See Online Magazine
https://labgrownmagazine.com/Issues/February2021/
The Tide Is Turning for LGDs
For those of you who watched the Diamond
Roundtable webinar on January 22, Lab-
Grown Magazine was represented by our features
writer, Dan Scott, who gave a powerful
argument for the reasons why lab-grown and
mined diamonds should peacefully co-exist for
the benefit of both sectors.
In case you missed it, it is being replayed on:
facebook.com/LabGrownDiamondMagazine
Lab-grown diamonds continue to make the
news, but recently the news was a bit topsyturvy.
According to the gem laboratory GSI
(Gemological Science International), they
have found natural diamonds mixed in with
lab-grown melee. While the industry has
been focused on detecting undisclosed LGDs,
especially in melee, the reverse is now happening.
Who would have thought?
Because of this new phenomenon, GSI has
launched a service to test lab-grown diamond
jewelry for undisclosed natural stones.
On a different note, a report by MVI Marketing
estimates that LGDs will go mainstream
relatively soon, with the stone’s growing
popularity with consumers.
As additional testament to the growing popularity
of LGDs, Lightbox recently opened a
new manufacturing facility in Oregon. The
LGD brand made even more news signaling
the co-habitation of mined and lab-grown diamonds
when it signed Blue Nile-one of the
world’s largest jewelry e-commerce sites-as its
first third-party retailer.
In India, a country that is a major supplier of
faceted mined diamonds, the members of the
Bharat Diamond Bourse voted to approve the
trading of LGDs, in a reversal of the BDB’s
ban that was put into place in 2015.
While the tide is clearly turning for labgrown
stones, not everyone is on board. The
other major bourses, such as Antwerp, Ramat
Gan, and others have yet to embrace this trend.
On the other hand, Dubai, one of the world’s
top three diamond-trading hubs, is committed
to growing its lab-grown sector as seen by the
first LGD tender that it held in 2019.
Stay safe as hopefully the nation returns to
more normal times in the coming months.
Zev
Retail Reboot
How Will Your 2021 Load
By Dan Scott
PART ONE OF A TWO-PART SERIES
You’ve had an exhausting day. A day
of juggling a work and home-life hybrid
in the midst of a continuing Covid
struggle. Yet, as the night pushes on, you
must finish an important and detailed email,
a report, or an important project that’s on
deadline. So, you hunch over your computer
screen as a lagging, involuntary yawn reminds
you that sleep is at hand.
Staring at the screen, it feels like you have
been at this for months, but at least you’re on
the last leg of your work, knowing that you
are bound for bed.
Suddenly, your keyboard isn’t functioning.
Your screen freezes. A sense of doom slowly
creeps into your mind. We’ve all been there.
In a human-to-machine seemingly involuntary
reflex, you instantly press the escape button.
That magic upper left key was created for
one reason—to give users an instant escape
from most computer complications.
Alas, pressing the escape button does nothing.
The screen remains frozen. You double,
even triple tap on the “esc” labeled key only
to find there is no escape. At this point, some
may release a primal scream. Others will perform
a finger tap-dancing routine on any or
all the keys in an illogical attempt to regain
control and regain their work. Then, you
know what has to happen: A reboot.
If holding down the power button to restart
fails, your last resort is a hard reboot. You
disconnect all power, then, in a Frankensteinlike
maneuver, you thrust the plug into the
electrical outlet, surging life back into your
inanimate workhorse. The screen lights up
and your fingers race to type your log-in as if
you’re defusing a bomb.
You feel a tinge of panic as you watch the
hopeful process of a rebuild. Will you be able
to recall and re-create? Will you have to? This
temporary but total disconnect of profession-
al and personal control can overheat even the
coolest of heads, especially when the rebuild
fails. Now, the unwelcome task of rebuilding
is at hand.
This metaphor speaks directly to what
Covid has done to us. It’s frozen us in our
tracks. The simple procedures we used to follow
for the flu don’t work. You start to think
of your media spend, clients who are waiting
for projects, deadlines, new business development,
that important lunch date, the winning
business proposal that was finally going to
give you some much needed financial peaceof-
mind. They are all frozen in time. Your
business is forced to reboot, restart, reload.
Covid was sudden, unexpected, unwelcome,
and, like a hard reboot, you just don’t know
what things will look like if and when your
life screen will repopulate as you remember it.
Power Up, Power Through
After any reboot, some people will simply
muddle through. Those individuals will find
the fortitude to move past the problem. They
are typically the ones with ample savings
and may consider Covid a forced but needed
break. Others will fly into a fit of rage upsetting
themselves and people and pets around
them. Still, others will call it fate and call it a
night. Whichever kind of person you are, you
still rebooted.
Some work will remain in the past, maybe
lost for good, and perhaps even some profit.
Maybe a lot of all three. Thankfully, your control
will be restored and renewed at some point.
Yet, when is that end point? No one can define
or guarantee it. While Covid has forced us to
restart, rethink, and relearn, what good is powering
up if you can’t power through?
A computer virus can impede progress and
your own driving sense of positivity. The Covid
virus and the 2020 sustaining hangover we’re
all trying to get through is not easy, but it is
manageable.
I hope you agree that the more you read, the
more you will see that this pandemic may be
seen as a strange blessing in disguise. That’s a
large pill to swallow, but several examples can
give us the knowledge to strategize and apply
new ways of conducting business that just may
be the way we live life.
With retail bankruptcies dotting the landscape
and what may be the start of the end
of economic slowdown by the late Spring or
early Summer, the call for retailers to evaluate
what is and isn’t working for their business
has never been more imperative. And you’ve
never had so much time to carefully plan,
test, and evaluate to determine the best way
to proceed. You may never have this stretch
of time again. Before you know it, herd immunity
could kick in and, within a year, we
would have discarded our masks, feel comfortable
being closer than six feet to people,
and maybe even start shaking hands again.
At the same time, the retail industry as
a whole is at a pivot point in many ways.
Innovative startups abound; consumer behavior
shifts will bounce here and there until
large portions of the population trust in stability
again. And stability is as resilient as it
is everlasting, but it needs us as much as we
need a name to call what we will do as a unit,
a team, a group.
The New King of Retail is Online and
Growing
Many of the once-giants of retail have been
dwarfed—some eliminated—all by a new
retail King. For a small online company that
simply sold books to a $13.4 billion acquisition
of Whole Foods, Amazon went from
non-brick-and-mortar to owning 460 stores
in the U.S., Canada, and Britain nearly overnight.
And let’s not forget AmazonGo. If
you believe the Wall Street rumors, QVC is
in first-round talks with Amazon on a possible
merger of the cable network still afloat
amidst many layoffs in multiple countries
and, of course, QVC.com. Remember, too,
QVC purchased the Number Two home
shopping cable network and online property,
which retained the brand of HSN.
Another rumor is that one of the largest
mall anchor department stores will do an
M&A deal before Q3 of this year. We haven’t
even addressed Prime, offering not only free
shipping but a video network, with some
darn good original programming already using
its own products in the story line.
People often dismiss Amazon as “lesser
than” and not in their wheelhouse of thought
since they think jewelry stores and the items
they sell can’t or won’t compete
with Amazon. To that I ask
you to search branded items
you think you have protection
with—Rolex: Amazon; Graff
Diamonds: Amazon; Gucci
Jewelry: Amazon; Stephen
Webster: Amazon; Tacori: It’s
like their second home. Alex
and Ani? They’re on Amazon.
Offering an endless universe
of what was once a non-concern,
is now a definite concern.
Order anytime, high inventory,
ranges in size and metal type?
Check. One-day shipping?
Check. Easy return policy?
Check. Ability to beat your
mark-up? Check mate.
This is happening while the consumption
habits of Millennials and GenZers (Millennial’s
children aged up to 20) continue to
be conditioned like the rest of us. Type in
some info, press purchase, and move along
with your day. Remember, too, a simple app
on any smartphone will research and suggest
items, allow the purchase online and alert you
via text message in minutes of where to pick
up your selection at a store. Then again, you
may see a jewelry item in a store and buy it
online for a better price or to avoid lines.
Traditional Retail and
Online − It’s Not What
You Think
Non-virtual retail isn’t
dead, nor are stores in malls
(we’ll get to that soon). Study
after study proves consumers
demand more from their reallife
shopping experience. This
is in the form of added convenience,
higher levels of personalization,
and more value.
As customer expectations change,
some diamond and jewelry retailers have
scrambled to success in their catch-up and
keep-up plan. Yet, this is a new game of chess
where the rules seem to shift, and the winner
is always the consumer. They, after all, are
telling us how to stay relevant and profitable.
They spell it out visually in Instagram posts,
clever TikTok clips, and more YouTube videos
that you would ever want to see.
Some streamers take you on their shopping
adventure and stream it live. They are telling
you what they want, how much they will
spend, how shopping with them is, why they
want something, and where they are located.
A merchandiser’s how-to guide is published
thousands of times a minute every hour, every
day, every month. You just didn’t think
to look at it that way. And you can’t say you
don’t have the time to do this research.
It’s a fun way to learn, gather data and in
many ways, actually attract whomever you’re
watching and all of their subscribers and
friends. Hello new database.
Keep reading and you may actually find
yourself excited about this hard reboot.
Doctor’s Orders
A quick heath tip from a top-ranking medical
official of the mind. Dr. Saasi Ghatran,
a celebrated psychiatrist with Mount Sinai
Hospital insists that no matter how bleak
business may outwardly seem, it’s your perception
that creates your own reality. “What
I see (and treat) in New York and Connecticut
are small to mid-sized business owners in
a foot race where no one
knows where the finish
line is. If you put up your
own finish line, you’re the
only one there and others are
racing past. If you just keep
running with no goal, you
end up giving up. Still others
are running in place, which
is like a hamster on a wheel. I
suggest embracing a total reset
by leveraging the fact that more
people are home now more than
ever. Most are bored out of their minds.
Custom concierge services and delivery companies
of all kinds are winning this race, but
they’re not rushing; they are planning and
walking, not running, to opportunism.”
“Consider this: Most of us don’t want to
vocalize it, but we typically produce higher
quality and more streamlined work, the
second or third time we are forced to restart
any task,” adds Dr. Ghatran. Specializing in
mind-over-matter brain control outlined in
her book Reboot Your Mind from Simon &
Schuster available this Spring, her standby
calendar is on standby as she now works
nights and most Saturdays to attend to an
overflow of new patients.
So, what does the good doctor do to help
herself? “Sidetrack stress at all costs. Stress
is a self-perpetuating and highly destructive
mind ‘bug.’ It leads to disjoined conscience
thought and deeply hammers deductive reasoning.
My stress is visualized as trash…
overflowing, stinky garbage I don’t want to
touch, see, or sense. But that trash isn’t going
to take itself out. Like most forms of
depression, stress is avoidable, but we convince
ourselves stress is forced upon us as if
it’s unavoidable. We allow trash to invade our
space. When stress comes to visit, acknow-
ledge its presence, then remind yourself that
you control your mind, it doesn’t control you.
That tends to take the trash out.”
Easy Street Is a Downhill Slide
When pressed for real-life, real-time advice
she offers, “When you are around negative
people, or listening or watching a lesser-thanpositive
podcast, for example, you are pushing
ill-fated audio into your mind. Reboots don’t
have to happen seconds after you unplug. You
can take a break before powering up and you
should try. Think of negativity as ‘Easy Street’
and it’s downhill for a reason. Positive thinking
is no walk in the park, but you’ll get to
the park walking up some inclines. Remind
yourself you control your mind, it doesn’t
control you, not unless you allow it to.”
A final simple tip: A breathing exercise you
can do anywhere, anytime. Exhale all the air
you can; force it out of your lungs through
your mouth like its poison. Then, for the
count of ten, breath in through your nose;
hold that fresh air for ten seconds then release
it for ten seconds through your mouth.
Repeat this as many times as you need, and
you’ll notice your heart rate will decline;
your body temperature will decline; a sense
of calm will surround you; you’ll even think
more clearly since more oxygen will flow to
your brain. That’s when you remind yourself
you are in control.
Stuck in the Middle
The majority of North American jewelry
retail is made of smaller independently operated
doors. These stores are mostly owned
and managed by an aging married couple or
individuals typically close to or in their golden
years. They are often struggling to keep up
with current retail trends or simply stuck in
old habits. “Some have or
are close to calling it quits
as they watch big brands
like Tiffany’s and Rolex
seizing an oversize piece
of what was once independent
market share,”
says Marie Driscoll, managing director of
retail at Coresight Research, a global advisory
firm specializing in luxury retail operations.
“Over the decade, companies like Signet
(Jared, Kays, Zales) have taken larger real
estate footprints and leveraged large media
budgets and perks to bring in and sometimes
retain good people. Many mom-and-pop
shops don’t think they have a reason to exist
and some don’t.”
With all due respect to Ms. Driscoll, America
was founded on mom-and-pop shops and
they still dominate the industry. Those that
have properly rebooted aren’t just surviving,
they’re thriving.
And I’ll demonstrate this in Part 2 of this
story in the March issue of Lab-Grown Magazine.
We’ll look at jewelry retail in two U.S.
states that, minus a huge gap in population,
have similar household incomes and median
ages to compare and contrast.
We’ll look at two completely different types
of businesses and how longevity, staying agile,
creative, and catering to local customers’
desires is always a winning strategy, no matter
what is happening around you.
Part One
Indiana. A state where increased truancy
and runaways are as commonplace as heightened
theft and violent crime. Considered
one of the nation’s most dangerous cities,
Indianapolis recorded 1,288 violent crimes
for every 100,000 residents in 2019, far greater
than the national average of 433 incidents
per 100,000 based on current official data.
In 2020, Indiana’s population is estimated
to be 6.76 million with a median age of 37.9
and median household income of $62,843.
None of that data should point to a “recession
proof” family-run, gem-focused jewelry
store operating for 15 years and counting.
Nonetheless, that’s precisely the positive case
study of Moriarty Gem Art, a small store
with big ideas. In the heart of Main Street
in Crown Point, Indiana, the family staff of
seven had to retool and
rethink during Covid.
America was founded
on mom-and-pop shops
and they still dominate.
Made-for-TV
Moments
Jaws dropped when the
city mandated the immediate
closure of all non-essential stores.
“When we closed our doors, we had to come
up with different strategies to engage our
customers,” says Jeff Moriarty, marketing
manager and eldest son of co-owners Steve
and Nancy Moriarty. “We knew we would
re-open at some point, but when? A month?
Six months? A year? We did everything we
could to continue to bring in sales and stay
top-of-mind.”
That everything focused online. At Moriarty’s
Gem Art, innovation meant creating a
live-streamed gem show. It had been on the
to-do list for 2019, but the staff of seven did
not have the time to produce a show while running
the retail store. Covid-19 changed that.
“About two weeks into the crisis, we started
doing live streams through YouTube,” Jeff says.
They did it to tell stories about gemstones.
Stories that sell gemstones. A lot of stones.
The company advertised the live streams
on its website, by email, and via social media.
Over 1,000 people now watch the two-hour
show every other Wednesday and the numbers
are growing. The best part is that the
numbers are mostly local people.
“Storytelling has always been the best soft
sell,” the Moriarty family states. During the
show, the they highlight a variety of gemstones
from the company’s inventory, such as
an Ethiopian opal similar to the one featured
in the acclaimed 2019 movie Uncut Gems,
starring Adam Sandler. An almost realityshow
tonality is natural to their live streams
where nothing is scripted, nothing is edited.
It’s all live and genuine. They take callers,
answer some tough questions, and try to offer
good honest advice.
“On lab-grown, we’ve stayed on the sidelines,
but many people keep asking about
them, especially colored LGDs,” explains
Nancy Moriarty. “We didn’t think we knew
enough to offer them, but it’s high time to
learn. Our difference is that we don’t set
a lot of finished jewelry since we do nearly
all custom work. But showing loose LGDs
makes more sense for our customers. They
are used to selecting from our loose stones
and then choose a setting, or we’ll create a
special mounting for them. We take the customer
through the thought process and they
love every step. Sometimes, they come and
take pictures and post them on Instagram or
stream live themselves. Why not? They love
the interaction, and it makes for good TV.”
The Best Is Yet to Come
If any portion of this story gives you newfound
hope, wait until you read Part Two in
next month’s issue. A must-read, it is chocked
full of proven success stories in jewelry retail,
with interior photos of locations you may not
even know exist. They are fabulous, productive,
and drawing in traffic like the internet
caught Covid.
Until then, wear your mask, practice social
distancing and please, above all, do not take
the Easy Street exit.
Dan Scott is the founder and brand architect of
Luxe Licensing, a New York/metro marketing
firm with past and current clients, that include
Gucci Jewelry, Harry Winston, Paula Crevoshay
and demi-fine brands. Dan holds the “demi-fine”
trademark for jewelry/watches having created
the term, which is now searched in tens of millions
each day. Selected as New York City’s New
School of Continuing Education and Professional
Development’s latest digital marketing instructor,
Dan enjoys brand and marketing discussions and
welcomes conversation. He may be reached at
dans@luxelicensing.com or + 1.201.294.3697 or
through www.Luxe Licensing.com. ■
