Breakfast may be at Tiffany’s, but those who purchase fine jewelry are increasingly going for cocktails elsewhere — logo-flashing cocktail rings, that is.
Branded jewelry designers such as Ralph Lauren Corp. (RL), Gianni Versace SpA and Salvatore Ferragamo Italia SpA. (SFER), as well as celebrity jewelers, are dimming the luster of the famous New York high-end retailer, Bloomberg reports.
“Branded jewelry sales will double to 30 percent of the $59.2 billion U.S. fine jewelry market in the next decade, said Ken Gassman, president of the Jewelry Industry Research Institute. The new entrants are competing with Tiffany & Co. (TIF) — which last month cut its annual profit forecast for the third time this year — and may further decimate the thinning ranks of specialty jewelers,” the article notes.
The holiday period generates 30 percent of jewelers’ annual sales, the Washington, D.C.-based National Retail Federation told Bloomberg.
“New York-based Tiffany said Nov. 29 that sales growth at stores open at least a year in the Americas shrank to 1 percent in the third quarter from 15 percent in the same period a year earlier. The 54 percent premium that investors were willing to pay for Tiffany shares over the Standard & Poor’s 500 Consumer Discretionary Index in mid-2011 has all but vanished, according to data compiled by Bloomberg,” the article says.
For fashionistas who traffic in big-ticket gems, of-the-moment jewels to flaunt have become more popular than treasures to pass down through the family. We, however, would not be disgruntled if a Tiffany Blue box appeared under our Christmas tree.
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