What motivated the decision to offer both natural and lab-grown diamonds, and how has the response been from your customers?
Offering our customers choice was essential as it’s one of our core brand principles. We recognised the growing impact of lab-grown diamonds and so took a forward-thinking approach to include them in our range. The response has been very positive — customers do still prefer natural diamonds for emotional purchases such as engagement rings, but lab-grown diamonds do make a popular, budget-friendly option for everyday jewellery such as necklaces, bracelets and eternity rings. As we add more lab-grown options to our already existing natural diamond products, we’ve seen for example that 48% of our eternity ring sales are now lab-grown. Lab-grown diamonds have helped make diamonds more accessible to a larger audience, which given these items are often an expression of love, friendship and gratitude, let us believe is a good thing for society as a whole.
Could you share more about the challenges the company faced when launching online in 2005, given the infancy of e-commerce for luxury goods?
Launching in 2005 meant moving away from traditional luxury retail and educating customers that there was a better way to buy diamond jewellery while preserving all the core values of traditional luxury. At the time, customers were very cautious about purchasing high-value jewellery online so we focused on creating a highly detailed, user-friendly website to build trust and showcase our quality to the best level possible. This approach has proven very successful, but we realised there was still a need to interact in the physical realm given the emotive nature of the purchase, so we now have 11 locations throughout Europe and the Middle East. We are also exploring new technologies such as augmented reality (AR) to further enhance the experience.
With the Mayfair showroom opening in 2013, how has the combination of a physical and digital presence impacted your customer engagement?
Combining a physical showroom with our online presence has been the perfect balance for a brand like ours. When it comes to high-value, emotional purchases, customers do prefer seeing items up close and receiving that face-to-face experience and expertise from our specialists. I’d say many enjoy the convenience of designing their jewellery online, almost testing and seeing what’s possible, to then move to a showroom appointment so they can really get to see their favourite diamonds and ring or jewellery designs. After purchasing an engagement ring, customers often come back to us to design their wedding bands, or to create the perfect bridal jewellery piece.
As Europe’s largest online diamond jeweller, do you have plans for further expansion into new markets or regions?Given we sold to over 80 countries in 2024, there are significant opportunities to expand both our physical as well as our online presence. 2025 is likely to be transformative for us as we scale up to take advantage of these opportunities.
