Good morning. On April 17, QVC Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with $6.6 billion in debt. They sold $434 million worth of jewelry last year, $273 million of it in North America alone. That customer base did not disappear. They are somewhere right now, looking for the next place to find jewelry they love. The question is whether it is going to be you.
THE RUNDOWN
QVC Is Gone. $434 Million in Jewelry Sales Needs a New Home.
QVC Group's bankruptcy filing on April 17 marked the end of a 40-year era in passive jewelry discovery. Customers who bought jewelry through QVC and HSN were a specific kind of shopper: they were not searching for a piece, they were being sold to. They tuned in, watched a host demonstrate something beautiful, and bought it on impulse. That is a customer who responds to story, demonstration, and relationship. That is, incidentally, exactly the kind of customer who walks into a well-run independent jewelry store.
The $273 million in North American jewelry QVC sold last year did not evaporate. Those shoppers are now on Instagram Reels, TikTok Shop, and yes, Google searching for local jewelers near them. John Hardy alone is listed as a creditor owed more than $5 million in the bankruptcy filing, which gives you a sense of who was selling serious product through that channel. If you have not built a discovery path for shoppers who did not already know they were looking for jewelry, this is the moment to start. QVC's collapse is a channel shift, not a customer disappearance.
Natural Diamond Supply Is Structurally Contracting. The Scarcity Story Just Got Real.
On March 26, Rio Tinto permanently closed the Diavik diamond mine in Canada's Northwest Territories, ending 23 years of production and the extraction of more than 150 million carats of rough diamonds. Diavik was Rio Tinto's last diamond asset. The company has now exited the diamond business entirely, following the sale of its Murowa stake in 2015 and the closure of the Argyle mine in Australia in 2020.
The natural diamond supply pipeline is contracting on multiple fronts simultaneously. De Beers has cut production. Alrosa has been sanctioned. Now Rio Tinto is completely out. Meanwhile, lab-grown diamond wholesale prices continue to fall: a 1-carat D/VVS2 lab-grown now trades around $280 to $320. What this creates over the next 3 to 5 years is a genuine scarcity story for natural diamonds that simply did not exist a decade ago. If you have been unsure how to position natural versus lab-grown in your cases, "natural is genuinely rare and getting rarer" is increasingly an honest thing to say to a customer standing at your counter.
JCK Is 11 Days Out. Standard Pricing Starts Tomorrow.
Standard registration pricing for JCK Las Vegas kicks in tomorrow, May 20. The show runs May 29 to June 1 at the Venetian Expo, with the AGTA GemFair, Gems Pavilion, Hong Kong Pavilion, and the new Lifestyle Pavilion opening a day early on May 28. The 2026 keynote is Jesse Itzler on May 30, speaking on risk-taking and building against the odds.
For independent store owners attending, the free JCK Talks education tracks are worth building your schedule around. The AI and analytics session is the one to prioritize: tools driving personalized recommendations are reporting 34% conversion lifts for jewelry retailers early in the data. If you are not making the trip, the floor announcements from May 29 to June 1 will shape what your customers want in Q4. Track show coverage closely and take notes on what the big players are betting on.
The Middle of the Market Is Softening. Your Top Cases Are Doing More Work Than You Think.
Analyst Edahn Golan's most recent work, published in National Jeweler, lays out the K-shaped dynamic now running through fine jewelry retail. Unit sales for pieces priced below $1,500 are contracting. Buyers shopping above that threshold are purchasing more units, not just higher-priced ones. The NRF's forecast reflects the same split: only the top 30% of consumers increased discretionary spending in 2025, while the mid-market pulled back.
The implication for inventory strategy is clear. The middle of the market is a harder place to compete than it was two years ago, and your upper cases may be generating more of your revenue than your floor plan reflects. If you are heading to JCK, that is the lens to use when you are walking the floor and deciding what to bring back.
QUICK HITS
De Beers has a new marketing campaign live, leaning hard into natural diamond provenance and rarity. Worth watching how it lands with consumers over the summer bridal push.
An "Ocean Dream" fancy vivid blue-green diamond fetched $17 million at Christie's this month, and a matched pair of 18.38-carat D-color diamonds from Botswana's Jwaneng mine sold for $3.3 million at Sotheby's. The auction market for exceptional natural stones is healthy. The investment narrative for natural diamonds is real and building.
The JSA's 2025 crime report is out, showing a concerning rise in violent incidents at jewelry stores even as overall crime numbers fell. Smash-and-grabs are being replaced by more aggressive tactics. If your security setup has not been reviewed recently, put it on the list before summer.
A major passive-discovery channel just collapsed and released hundreds of millions of dollars in jewelry-buying customers. Natural supply is contracting while lab-grown prices continue to fall. The premium segment is holding while the mid-market cools. Independent jewelers who can tell a story, build relationships, and move upmarket are in a better structural position than the macro would suggest. That is worth keeping in mind this week.
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— Karat Clark, Carats & Coffee