It seems even the jewellers are suffering due to the recession, which sales of gemstone jewellery and jewellery in general are down.

The countries that export the gemstones have seen a shockingly sharp decline in the supply and demand for the goods, and as a result the companies are being hit harder than suppliers of more essential items. The larger Jewellery retail companies such as Bulgari and Tiffanis are seeing sale and demand from the two bigger markets, the US and Europe down by about 80 percent during the christmas period, and many jewellers have more concerned about just surviving for the year, rather than making a profit. Many jewellers say that November and December are responsible for forty percent of their yearly takings, and saw a huge decrease in the number of people buying across the range of jewellery available. This saw retailers bring forward their January sales in the run up to Christmas in an attempt to jumpstart their business and gets as much customers through the door as possible. Even diamonds, a girls best friend has seen sales decline, demand ahs dropped and so has the price- but not by too much, as they’re still selling better than gemstones.

In India though it seems that they have found another use for their gemstones, opening their first ‘heat treatment’ centre for coloured gemstones such as rose quartz, turquoise and rubies. Heat treatment is a process where the very extreme heating and cooling methods are used to change the pyshical or chemical process with metals/stones, usually to harden to soften the material. Most heat treatment work was getting sent to Japan, Germany and Thailand, but we can now add India to the list as they compete for heat treatment work.

So the recession has hit, and now the jewellers are going to have to do something to survive in the long run or face bankruptcy – a grim prospect for anyone.

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