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Forever, and Forevermark


I finally got a look at Forevermark's web site, and everything took forever.  I viewed it on an I-Mac with plenty of speed and memory.  I mention that up front, because this site uses lots of Flash, and it crawls.  Crawls so badly that my browser timed out waiting to load a page.  When it did load, we see a slick, spare site.  The photos are over-Photoshopped, with metal a shade of gray, and diamonds always blue. 

Navigation is clumsy.  When looking at collections, for example, I had to click back five or six pages just to get to the point where I can look at another collection.  There is an app available too (click here), where one can see oneself wearing a piece.  It is a cute gimmick, but not worth the trouble and waiting.  I looked odd wearing a necklace.

No prices are shown anywhere, so it is left to the visitor to go to the retailer locator to find a store.  For the moment, the retailer outlets listed are very few.  The only New York retailer shown is up in Skaneateles.  Very nice, quiet part of upstate New York, but far from any major market.  And clicking on the retailer goes nowhere.  I presume it is supposed to go the the retailer's web site.  So if you live in New York, you have to call the store to see what they have or take a nice drive.  This is old website thinking.  Nobody wants to frustrate consumers like that any more, and De Beers should know better.

The products, in true De Beers style, are simple and not design intensive.  Certainly not exciting, either.  In order to avoid questions about (potentially) non-Forevermark side stones, there aren't many.  Except, as it turns out, where Everlon of two years ago emerges again as a "new" collection named Concordia!  Now I know where Everlon went.  No new ideas?

The site must talk somewhere about sourcing, and the assurances Forevermark offers.  It was not apparent in my crawling around the site, but it must be there somewhere.  I could go on with other comments on how the site does not help its own objectives, but would I be saying anything that De Beers does not already know?

What a disappointment.  This is it after all these years of effort? 

Comments

Peggy Jo Donahue said…
Here is the sourcing info, Ben:
http://www.forevermarkdiamond.com/us/discover/responsible-sourcing
October 7, 2011 at 6:34 PM
Ben Janowski, Janos Consultants said…
Yes, Peggy Jo. Nicely written, but saying little. Just what are the "highest standards"? And which mines are these? I think the intent is commendable. But we know that participating companies source from many places and nobody can be 100% assured on all stones being used. That is an unavoidable fact, as we see in KP's difficulties, and De Beers knows that. Still, the effort is worthwhile.
October 7, 2011 at 11:48 PM
Forevermark said…
Hello Ben, and thanks for your feedback. We are aware of the speed issue and our IT team is looking into it. In the meantime, take a look at our new US website, which addresses many of your points - for example, you can search for jewelry by price. http://www.forevermarkdiamond.com/us
October 13, 2011 at 9:02 AM
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