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Lab Grown Diamond Search Stats Reveal Higher Price Points, Fancy Shapes, and Bigger Sizes Gaining Traction | February 10, 2021 (0 comments)
New York, NY—In the six-month run up to engagement season in 2020, VDB (Virtual Diamond Boutique), saw the number of searches for lab grown diamonds triple year-over-year. Image: A search screen for lab-grown diamonds on the VDB app.
VDB, which in addition to its vast B2B database of both natural diamonds and finished jewelry, now has more than 90,000 lab-grown diamonds in its virtual marketplace, helping retailers supplement their in-store inventory.
Analyzing VDB’s search and memo-request data can help retailers, designers, and manufacturers understand larger general trends in the lab grown diamond market. A complete analysis of the topic was presented at the recent Jewelry Ecomm Live conference. Watch the video replay of VDB's session here. Meanwhile, here is a capsule look at what’s trending in lab grown diamonds:
Cut. VDB’s numbers confirm a trend toward more diverse shapes. While round remains the number-one most searched-for shape, searches for traditional round diamonds fell by 25% in 2020, while searches for shapes like oval, emerald, and radiant stones saw significant increases. Requests for memo confirm the trends for oval in particular.
Here are the statistics for lab grown shape searches year-on-year from 2019 to 2020. Some search rates—like radiant and emerald—rocketed, although the actual numbers of searches for those shapes remained well below the more popular round and oval:
- Round searches fell 25% year-on-year 2019 to 2020 from 58.1% of searches to 43.3% of searches.
- Oval searches grew 58% from 9.2% to 14.5% of searches
- Emerald searches grew 69% from 4.2% to 7.1%
- Cushion searches grew 37% from 5.2% to 7.1%
- Radiant searches grew 163% from 1.9% to 5.0%
- Princess and pear shape searches stayed relatively flat, each hovering around 5% of total searches.
The most popular lab grown diamond shapes requested on memo in 2020 were, in descending order, round, oval, emerald, and pear:
- Memo requests for rounds declined 26% year-on-year in 2020, from 57.3% to 42.5% of requests
- Memo requests for ovals almost doubled, from 9.4% of requests to 17.6%.
- Emeralds were down 36%, from 8.8% of memo requests to 5.6%.
- Pears were down slightly, from 8.5% of memo requests to 7.5%.
Carat Weight. VDB’s search data confirms that more people are searching for larger lab grown diamonds, with significant growth in sizes 1.50 carats and above. The most popular lab grown carat weights searched for from June to November 2020 were: 1.0 ct., 2.0 ct., 1.5-2.0 ct., 0.0 -0.49 ct., and 3.0 ct.
Color. The most popular color in actual requests-for-memo of lab-grown diamonds is F, followed in descending order by G, H, I, and E. There was no significant change in this category compared to 2019.
Price. Lab grown search data shows significant increases in searches for higher price points, especially $1,001 to $5,000. Actual requests for memo confirm the “sweet spot” for lab grown diamond retail pricing is between $2,000 and $5,000.
Click here or on the image below to watch the VDB session at Jewelry Ecomm Live.
