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Showing posts from January, 2012

Seven billion and counting - part 3

My wishes to everyone for a healthy and successful 2012.  This holiday season has been most enjoyable around here, highlighted with the Giants making the playoffs!  Let's see how far they go. And let's see how far we go!  The jewelry industry will continue to see profound changes from mining to retailing.  In parts 1 and 2 of this overview, I offered some thoughts on sourcing and retailing.  We know that the exiting of the Oppenheimer family from De Beers signals big changes to come in distribution; we already see that material costs, advancing consolidation and the boom in online sales have deeply affected all retail channels.  But how might manufacturing fare in all this? We have noted that an explosive population growth, and particularly the expansion of the middle class and affluent classes all over the world, must mean that opportunities to sell luxury products of all sorts are growing.  Judging by early reports from luxury retailers, high end sales seem to suppor