7/1/2023 0 Comments Fire and brilliance bbbSeeing the disconnect between the rational focus of diamond shopping and the customers’ emotional intentions, Hearts On Fire (HOF) founders’ Glenn and Susan Rothman recognized the opportunity to transform the entire diamond retailing process around its customers’ emotional needs. So the left-brain-dominated jewelry retailing strategy, especially perpetuated by brands like Blue Nile, is disconnected from customers’ ultimate romantic intentions. At its heart, buying a diamond engagement ring is a totally emotional decision. A rational, left-brain perspective for buying a diamond engagement ring makes no sense at all. Nonetheless, Blue Nile is successful as an exclusively online retailer, designed for, and appealing to, how the Millennial generation seemingly prefers to shop.īut let’s face it. Thus the Blue Nile process of shopping for, and buying a diamond engagement ring, largely becomes an unemotional rational decision, like the one used to buy a television, a lawnmower or a power drill. The net/net is that Blue Nile, just like the traditional jewelers before them, have made customers think that the only difference between one rock and another is to be found on the specs sheet – how it measures on the 4Cs grading scale. Blue Nile plays to the strengths of computer technology to catalog its massive collection of diamonds’ 4C ratings and let the buyer compare the specifications of each side-by-side, along with the price. The traditional, and largely negative jewelry-shopping experience gave online retailer Blue Nile the perfect “in” to disrupt the diamond engagement ring business. The whole diamond buying experience, while it should be a joy that celebrates the coming wedding, can be such an ordeal for the customers that it can forever turn them off from crossing the threshold of a jewelry store. Like their grandfather and father before them, today’s Millennial diamond buyer must get indoctrinated into the mysteries of the 4Cs used to grade diamonds – carat, cut, clarity and color. To make matters worse for the diamond buyers, couples have to do a significant amount of research before they even dare to approach the retail counter to look at rings and stones. Even in the best-of-the-best jewelry stores – whether it is Tiffany’s or Cartier’s, or the local family-owned jewelers down the block – jewelry stores are more similar than different. Yet shopping for that diamond in a jewelry store today is not all that different from the way it was for their parents’ Baby Boomer generation in the 70s and 80s, or their grandparents’ post-war generation in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Today’s prime target market for diamonds and bridal jewelry are the Millennials, the leading edge of which turns 34 this year. So Millennials’ shopping process becomes blended – 50 percent is ‘new age’ and 50 percent is tradition.” Rich Pesqueira, Vice President Sales and Business Development, Hearts On Fireįor each succeeding generation, or at least since 1947 when DeBeers’ told consumers that “A Diamond Is Forever,” buying an engagement ring has been a rite of passage in adulthood. But buying a diamond engagement ring is a tradition-bound, emotional purchase, which makes it unique. “Millennials shop in a very next generation way for things like cars or tablets.
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