economic and environmental impact of natural diamonds. These lessons include the history of natural diamonds, the industry’s commitment to sustainability, the difference between natural and lab-grown diamonds (LGDs), fancy coloured diamonds, and much more.

Here are some key findings of the CXG report:

• It is a concern that sales advisors show little pro-activity (less than 40% of interactions) in explaining differences between LGDs and NDs, use a comparative narrative, and show lack of knowledge in using ethical, provenance and traceability arguments.In fact, only 6% of cases involved knowledge shared on the ethical and provenance arguments of natural diamonds.

• Generally, just half of customers perceived the definition of natural diamonds as clear.

• Less than 50% of customers consider the merchandising set-up adequate in delineating differences between laboratory-grown diamonds and natural diamonds.

• However, 78% feel more confident and educated post-store visit.

• These numbers highlight the influence of the sales advisor’s role and the educational opportunity of the interaction. They also reveal a significant opportunity to better educate the customer comprehensively and transparently which in turn will increase confidence and purchase intent.

• There is an impressive 93% correlation between feeling educated and having confidence in the purchase. Education drives sales.

Courtesy: Retail Jeweller India News