Rapaport Research Report: The Swarovski Premium

Swarovski has managed to maintain prices of its lab-grown diamond jewelry, and sometimes even increase them. The January edition of the Rapaport Research Report asks how.

In an exclusive interview, Peter Widmann, global general manager of Swarovski Created Diamonds, explains how the famous crystal manufacturer has focused on design and branding of finished jewelry rather than the value of the synthetic diamonds themselves. This has enabled the Austrian company to present the category as a luxury product despite the declining prices of lab-grown stones.

Widmann charts the development of Swarovski’s lab-grown collections, which include pieces ranging from around $500 through to $270,000. This comes in the context of Swarovski’s wider efforts to move upmarket and increase its overall average ticket price.

The report compares a selection of Swarovski’s jewelry with benchmark prices to help estimate the brand premium and draws lessons for the rest of the lab-grown sector. It also outlines the company’s strategy and goals for Swarovski Created Diamonds around the world.

As always, the report includes exclusive RapNet data for 0.30-, 0.50-, 1- and 3-carat natural diamonds, including average prices, discounts, inventory by country, and search volume. In addition, it presents the volume of goods moving onto and off the RapNet platform, and the average time it takes them to do so.

If you are a subscriber to the Rapaport Research Report, click here to download the full edition.  

If you are not yet a subscriber and would like to receive the report as soon as it’s published, you can sign up here.

Image: David Polak.