Diamonds & Engagement Rings News

Four years ago Ebay was taken to court by Tiffany & Co. for allowing Ebay members to sell fake brand name jewelry.

After being in legal battle for such a long period of time, Judge Richard Sullivan from the US district Court in Manhattan has finally ruled that Ebay had acted just fine.

Tiffany believes that Ebay is required to watch for trademarked and copyrighted material and should have removed it immediately. Ebay has disagreed and held that it was not liable for such listings unless the trademark proprietor itself reported it. Judge Sullivan made a decision that US law does not call for proactive removal.

The 66-page ruling is quoted: “The law demands a specific knowledge as to which items are infringing and which seller is listing those items before requiring Ebay to take action, the result of the application of this legal standard is that Tiffany must bare the ultimate burden of protecting its trademark.”

Another recent situation, which occurred this spring with a German court, that ordered the online auctioneer to ensure and stop the sale of fake Rolex watches.

Ebay feels that the Tiffany suit should have never happened and states, “While today’s decision is a victory for consumer choice, it is a shame that so much effort has been wasted when Tiffany could have worked with Ebay to more effectively fight counterfeits. Ebay will continue to lead the industry with innovative solutions to stop the sale of counterfeits.”

             “An economic forecast is only good if everything stays the same.” 

            The economy’s impact on jewelry can be studied once there is a clear picture of the overall economy. After much analyzing of the present economy, we find a drop in March, of 64.5 points in the Consumer Confidence Index. It has been the lowest figure in 26 years.

Gas prices keep increasing and are now heading to $4 a gallon. As the U.S. dollar stays weak and oil prices and the threat of inflation continue to increase, gold continues to increase as well. During March, gold reaches an amount of $1,038 per ounce, attaining a record but then falls below $1,000, which offers no prediction. There are those economists who say there is supposed to be a decline and others who feel they are in one already. The rate of April’s unemployed people is supposed to be higher than March. Consumers have started cutting down on spending, now giving recovery a greater chance.           

  This downfall of the economy is obviously affecting the jewelry industry as well, raising the amount of gold, diamonds and silver. Therefore, customers are forced to cut back on luxuries, while companies try to be kept from closing down.        

    Even when such extreme downfalls occur, jewelers just find it an “annoying part of the scene- been there done that.” Some jewelers, who tried and succeeded in taking the safer approach, cut down on payrolls, while others were forced to close down their companies all together due to bankruptcy.     

        During today’s society the Web has becomes a vital part of any marketing mix. The Internet has developed into the very source to almost anything that is done around the world. Whether it is, buying, selling, trading, communicating, browsing or anything else.

This is where we come in! Diamonds on Fifth makes it easier by having access to gold, diamonds, silver, engagement rings, loose diamonds, and more over the Internet. By having a website automatically, our company gets less affected by the outrageous downfall allowing our customers to continue shopping at the same steady costs.    

The Softbank 823SH phone ranges in a lot of different colors and styles for bits of animals to diamonds.

Never a place of disappointment, Japan has been even odder than usual this week, with not just a platinum encased PC released, but also with a mobile phone.

People believe that the PC is just a publicity stunt and they doubt it even exist; however the phone covered in diamonds is actually for sale courtesy of Softbank Mobile.

Softbank is offering its Premium Texture 823Sh hand set for sale in a batch of 10.

The mobile phone is covered in 400 tiny lose diamonds from Tiffany Japan, making it more of a show piece and will most likely end up in a show case than in someone pocket.

More appealing, however are its less garish siblings that come with a choice of front panels made of everything from wood to pink crocodile skin.

Thinking of selling diamonds or engagement rings on Craigslist Read this first.

SEATTLE — A Snoqualmie mother helped police in the arrest of a man Monday who is accused of stealing people’s engagement rings, reported KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.

Janet Barto said her son Brad had his engagement broken and wanted to sell the ring on the Craigslist Web site.

She said a man claiming to be a diamond broker purchased the ring for $5,200 but his check turned out to be a forgery.

An angry Barto started contacting others on Craigslist to warn them. One person said he was contacted by a similar man, so Barto had the Web site user set up a meeting with the man and then contacted Snoqualmie police.

The man and the alleged ring thief were set to meet at a Starbucks in lower Queen Anne while undercover police waited inside the building as well as outside in a truck in a nearby parking lot.

The police had waited 45 minutes when a man wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase arrived. The victim, Brad, identified the man and the task force moved in and arrested him.

The man could force fraud and forgery charges in court on Tuesday.

Investigators said they found several diamonds on the man but none of them was Brad’s.

Police said other victims may come forward.

Retail jewelry Web sites trailed only cosmetics and consumer goods in category growth from unique visitors during the month of December, an analysis by ComScore Inc. reveals.

As consumers rushed to complete their holiday gift lists online, the analysis showed that fragrance and cosmetics sites experienced a 30 percent increase in the number of unique visitors between November and December, followed by consumer-goods sites with a 23 percent increase, and jewelry, diamonds, luxury goods and accessories sites with a 22 percent increase, to 24 million unique visitors.

            Early this November retail sites saw the biggest rush in online traffic with jewelry, luxury, good and accessories. With November showing the start of the holiday season, online customers, comparison-shopping engine and discount sites experienced a flood of visitors.

            Moshe from Diamonds on fifth says: “With the sub-prime melt down and high gas prices having and impact on retail spending, consumers are doing their research and searching for the best deals online.” 

 There are many other departments stores that their customers also experienced traffic increases such as Target corp. with nearly 42 million visitors in November (up to 35 percent), followed by Wal-Mart with nearly 40 million visitors (up 54 percent) and J.C penny with 18 million visitors (up 37 percent). More than 2 million consumers have given the company permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing.

Surroundings with big buildings, color, light and thousands of people in NYC you come along a block called

. It’s between fifth and sixth Avenues. This is where all diamonds are bought, sold, and cut. (ect). It all happens here!

 Since this place is so busy, video cameras cover the area like no tomorrow. Their are police in the street and private hired security that watch the shoppers and pedestrians.

 At Diamonds on Fifth it is so exciting because you could save up to 50% by shopping online, then go to the salon to view the diamond and have the benefit of the internet price and being able to see the diamond for yourself. In the early 40’s Fleeing anti Semitism as the German army approached the diamond centers of Antwerp and Amsterdam landed in New York, they were experts in cutting, selling, and polishing Diamonds.

Back in the day

was a part of the cities garment district. 65 years went and the one block area became

there is 35,000 people on the block, and 25,000 more that support its businesses. Diamonds on Fifth is one of the most fascinating diamond businesses out there. They’re nice, reasonable and love to work with their customers with anything you need.

More than $22 billion has been spent online during the holiday season to date (Nov. 1-Dec. 14), representing an 18 percent increase compared with the same period last year, according to ComScore Inc.

Monday, Dec. 10, or “Green Monday,” a term recently coined by eBay to describe the second Monday in December as the heaviest online spending day of the season, may well live up to its billing. Online sales reached $881 million that day (up 33 percent versus a year ago), marking the heaviest online spending day in history.

“Despite the strong surge in spending we observed at the beginning of last week, with both Monday and Tuesday easily surpassing $800 million in sales and showing very strong growth rates, the remainder of the week saw more modest spending,” ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said in a statement. “However, we anticipate that spending at the beginning of this week will again be strong with most free shipping deals available until Tuesday, Dec. 18.”

According to ComScore, two other individual shopping days this holiday season have also surpassed $800 million in online sales, including Tuesday, Dec. 11, with $819 million, and Thursday, Dec. 6, with $803 million. Wednesday, Dec. 5, came in just shy of that threshold with $798 million in online spending. Monday, Nov. 26, or Cyber Monday, considered the kickoff day for the online holiday shopping season, saw $733 million in sales.

ComScore’s analysis of online spending by household income reveals that this year’s 18 percent online retail spending growth rate is well below the 26 percent growth rate seen at the same time last year. While households earning at least $100,000 have increased their online spending 28 percent versus a year ago, households making less than $50,000 have increased their spending by just 10 percent.

“The current economic realities appear to be having a negative impact on the growth in consumer spending,” Fulgoni said. “From the sub-prime housing meltdown to a decline in home values to higher gas prices and an uncertain stock market, many consumers across all income segments are either feeling the pinch this holiday season or are lacking the confidence to spend at the rate they had in the past. Consumers in lower income segments appear to be the most affected, as evidenced by the sluggish growth in their rate of online spending.”

ComScore Inc. measures the digital world based on a global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given the company permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. ComScore panelists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions.

I came across this artical on MSN please let me know what you think.

Blue Nile’s stock should be on a roll, heading into the holidays with lots of momentum. Instead, the shine is gone. Still, the online jeweler got a nice smooch from Forbes last week. According to the magazine, Blue Nile is selling more engagement rings and wedding bands than Tiffany & Co. — $197 million in bling last year compared with Tiffany’s $186 million. Says Forbes:

“The retail experience just serves to sucker and intimidate the customer, especially men who often feel as out of their depth in a jewelry store as they do inside Victoria’s Secret–no wonder three quarters of Blue Nile’s Internet ice-buyers are guys.”

Oh come on, do men really feel that awkward in a jewelry store? Anyway, that’s beside the point. I want to know what’s going on with this company’s stock. After crossing the $100 mark three weeks ago, the share price has dropped 20% to $80. Are investors feeling jittery before Blue Nile’s Nov. 6 earnings release? 

Even at its lower price, Blue Nile is trading at a huge premium — about 92 times earnings, compared with 29 for Tiffany. The Motley Fool points out that company insiders are dumping stock like crazy. CEO Mark Vadon’s holdings are down some 64% from a year ago.

It’s hard to compare prices for diamonds, but for watches Blue Nile’s prices don’t seem to be that great. I checked out a couple and found them for cheaper on Amazon. This Seiko Coutura watch sold for $297 on Blue Nile and for $244 on Amazon. This men’s Skagen watch sold for $108 on Blue Nile and $71 on Amazon.

Blue Nile’s stock is overvalued and there are enough red flags to put this company in the “avoid” column.