It’s impossible to remember everything that was opined, predicted and discussed about Lightbox when De Beers launched the brand in 2018, but I do remember this.
In an opinion piece published in July 2018, shortly after Lightbox was introduced as fashion jewellery for slightly less special occasions, long-time industry analyst Ben Janowski wrote: “It seems very unlikely that De Beers would go in this direction, jumping into a product that has been attacked by many diamond people, just to pursue this very limited range of fashion jewellery.
He continued: “Spending about $100 million to build a new factory in Oregon could not be justified to sell ‘moments’ jewellery. No one can reasonably believe that this is their short or long term objective … To think that De Beers will not expand the range of this line to include rings and more expensive products is foolish”.
Five years, a $94 million factory and a global pandemic later, Janowski’s prediction has come true, sort of.Last week, a colleague alerted me to the fact that Lightbox is now selling engagement rings, according to the home page of the company’s website, but without any formal announcement prior to the launch.
Lightbox is framing the move as a test, advertised only to consumers in three key markets, Atlanta, Dallas and New York (although anyone in any US state can buy a Lightbox engagement ring from the company’s website).
The test will run for three months and the rings will only be sold on the Lightbox website, the company said.
At the time of going to press, there were 16 diamond engagement rings available on the site, retailing from $500 to $5,000.
Rings set with Lightbox’s regular lab-grown diamonds are priced at the brand’s standard $800 per carat, plus $700 for the 14-karat gold setting. Rings with a halo setting cost an additional $300.
There are also a few 18-karat gold rings set with “Finest” lab-grown diamonds, the name Lightbox has given to its more expensive, higher clarity (VVS) and colour (D, E or F) diamonds.
The company said it is maintaining its $1,500/carat pricing for Finest stones, but has, “not held to a fixed setting price for this test,” adding that it is, “using this period to better understand consumer reaction to different offerings.
After hearing the news of Lightbox’s light launch of engagement rings, I contacted Janowski, who was impressed that I remembered his 2018 article and not surprised that Lightbox was selling, or at least testing the sale of, engagement rings.
When De Beers launched Lightbox, ‘I think they were worried about panicking sightholders’, he said, hence the ‘fun fashion’ introduction.
But, he suspects, the long-term plan was to slowly build up to engagement rings because its other business – mining – won’t last forever.
Currently, De Beers has mines in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Canada, with the lion’s share of production (70 per cent, according to its 2022 year-end production report) coming from Botswana.
There are three active diamond mines in Botswana – Jwaneng, Orapa and Letlhakane – with life expectancies ranging from 13 years (Jwaneng, 2036) to 20 years (Letlhakane, 2043), unless projects are approved that could extend the life of these operations.
De Beers’ current mine with the longest expected life is Mining Area 1 in Namibia, which it expects to operate for at least another 19 years, until 2042. Namibia as a whole accounted for 6 per cent of De Beers’ total production last year.
There are no other major mines coming on stream in the near future, and any new mines that do open will face their own unique challenges – host countries that rightly want a greater share of their country’s natural resources, and increasingly unpredictable severe weather caused by climate change.
“De Beers never thinks in the short term, or they try not to,” Janowski said on Wednesday. “They see that they have a volatile market, a key country partner in Botswana that’s basically going to take over what’s left of the diamond business there.”
“Their mining days are literally fading away. So what are they going to do? What is their business going to be?”The company needs to diversify, which is what it has tried to do with diamond buybacks, and what it is doing with De Beers branded stores and high jewellery collections, and Lightbox.
And if you’re in the business of growing diamonds and you have an efficient operation and you’re building, or at least trying to build, a brand that consumers recognise, why not sell engagement rings?
“I don’t think you can avoid it,” Janowski said. “If you’re going to be in that business, why limit yourself?”Like Janowski, I wasn’t surprised when a colleague texted me last week about Lightbox’s new engagement rings, although it was the company’s little moves that were the big tell for me.
As you may recall, when Lightbox started out, it was a lot of smaller (less than 1 carat) blue and pink diamonds in more fashionable settings. (I have an early Lightbox ring set with a fancy pink diamond; I still wear it regularly and get lots of compliments).
Over time, the company’s production has become bigger, better and more focused.In August 2021, the factory started pumping out 2-carat lab-grown diamonds. That autumn, it began selling loose lab-grown diamonds.In September 2022, Lightbox expanded its selection of loose diamonds to include more fancy shapes that are hot right now.
When Lightbox began selling loose lab-grown round and princess-cut diamonds in the fall of 2021, it seemed the company was working overtime to distance the stones from engagement rings, essentially describing them as intended for custom pieces of fashion jewellery commissioned by female self-purchasers.
In a quote provided by the company, then-CEO Steve Coe used a lot of adjectives to describe Lightbox Loose without really saying anything, describing it as “an easy and accessible way to create fun and affordable custom-designed lab-grown diamond fashion jewellery using our colourful range of stones”.
Although the phrase “engagement ring” was not among the many words that passed Coe’s lips, I wrote in December 2021, after a trip out west to see the finished Lightbox facility, that these loose diamonds “seemed destined for engagement rings”.
And that’s where they are now, at least for a three-month “trial run”.
