“GK, my client saw a different stone for $5000. How should we compete?”
I’ve always dreaded this feeling – expertise marginalized, selling a diamond on the basis of price with little concern for anything else. Unfortunately, I’m sure many of us have experienced this same feeling.
We’re trained and experienced jewelry professionals. We curate and sell quality diamonds, and we want to make an honest living. How can we do this, especially with an increasingly educated and savvy shopper?
Seize our opportunities to show in-person! Showcase our diamonds. Highlight our gem lab’s expertise. Show what makes our teams, products, and stores special.
To make this advice more tangible, follow these 4 steps:
1. Show diamonds under the ASET viewer - Our ASET is our biggest asset (pun intended) to show what makes our diamond special. Enable our consumers to visually appraise a diamond’s light performance by looking through an ASET viewer. Explain the dominant red color indicates brightness and a beautifully cut diamond. In addition to differentiating our diamonds, we also build credibility, as most sellers – online or brick and mortar – do not have or feature ASET images.
2. Encourage shoppers to inspect diamonds in different lighting environments – spot lighting, natural daylight, ambient light, etc. Help customers see how the stone performs, and empower them to appreciate cut quality.
3. Allow shoppers to inspect diamonds underneath the microscope. We don’t sell diamonds that look like Jackson Pollock’s -- with all respect to the artist, we usually avoid diamonds with heavy black pique and/or concentrated table inclusions. Show our curated selection and an industry average diamond.
4. Explain how we curate diamonds. Consumers often believe diamonds are a commodity. We know this isn’t the case -- all H-SI2s are not the same. Show the difference between an average diamond and our curated selection; by doing so, consumers understand the value in our offering.
In our presentations, remind consumers lab reports are not certificates nor are they statements of beauty; they are designed to help identify a diamond. Diamond buyers are savvy, and we avoid stones with durability issues, easily-visible or poorly-placed inclusions, BGM (brown, green, milky appearance). The leftovers -- ugly, undesirable diamonds -- are heavily discounted.
I’m certain we’ve overused the term, ‘show’, but showing is our biggest tool when working with diamond customers. When we show your diamonds and educate customers, we move the conversation to quality, an arena where discerning jewelers excel. All we need are our eyes, ASET, and H&A viewer.
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