A recently released study by the leading consulting house McKinsey & Company, prepared with the support of Business of Fashion, estimated that the ecommerce jewellery market will double in size between 2019 and 2025, attaining a market share 18 to 21 percent of global fine jewellery sales, or $60 to $80 billion in annual turnover.

The industry is at an inflection point, and almost certainly undergoing its most comprehensive transformation in living memory. And while the process of change has been inevitable, it has been accelerated considerably by the COVID-19 pandemic, as companies scrambled to develop online capacity in order to survive the lockdowns that were widely imposed at the start of the crisis.

The shift to digital business environments has been pervasive, permeating all stages of the value chain and almost all jewellery, gemstone and precious metals sectors. It is also disruptive, rendering certain business models obsolete, while providing a range of new opportunities and capabilities to those who have the capacity and acumen to thrive according to the new sets of rules.

The webinar on July 22, 2021, was the season finale for CIBJO’s Jewellery Industry Voices second series. Entitled “Digital Strategies: Navigating Jewellery’s Most Promising Frontier,” it considered alternative approaches for doing business online, drawing on the knowledge and experience of four leading experts.

The panellists included Tyler Harris, Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company, who leads the leading consulting house’s global perspective on fine jewellery and was one of the authors of the above-mentioned report; Mahiar Borhanjoo, CEO of UNI Diamonds, an operator of a groundbreaking online ecosystem that connects between vendors and buyers, securing the sale and safe delivery of polished diamonds anywhere on the globe; Alan Chan, General Manager of the Group Branding Centre of Chow Tai Fook Jewellery, the largest jewellery chain in China and Hong Kong; and Mithun Sacheti, Founder and Managing Director of CaratLane, India’s largest omni-channel jeweller.

The seminar was co-moderated by Edward Johnson and Steven Benson, and CIBJO President Gaetano Cavalieri welcomed participants.