The De Beers Group of Companies announced that it would run a programme to gain an enhanced understanding of consumer diamond re-selling activity and the associated consumer experience. The programme is slated to begin in early September 2014 and run into the beginning of 2015. It will be operated in the US with a small number of retailers.

The programme is expected to generate better insights on the scale of consumer re-selling activity and more specifically the consumer experience from those who look to re-sell their diamonds, and its impact on the lasting value benefit of diamond ownership.

The programme will operate out of a new standalone entity, the International Institute of Diamond Valuation (IIDV), based in New York. In order to gain a fuller understanding of how the sector currently functions, IIDV will directly work with participating retailers and thus assess the effectiveness of existing approaches to re-selling and to explore how these could be developed and improved from the consumer point.

Tom Montgomery, Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, De Beers, said, “The practice of consumers looking to sell back their diamonds isn’t new. For the vast majority of people, a diamond is something they keep hold of forever and never look to sell. However, for reasons such as death, divorce or financial distress, some people will always look to re-sell their diamonds. Some retailers have expressed reservations, however, about how the current re-selling experience could impact consumers’ views on diamond equity in the long-term. We believe that the only way to gain a true understanding of diamond re-selling activity by consumers, is to run this small-scale programme to assess how re-selling has developed, how it might evolve and how it impacts upon consumer perceptions of diamonds.”