At long last, it appears we will have a steady supply of lab blue diamonds going forward.  As such, we are starting to work on setting many of our blue diamonds into various rings and having them photoed to start building the Takara website around these stunning new diamonds.

Here is the first ring ready for sale – this is our top selling Halo Micropave ring, set with a .51ct Fancy Vivid Blue diamond (lab grown center, natural white sides).

Takara lab blue diamond set in Halo ring

The center blue diamond is actually an I1 clarity, which normally we do not accept – however, we made an exception given the beauty of the diamond and the fact that the three C’s of colored diamonds are: Color, Color and color.   Clarity is not a major factor since the appeal of the diamonds is the color, which also masks inclusions (think of a dark spot on a blue background vs. a white background).  Of note – the most valuable colored diamonds are red diamonds (blue is second) and virtually all red diamonds are I1 or lower clarity.

The ring is stunning in person – we are actually hoping to try and get a video of the ring as well before it sells. 

Pricing on this ring is $2495 and details on this lab blue diamond ring are here.

Based on customer requests, we have expanded our selection of pure platinum martini stud earrings to include larger sizes.

Specifically, we’ve added 2.50ctw (2 x 1.25ct) and 3.00ctw (2 x 1.50ctw), sizes suitable for when you want to dress to impress.

Our martini earrings in platinum continue to be our best selling jewelry item – details are here

Asha Martini Stud Earrings

We have had significant spike in demand for our Asha 4mm (.25ct) rounds recently (for tennis bracelets, necklaces, etc).

The bad news is we restocked last week and promptly sold out of all of them the very same day, plus had some unhappy emails as a result of those who were not able to purchase.

To improve things, we are now working on the largest batch of 4mm rounds we’ve ever done, and as a result of the unprecedented volume, we are achieving some economy of scale savings.

Thus, the good news is we will be restocking these in December at the new lower price of $36/stone (vs. $48 previously)…or savings of $12/stone. They will be the standard F/G color, v6.

Our Asha H&A round simulated diamond page is here:
http://betterthandiamond.com/diamonds/asha/round.php

We’re pleased to  announce that DiamondBistro.com (our free site sponsored by BetterThanDiamond for buying/selling used jewelry and fashion items) has been growing rapidly.

Traffic is up 40% vs. two months ago, with the site now averaging 1,400 unique visitors  per day.  We’ve received feedback that its better than the largest classified/auction sites specifically for jewelry items due to no cost for selling items, and a much more targeted demographic (jewelry lovers!). 

Take a peek and see what its about:  http://DiamondBistro.com

We’ve received our monthly financials back from our accounting firm, and are pleased to note that August sales set a new August revenue record for BetterThanDiamond.

Sales were up +18% vs. August, 2008 and set a new monthly revenue record for August sales for our company.

We are continuing to work on additional jewelry offerings as well as our upcoming all-new website with a number of enhancements to improve your shopping experience.

With our cushion cuts selling extremely well, we have now added an the antique cushion cut as an additional option for those who want a more vintage look.

Asha Antique cushion cut

More details on our new antique cushion cut page here:

http://betterthandiamond.com/diamonds/asha/cushion_antique.php

Our free site for buying and selling your jewelry (DiamondBistro.com…think Ebay for jewelry but free) has been upgraded with a number of new software improvements. 

The most notable change is that when clicking on the thumbnail for viewing the larger photos of an item, it will now pop up in full size and then allow you to simply scroll through all the photos and each photo will resize to its full view automatically. 

This definitely makes for a smoother viewing experience.

We should note that DiamondBistro.com has been experiencing impressive traffic growth, jumping nearly 300,000  places on Alexa’s traffic ratings recently.  Hopefully the improved software will continue that trend.

Please visit http://DiamondBistro.com to see the upgrade in action.

We’ve received our latest financials from our accounting firm and are pleased to announce that we had record sales in July. Total sales revenue increased 23% vs. July 2008 and was the highest July sales revenue ever for BetterThanDiamond.

In order to keep up with our growing sales revenue, we are currently working on a completely revamped web site and ecommerce system to include features such as live inventory and multi-currency options for our international customers.

The only downside from the record sales is that we have already sold out of our 1.5ct Princess cuts but have another larger batch in process for a September restock.

The Asha cushion cut has seen an extremely impressive growth in sales – as a result we recently sold out in July of the most popular sizes (2ct and 3ct).

We’re thus pleased to note that we have restocked all of the cushion sizes as of yesterday after completing a new run. 

Asha cushion cut in the sun

Our cushion cut page with additional photos, details and pricing is here:

http://betterthandiamond.com/diamonds/asha/cushion.php

DeBeers reported last week that its first half profits declined -99% to approx. $3M on sales of $1.4 Billion.

They have indicated things are improving however, and note that there have been no new major diamond deposits discovered in over 10 years…the implication being that when demand does return to normal, demand will quickly outstrip supply.

Full article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/24/debeers-results-diamonds-recession-impact