How much do retailers care about diamond industry discord?

I was fresh off Martin Rapaport’s Monday night speech in New York, and his message seemed perfectly timed in light of the latest industry drama: the United States remains the world’s No. 1 market for diamond jewelry. The primary concern of retailers here should be driving future diamond demand, particularly among Millennials.

Initially, I tacked on a paragraph to my blog last week emphasizing Rapaport’s speech and telling retailers they should focus on running their business and ignore all the drama that always surrounds this big, international industry bodies.

But, in one of my typical last-minute waves of writer anxiety, I lopped it off and instead made the piece just an admonishment of the industry bodies that pulled out of the WDC meeting.

Now, I am glad that I did because it led to some interesting feedback.

Anytime we post a story here on National Jeweler, it definitely goes through a vetting process first: Is this germane to our readers? Is it something they need to know?

Not every story is as important or polished as I would like it to be but such is the nature of online journalism. There is one other writer here beside myself and we’ve got 25, sometimes even more, stories to crank out a week.  I do promise, though, that we try to make everything as relevant as possible.

Inevitably, among the mix of stories we select each week are some that involve the industry’s large, international organizations, and I am always torn about their inclusion. I am not sure how much the typical jewelry store owner really cares what the WDC, the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, CIBJO or even the Kimberley Process are doing, to be honest.

After posting last week’s blog, however, I got this comment from a retailer who described himself as a “small town Canadian jeweler”--David Reid of D.M. Jewellers Ltd. in Kentville, Nova Scotia--who stated that he “follow(s) these developments with great interest as they do eventually trickle down to affect my small ‘neck of the woods.’”

I’d like to hear from more retailers on this topic.

Do you feel, like Reid, that the activities of the WDC, the KP and other international bodies impact your business, or is it of no concern at all?

Feel free to comment below or email me at michelle.graff@emeraldexpo.com.