JA NEW YORK SHOW FEEDBACK: US MARKET IS IMPROVING: THOUGH STILL HAS A WAY TO GO

The JA New York Summer Show was held in the Javits Center July 25-28. In a positive sign for the state of the industry, this year there were roughly 1,000 exhibiting companies, and a marked increase in corresponding attendee buyers at the show.

While some exhibitors mentioned the impression of lower foot traffic, the attendees who did participate were more focused. Rather than curious browsing, people seemed to be making the conscious decision to attend a trade show such as this one, "if they aren't of serious intention, they won't waste their time and resources to come," explained one.

One view as to the high level of exhibiting companies was that Vegas was so overwhelming and unexpectedly positive that many exhibitors came to the JA New York show assuming that the end to the slump was already here. These pundits might have been disappointed. As has been the theme over the past two years in the USA - the definition of success at a Trade Show is based on a short-term versus long-term objective. As one industry veteran observed: "Do you approach trade shows with a tangible 'turnover numbers' goal, or with a 'meaningful contacts made' goal?"

According to Gruenberger Diamonds, a US and Belgium-based diamond wholesaler: "Traffic is clearly up from last year. More significantly, the attendees are primarily retailers this year - and less dealers or brokers from 47th Street looking for a quick bargain". People are buying for stock rather than looking for a random ‘great deal’ to resell (as dealers).

Buyers are very subjective in their quest for quality. "We have seen that buyers are seeking higher-quality and more exact specifications in a shift toward selectiveness - even on lower-priced items, or even more so on the lower-priced items", is the explanation.

Many attendees had mostly prearranged their visit, with meetings set and specific people to see, rather than random browsing. Focus was the predominant theme, rather than curiosity. According to Pink Diamonds, a high-end jewelry manufacturer from California: "It doesn't matter so much how many pedestrians are in the show - if you plan to meet your customers, you have your meetings, like any show." Founder Sam Azemoon stressed that a Trade Show is also for advertising, and presenting your brand and identity, and not only to reach a target for "at-the-show sales numbers".

In general, the consensus was a "vast improvement over last year," said Maidi Corp, a US-based specialist in high-end fancy colored diamonds. "The US Market is improving and moving toward the direction where it used to be, but we still have a way to go". They joined in the recurring observation that people are now attending trade shows to buy, rather than out of simple curiosity.

Diamonds were not the only gems at the show. There was a clear focus on non-diamond materials, e.g. coral, cubic zirconium, semi-precious stones, beads, silver, etc. In the fashion designer pieces the emphasis was more on the unique design of the piece than on the commodity component of the jewelry. This was attributed to a more price-conscious consumer who would rather pay less for a unique item than pay more for a "high-value" item.

One company who is no stranger to such a shift in price-trend is A.V. Diamonds, a very large-scale Texas-based low "price point" jewelry manufacturer. According to A.V., customers are looking for "a larger look for a lower price". Even displaying items with a $129 price-point made of melee that gives a ‘one carat look’. "The larger diamonds sought after are of lower quality, because that's what consumers look for."

Although gold with diamonds still is, and will remain, crucial in the major US markets and in Canada, silver has grown much quicker than expected. In the Midwest USA and outside of NY there is increased demand for sterling silver with diamonds, and much less on higher-end pieces. "Three years ago we only would bring one tray of silver jewelry to a trade show," said an executive from A.V. Diamonds, "But today it makes up almost half of what we do (in volume)".

One might observe that manufacturers are able to redefine jewelry based on what can or cannot sell the diamonds. Lower priced diamonds can be set in a cheaper base-metal since the selling point of that piece is the diamond content.

Higher priced diamonds would be needed for the more designer or fashion pieces (to maintain the quality level), but this prohibitively increases the cost of such pieces. - Hence we are seeing other materials such as coral, semi-precious stones, or even those with no stone-component at all.

Christmas in July?

A new Unity Marketing study of the gifting market shows capitalizing on early gift shopping may be the best hedge against consumer uncertainty for holiday 2010

The weather outside is frightfully hot for most of the country, but retailers are hoping the shopping inside is
delightful. While Christmas in July sales have long been an obvious way to inject a marketing event into the summer, this year an increasing number of retailers are jumping on board. Sears, Kmart, Toys ‘R’ Us, Target, QVC, and Shop NBC are all doing Christmas in July promotions, and there is reason to think that this is a smart move in
this economy.

According to Gifting Report 2010: The Ultimate Guide to the Consumer Gift-Giving Market, a new in-depth report on gfting patterns and behavior, two-thirds of all shoppers who give Christmas gifts started their shopping for Christmas 2009 before Thanksgiving. Only one-third started shopping on Black Friday or after.
“Encouraging shoppers to start holiday gift shopping early is going to be especially important this year,” says Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing and author of the new report. “The retail environment is really dicey this year with shoppers continuing to express uncertainty about spending.”

Prospects for holiday gift shopping signal challenging retail environment ahead

Danziger points to Unity Marketing’s July 2010 survey among 1,349 affluent consumers — the nation’s ‘heavy lifters’ when it comes to shopping — which finds that they are holding their own spending steady, with feelings about future financial health of the country declining. Nearly half of all affluent consumers (46 percent) expect
their spending to remain constant over the next twelve months, with just 30 percent expecting an increase. Although these numbers are improved over those from the depth of the recession, they have remained flat for two quarters, indicating that affluent consumers are not growing more confident.

“Retailers can’t afford to be over-confident that the shopper is going to come back in a big way this year,” Danziger says. “If affluent consumers are feeling uncertain about the future, then we can be sure that middle-income shoppers are equally or more unsure. For these shoppers, it may well be more palatable to start nibbling at their holiday gift shopping early rather than waiting for closer to the holidays, when financial conditions may be worse.”

“A large majority of shoppers have started their Christmas shopping long before the traditional beginning of the Christmas shopping season. We advise marketers to start their promotion of Chrsitmas gifts early – some 22 percent of shoppers work on their Christmas shopping throughout the year,” Danziger says.

“This doesn’t mean that Christmas trees should show up in stores on Memorial Day; that is off-putting to many and may well drive prospective shoppers from the store. However, fun promotions like ‘Christmas in July’ and ‘Buy One, Stash One’ events will get consumers thinking about Christmas early and shopping all year long,” Danziger
concludes.

U.S. Chain-Store Sales +4%

U.S. chain store sales this past week rose 4.2 percent compared with one year ago, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and Goldman Sachs. ICSC determined that results reflected easy year over year comparisons and hot weather that drove consumers into the air conditioned malls and shopping centers.

Weekly chain store sales increased by 1.4 percent compared with the previous week. "Retailers experienced a decent spurt in sales this past week following last week's decline," said Michael Niemira, ICSC director of research and chief economist. "However, over the last two weeks, the seasonally-adjusted sales performance was relatively flat."

For the month of July, ICSC maintains that chain store sales will increase between 3 percent to 4 percent on a comparable store basis, whereas sales dropped 5 percent one year ago.

Scientists' work improves odds of finding diamonds

Kevin Burke, professor of geology and tectonics at UH, and his fellow researchers describe these findings in a paper titled "Diamonds Sampled by Plumes from the Core-Mantle Boundary," appearing July 15 in Nature, the weekly scientific research journal.

Burke's team found that kimberlites, which are rare volcanic rocks that include diamonds, owe their origin to occasional pulses of hot mantle rock - called mantle plumes - that have risen through the entire thickness of the Earth's mantle from deep down next to the core, or innermost part, of the planet. This core/mantle boundary lies at a depth of about 2,000 miles. While the idea there might be mantle plumes rising from the core/mantle boundary was first suggested about 40 years ago, it is only within the past few years that evidence of plumes coming all the way from this boundary to the Earth's surface has been clearly demonstrated by Burke's group.
"Our approach is new, because it combines observations of the Earth's deep interior from seismology with evidence of how tectonic plates have moved about on the Earth's surface during the past 500 million years," Burke said. "I have been interested in mantle plumes from the core/mantle boundary since they were first hypothesized in 1971. About 10 years ago, I realized there might be a link between the seismically defined structure at the core/mantle boundary and volcanic rocks at the Earth's surface that had been suggested to be linked to mantle plumes. I immediately realized how the existence of that link could be tested, and it was then that I came in contact with Trond Torsvik in Norway, who proved to be uniquely qualified to carry out the required tests."

Torsvik, a professor at the University of Oslo in Norway, and Burke developed the conceptual ideas for this research. Additional members of the team were Bernhard Steinberger at the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam in Germany, and Lew Ashwal and Sue Webb from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. The research consisted of applying and interpreting the results of mathematical analysis, much of it applying spherical geometry to the Earth's surface, to publicly available data-sets put together mainly by Ashwal, Webb and Torsvik.

The present structure of the Earth's mantle has been increasingly understood by researchers in seismology during the past 25 years, and Burke and his colleagues' work has helped confirm the seismologists' results. The work of the Burke group, however, also describes the structure as it was in the past, revealing the history of deep mantle structure over the geologically long period of 500 million years. That, Burke said, is new.

"Establishing the history of deep mantle structure has shown, unexpectedly, that two large volumes lying just above the core/mantle boundary have been stable in their present positions for the past 500 million years," he said. "The reason this result was not expected is that those of us who study the Earth's deep interior have assumed that, although the deep mantle is solid, the material making it up would all be in motion all the time, because the deep mantle is so hot and under such high pressure from the weight of rock above it."
As for how this improves the odds of finding these precious gems, Burke explained that geologists interested in diamonds have known for more than 50 years that rare diamond-bearing kimberlite volcanic rocks are highly concentrated in ancient cratons within areas of the Earth's continents. This has concentrated the search for diamond-bearing rocks within an area amounting to no more than about 10 percent of the entire area of the world's continents. The new work has shown that most of the kimberlites have been erupted into one or the other of those old cratons only under certain conditions. These findings will enable the search for diamonds to be further concentrated.

Ultimately aiming for a better integrated understanding of how the solid Earth of the crust and mantle works, the group hopes to obtain further results within months. They hope to better establish how plate motions at the Earth's surface have evolved over the last 500 million years and how to work out just how those movements have related to both the stable and the moving parts of the Earth's mantle during the same interval.

Provided by University of Houston

GEMS TV BUYS 32% OF JEWELRY TELEVISION

Singapore-based Gems TV Holdings Ltd., the parent company of defunct retailer Gems TV, has finalized the purchase of 32.7% of one-time on-air rival Jewelry Television.

According to National Jeweler, Gems TV invested $60 million in cash, inventory and assets of Jewelry Television.

The multimillion dollar investment includes a $10 million cash payment, a $10 million promissory note, about $20 million in jewelry and gemstone inventory, and $20 million in intangible assets, such as proprietary technologies, brand and domain names, nearly 15,000 custom jewelry designs and the Web property ThaiGem.com.

"This transaction represents a positive scenario for both of our organizations," said Jewelry Television CEO Tim Matthews. "The Gems TV investment greatly enhances our balance sheet and enables JTV to fast track our aggressive growth plan with one less major competitor. We will also gain access to proprietary technologies and human capital that represent great value."

Gems TV Chairman Jason Choo said the transaction "allows Gems TV to reinvest the assets and intellectual capital developed since its inception."

U.S. Chain-Store Sales +4%

The July 4th holiday weekend in the U.S. helped to boost retail sales at the chain stores this past week, according to comparable store data released by the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and Goldman Sachs. Same-store sales at chains rose 3.9 percent compared with one year ago. The figure rose by 1 percent from the previous week.

"The lingering hot weather [in the northeastern and midwestern U.S.], as well as a calendar shift, certainly helped to drive seasonal demands on Saturday ahead of the Independence Day holiday," said Michael Niemira, ICSC director of research and chief economist. "Sales for the month are expected by ICSC Research to increase by 3 to 4 percent on a year-over-year basis for the fiscal month of June with bias towards a stronger performance for the month," Niemira added.

The Weekly World Market Watch

United States: Traders are growing in confidence as prices have edged up, although they are hoping for additional increases. Most are still concerned about the economic recovery and that sustained high unemployment will further impact the jewelry market. There is good demand for 0.50-carat, SI goods, while demand for 1.00-carat goods in all categories continues to be strong. High-quality fancy shapes, mainly princess and cushions, are in demand. Retail sales continue to be dominated by bridal goods, with the engagement ring market maintaining a strong level of sales.

Belgium: Trading is stable but quiet, with much of the focus having shifted to Hong Kong in the past week. There were positive reports from the Hong Kong show, though there is some resistance from buyers toward sellers’ asking prices. There is a shortage of certain items, particularly 0.60- to 0.80-carat and 1.50-carat goods, and sales of 0.30- to 0.70-carat goods have slowed. There are also significant supply shortages in the nicer VG+ goods and especially in Triple-EX goods, while demand for larger goods above 3.00 carats has improved.

Israel: Trading quieted in Ramat Gan as is often the case during this time of year. Dealers and manufacturers who went to the Hong Kong show were satisfied with the event, but did not report extraordinary activity there. Some stayed longer to try to make additional sales. There is some expectation of a last-minute push to sell goods before the summer break in August. Overall demand for goods is stable, while demand for 1.50-carat stones has improved. Demand for pointer sizes of 50- to 70-carat stones has slowed in the past week.

India: Activity slowed slightly in polished and rough trading, with reports that prices at the BHP Billiton tender declined, resulting in more buyer resistance to sellers’ asking prices. Many buyers are expecting some correction to balance the high prices observed in the market, while continued instability in the dollar-rupee exchange rate is also contributing to their caution. There remains strong demand for 0.02-carat, J+, SI-pique good, while melee, J+, SI-pique is also a hot category. There is good demand for 1.00-carat goods in all categories, with severe shortages reported in pique goods.

China: The retail and wholesale markets are stable, although trading is subdued, as expected for this time of year. The mood has dropped slightly among retailers, particularly in the south of the country, where rainy weather is keeping consumers away. There is good demand for 0.30- to 1.10-carat, D-J, VVS-SI, GIA-certified and preferably EX-cut stones, while demand is stable for parcel goods in 0.20- to 0.30- carat, H-J, VS-SI categories.

Hong Kong: The market improved in the past week, with the influx of buyers for the June Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair 2010. Buyers at the show eased their resistance to sellers’ asking prices, but there remains a notable gap between the two and there is still a price lag evident between the buying and cutting centers. There was good demand for high-color SI goods at the show and medium- to high-color, VS-SI stones. There is good demand for high-end goods.