Walmart's sale of lab grown diamond jewelry has indeed caused a lot of discussion in the industry recently, because before Gill's statement (Michelle Gill, Vice President of Walmart's Jewelry and Accessories Division), few people were aware of the original cultivation diamond jewelry sold by Walmart in 2022. Diamond sales increased sixfold.
How much is "six times"? We did not find specific data because jewelry products fall under the Apparel (clothing) category in Wal-Mart's financial report. However, according to NJ (National Jeweler), Wal-Mart's "watches and jewelry" sales totaled US$3.38 billion last year, ranking second in North America (second only to Signet's 7.29 billion).
IDEX stated in an article published on October 5 that lab grown diamonds will be available for sale in Walmart’s 2,800 offline stores across the United States, and will account for 30% of diamond jewelry and wedding jewelry.
This size is enough to attract great attention from the industry and outside.
As a price-oriented comprehensive retailer that caters to the general public, Wal-Mart is quite ruthless in pricing lab-grown diamonds. According to IDEX, Walmart currently sells about 80 lab-grown diamond products, with prices ranging from US$78 to US$698. The latter (i.e. US$698) is a 1.5-carat lab-grown diamond ring set in 10K gold.
But the description of the "highest price" in the report is inaccurate. Even the above-mentioned earrings, after selecting the total weight of "1.5 carats", the price becomes $699.99.
We searched for the keywords "diamond" or "lab grown" on Walmart's official website, and each got more than 1,000 results. Therefore, we judge that the "80 models" mentioned above should refer to Wal-Mart's own brands, not consignment models of other brands.
Among the lab-grown diamond jewelry we can find, there are many products with four-digit price tags (US dollars), such as a 3-carat oval diamond ring (PT setting) priced at US$1,810.25 and so on. (As shown below)
We found the product on Walmart’s official website with a price tag of $78 (pictured below). This is a pair of stud earrings set in 14k white gold, using two very low-grade lab-grown diamonds (I/J color, I2-I3 clarity) with a total weight of 0.25 carats.
John Jeffay focused on the "Wal-Mart incident" in this week's IDEX memo. He also mentioned an interesting thing: The reason why the Walmart phenomenon has attracted attention from both the industry and outside the industry is not only because of its impressive performance, but also because of its It uses the word "Lab grown" when describing its "many (Lab grown) diamond jewelry products."
This is the exact same word Walmart uses to describe Lab grown pearls. Such descriptions can be found throughout the company’s website:
Jeffay believes that this approach of Walmart is obviously contrary to the "Diamond Terminology Guidelines" proposed by previous "big organizations": Lab grown and cultivated can only refer to organic/biological products.
Interestingly, Walmart doesn’t seem to care about the “Guidelines” from big organizations.
So tough.
Regarding the question of “why trade in lab-grown diamonds?”, Jill’s answer is very clear:
1) This is an excellent way for us to introduce diamonds to consumers that are much cheaper than natural diamonds but of much better quality. ("This is a wonderful way that we can introduce a much higher-quality diamond at a much lower retail price as compared to mined diamonds.") It should be noted that when describing natural diamonds, Gill did not use "natural diamonds", Instead, "mined diamonds" are used, that is, "mined diamonds."
2) "From the overall situation of the industry, natural diamonds are in a state of decline, so we are just reacting to industry trends and the trends of our own consumer groups."
3) “For our customers, they previously had to give up quality, clarity and carat weight to get a real mined diamond. Now, they can get a 1 to 1.5 carat diamond. Real lab-grown diamonds.”
"A 3-carat, G color, VS1 clarity lab-grown diamond at Walmart sells for $2,975, while a natural diamond of the same grade at Blue Nile sells for $8,190."
The above are all quoted from Jeffay's memo. Interested partners can search and read it by themselves. John Jeffay wrote at the end of the article:
Walmart knows its customers and knows they like to bargain. Walmart also knows exactly which side of its bread is buttered.
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