Jewelry and Diamond Market Report Reveals US Jewelry Market Declined in July, But Finds Significant Growth Areas

After a fantastic two-year run, jewelry and diamond sales have started to cool down, losing steam as the world enters a post-COVID period. jewelry sales always tend to slide in June and July, but this year we see that some jewelry items were in exceptional demand.

Since the COVID outbreak in February 2020, consumer demand leaped to new highs and during the first half of 2022, sales started higher year over year.

However, as the months went by, consumer demand softened until it fell below 2021’s levels.

Jewelry Sales Continued to Decline in July, High-End Soared

According to Tenoris, July jewelry sales were characterized by a year-over-year decline in sales, including in bridal jewelry.

The large exception was high-end jewelry, which posted handsome gains, as did fashion rings.

The total value of finished jewelry sold in July was down 8%, and unit sales fell 13.5% from July 2021. Year-to-date retail value rose 9.1% YoY after a strong start of the year.

The strength of the market remains at the high end, where items priced $50,000 to $100,000 posted a 12% increase in value and units sold. Consumer demand for bracelets and earrings drove the bulk of these gains.

Bridal jewelry sales continued to decline, down 16% by value. Notable is the 18% fall in diamond-set bridal jewelry, down 18% YoY.

bridal jewelry set with lab-grown diamonds, however, witnessed an 81.7% rise in sales, grabbing an 8% diamond jewelry share of sales in July.

High-end fashion rings, priced $5,000 and higher, did exceptionally well. Popular gemstones included diamonds and sapphires.

Diamond Demand Flat, Prices Cool, LG Grabs Market Share

Loose polished diamond prices continued to regress together with the decline in sales. Retailers responded by reducing their own diamond purchases.

Overall, polished diamond retail prices declined 3% month over month. Yet, they were 9% above their prices in July 2021.

The deepest declines were seen in narrow size ranges such as 2.50–2.74 carats and 1.50–1.59 carats. On the other hand, retail prices of 1-carat round natural diamonds rose 0.5%.

Month over month, the quantity of diamond sales were practically flat, up just 0.2%, but compared to the previous year, retail sales fell nearly 12% as unit sales declined 12.7%.

This led specialty retailers to limit purchases as much as possible. Diamond purchases by retailers nosedived, with unit purchases sinking 64% on a month-over-month basis.

Despite that, wholesale purchase prices remained stable.

For lab-grown, average retail and wholesale purchase prices continued their ongoing declines. This was true compared both to June of this year and year over year.

At the same time, interest in lab-grown keeps rising resulting in a growing market share grabbing as much as a third of loose diamond sales by value in July.

Are you interested in how our trends break down on a jewelry item by item basis or do you need detailed lab-grown data? Would this data be invaluable in your decision making? We can answer these and many other questions related to the diamond and jewelry economy.

For more details on the specific data behind these trends, please contact us.