“Last week we had three or four couples who have been married for a few years who came to us to upgrade the diamond on the engagement ring,” said Joel Klein, CEO of New York’s Ritani, an online retailer of diamonds and fines. . jewelry, including engagement rings.
“It’s not that we see a decline in the trade in natural diamonds, but that the demand for laboratory diamonds is growing very strongly,” says Klein.
Ritani, which handled more than 20,000 engagement ring orders last year, trades in both natural and lab diamonds. The company has a stock of more than 300,000 diamonds for sale, a third of which are lab diamonds. Jewelry made with lab diamonds currently accounts for more than 50% of Ritani’s sales, Klein said.
Several factors are fueling the rising demand for artificial diamonds, industry experts say.
Man-made diamonds look exactly like natural diamonds – the only difference is the price tag. Lab diamonds cost significantly less for a much larger stone than a mined diamond of the same size, and they appeal to the environmentally conscious and ethical sensibilities of millennials and Gen Zers in particular.
Juliet Gomes, Ritani’s customer service manager, recently helped couples upgrade to a larger lab diamond. “If the original ring has a one-carat natural diamond, they now replace it with a lab-grown three- or four-carat option for the same price or less than the one-carat original,” she said.
Ritani offers its customers the opportunity to exchange their natural gemstone for a credit for the upgraded stone. While some choose to trade their natural diamond for a lab-created diamond, others turn their original stone into another piece of jewelry, such as a pendant, Klein said.
Lindsay Reinsmith, co-founder of San Francisco-based lab diamond jeweler Ada Diamonds, said she too often sees customers upgrading from a mined diamond to a lab diamond in their rings.
“Not only is this a common occurrence, but we’re also seeing a significant increase in customers coming to us for a lab diamond that is getting married for the second time,” she said. “They may have had a mined diamond for their first marriage, but they choose lab-grown for their second.”
Not all customers who upgrade are just focused on switching to a bigger brick. “They also look at the quality of the lab diamond and want it to have an element of sophistication,” Reinsmith said.
Novice engagement ring buyers also show a strong preference for lab-grown stones.
July data showed that the number of engagement rings sold with a manufactured diamond increased by 52% compared to last year. Meanwhile, the number of natural diamond engagement rings sold fell 28% over the same period.
“Consumers want to maximize their budget, spend as much as possible and get a larger diamond with better color and clarity,” said Edahn Golan, an industry analyst and founder of Edahn Golan Diamond Research & Data.
The average total carat weight of a lab-grown engagement ring diamond in the US is 1.42 carats, priced at about $3,800. That equates to an average total carat weight of 0.81 carats for a natural diamond, priced at about $4,209, Golan said.
“It’s a significant difference in size that is visible to the eye and at a lower price,” he said.
As further evidence demonstrating the acceptance of man-made diamonds, Pandora, the world’s largest jewelry brand, announced Tuesday that it will be launching lab-made diamond jewelry in the US and Canada on August 25.
Called Pandora Brilliance, the 33-piece collection includes rings, bracelets, necklaces and earrings featuring a lone lab-created diamond in sterling silver, 14K yellow gold or 14K white gold.
“Laboratory diamonds are just as beautiful as mined diamonds, but available to more people and with lower CO2 emissions. We are proud to broaden the diamond market and offer innovative jewelry that sets a new standard for how the industry’s impact on the planet,” Pandora chief executive Alexander Lacik said in a statement.