A Good Holiday for Gold Hoops, and Other Jewelry Trends

The recent holiday season was never going to be the best ever for the industry, and Mastercard SpendingPulse’s estimate of a 2% year-on-year decline in US jewelry sales was broadly in line with expectations. However, the diamond trade is not monolithic, so in search of more granular anecdotes on the market, Rapaport checked out Jewelers Helping Jewelers (JHJ), a 30,000-member Facebook group that has become a golden source of industry information.

Our finding: The season appears to have been good for a lot of jewelers. Clearly, this is not a scientific survey and only reflects pockets of the industry (mainly independent retailers who like sharing stuff on social media). But it shows there is some optimism out there.

Let’s take a question someone posed to the group on December 24. The post received 97 comments at press time, with many saying their sales for November and December matched or surpassed those of the same period in 2022. One commenter hailed an “awesome Christmas season…[the] busiest ever in our store’s 30-year history.” Another proudly declared having “crushed our record year last year,” while a third said the season had “exceeded our expectations.”

A few were less positive. One jeweler’s sales for the year were “off bad,” and it was “time for a new strategy [in] the coming year.” Another pointed out that 10 of the store’s top spenders from the last two years spent half of what they did a year ago. Some observed that sales between September and November were down from 2022 but caught up during December.

Another post on JHJ revealed a noteworthy strong seller for the period: gold hoops, which seemed to be the most requested item. Some had completely sold out or “couldn’t keep them in stock.” Natural and lab-grown diamond stud earrings were also popular, as were diamond tennis bracelets and — little shock here — engagement rings, of both the natural and lab-grown varieties.

As for diamond cuts, elongated cushions and radiants between 1.5 and 2.5 carats appeared to get a lot of traction.

One surprising winner of the season, based on the posts, was the ankle bracelet, with a few saying they had an unusual number of requests for these podal adornments. Another jeweler had several customers ask for lockets, noting that this trend only began a few weeks ago.

Overall, there were happy jewelers this holiday. It remains to be seen whether the wider industry reports this level of positivity.