Retail & Technology
The counter, rebuilt for the next generation
Where the industry meets its customer — and its future. The retail desk covers lab-grown economics, e-commerce and live-selling, traceability tech, AI in the showroom, and the store formats winning buyers who are 24, online at midnight, and allergic to velvet ropes.
At a glance
| Lab-grown 1ct, wholesale mid, 12 Oct | $475 |
|---|
Latest
Luk Fook's self-run Mainland shops post +39% for 1–7 OctoberHong Kong and Macao same-store sales rose 15% that week, and licensed Mainland shops were flat. Chow Tai Fook's filing shows Macao up 47.3% in July to September, against Hong Kong's 24.0%.- Chow Tai Fook names gold-loan gains first in 90–100% profit alertThe jeweller expects half-year net profit to the end of September to rise by that much. Group retail value fell 0.5% in the July to September quarter, RTHK and on.cc report.
- Paspaley sells through 14 US doors and caps new partners each yearThe Australian pearl house told JCK it is deliberately not in 70 doors. It says it produces about 80% of Australia's South Sea pearls and has retailed its own jewellery for over 35 years.
- Census puts September retail sales at $745.0bn, up 0.8%Sales were 6.3% above September 2025. A 28 September annual revision restated August at $739.3bn, against $773.9bn first published, and the release carries no jewellery line.
- NRF forecasts $1.013 trillion of holiday sales, up 4.2%The trade body's November and December projection passes a trillion dollars for the first time, against $972 billion last year. Retailers are expected to make 325,000 to 375,000 seasonal hires.
- Middle West Partners completes its purchase of LuganoThe high-end jeweller leaves Chapter 11 with four of the ten boutiques it had in 2025 open and its interim chief executive made permanent. Six closed during the bankruptcy.
- Rapaport names Yosi Botzer chief technology officerThe former Perion Network executive takes a company-wide artificial intelligence mandate. It extends across Rapaport's businesses, including the price list the natural diamond trade discounts against.
- ₹86.47 lakh of gold and silver never reach a Sardarnagar buyerA woman's Ahmedabad complaint itemises ₹23.47 lakh for 150 grams of gold and ₹63 lakh for 28 kilos of silver, neither delivered. Police tell Divya Bhaskar more than twenty people dealt with the pair over seven months.
- LVMH jewellery and watches rise 8% to €2.5bn in the quarterThe division grew eight times faster than the group in the three months to 30 September, when total LVMH revenue rose 1%. Nine-month divisional sales reached €7.73 billion, up 4%, against a group figure down 1.6%.
- ₹87.81 lakh of gold never returns from a Wadaj workshopA C.G. Road jeweller handed 646.470 grams in 17 sets to a Nava Wadaj workshop on 22 December 2025. Two days later three mobile numbers went dead and the rented shop was empty.
- HK$278m top-up lifts the Cheng vehicle to 73.57%Chow Tai Fook Enterprises bought about 34.18 million shares at HK$8.1275 on 6 October, per the exchange's disclosure. The company is the group's construction and roads arm, not the jeweller.
- Sherwood family buys back Daniel's 100 stores from PEPalladium Equity Partners held the credit jeweller for twelve years and grew it from 73 shops. The buyer alongside the family is AJS Creations, a lab-grown e-tail group on $350 million.
- Old gold now funds 38% of PNG Jewellers' Q2 salesThe share was 29% a year earlier, on figures still subject to auditors' limited review. Revenue rose 22.4% at PNG and more than 26% at Kalyan Jewellers in the quarter to 30 September.
What’s moving now
Economics · Global
Lab-grown settles into its true business model
At its current discount to natural, LGD is no longer a diamond substitute — it's a fashion-jewelry category with diamond optics. Margins migrate from the stone to the brand and the volume. The dated discount is on the lab-grown price page.
Channels · Shenzhen
Live selling jumps the Pacific
The livestream counter that built China's jewelry e-commerce is landing in the West — TikTok gem sales, WhatsApp private clienteling, and jewelers becoming broadcasters.
Technology · London
Traceability tech grows teeth
Blockchain provenance, ledgers, and assay-office digital passports move from pilot to mandate as regulation and retailer policy converge. The tech stack becomes a condition of shelf space.
The working vocabulary
The trade’s terms, plainly told. More in the Field Guide.
- Lab-grown (LGD) Term
- Diamonds grown in weeks by HPHT or CVD — chemically identical to mined, economically a different universe. Their price curve is a technology curve, which is the whole story.
- Clienteling Practice
- One-to-one retail relationship management — the private-client WhatsApp thread, remembered anniversaries, first calls on new goods. The oldest luxury skill, now run on software.
- Omnichannel Concept
- The customer researches at midnight, tries on Saturday, buys by DM on Tuesday. Winning retailers price, stock and staff as one continuous counter across all of it.
- Digital product passport Regulation
- An EU-led ID standard giving each piece a scannable record of origin, materials and custody. Coming for jewelry the way nutrition labels came for food.
On the record
What this desk filed in the last eight weeks, dated and sourced.
This week, August 20 to September 23
Chow Tai Fook's HKEX filings were read
Clarified 25 October 2026: chow-tai-fook-names-gold-loan-gains-first.html (No. 095) said the HKEX filing was not read while citing it. Both HKEX documents have been read. Also clarified: india-rough-imports-rise-in-carats.html (a stale watch line removed) and luk-fooks-self-run-mainland-shops-post-39-percent.html (the reason sentence). What was right as published: every figure.
Source: Carat Capital standards audit of 24 October 2026; Chow Tai Fook HKEX profit alert, 22 October 2026
This week, August 20 to September 23
Chow Tai Fook's mainland turned down; it did not shrink again
Corrected 24 October 2026: chow-tai-fook-names-gold-loan-gains-first.html (No. 095, 23 October 2026) carried the subhead 'The mainland shrank again'. In the previous quarter mainland retail value grew 10.7%, as this paper reported on 26 July. Four labels were also aligned with the HKEX filing. What was right as published: every figure.
Source: Carat Capital, a-chow-tai-fook-names-gold-loan-gains-first.html; standards audit of 23 October 2026; Chow Tai Fook HKEX operational data, 22 October 2026
This week, August 20 to September 23
Paspaley's 14 are doors, not retailers
Corrected 23 October 2026: paspaley-sells-through-fourteen-us-doors.html (No. 094, 22 October 2026) said in What changed that Paspaley sells through 14 US retailers, and that it adds 'only a few' partners a year. JCK quotes 14 doors and gives no retailer count and no number of new partners. What was right as published: the headline, the strip and every figure.
Source: Carat Capital, a-paspaley-sells-through-fourteen-us-doors.html; Carat Capital standards audit, 2026-10-22; JCK re-fetched 23 October (115,050 bytes)
This week, August 20 to September 23
August retail sales, revised after this paper reported them
Updated 21 October 2026: seven-seventy-three-nine-in-august.html (24 September 2026) reported the $773.9 billion advance estimate, right as published. The Census Bureau's annual revision of 28 September restated August at $739.3 billion; the page now points to the 19 October report that carries it.
Source: Carat Capital, a-seven-seventy-three-nine-in-august.html; Carat Capital standards audit, 2026-10-19
This week, August 20 to September 23
A subhead said the bar counter was empty; it was quiet
Corrected 6 October 2026: a-caibai-takes-back-its-own-gold-at-fifteen-yuan.html, published 5 October 2026 in No. 081, carried the depth subhead “The bar counter sat empty.” It now reads “The bar counter drew few buyers.” The counter was not empty. The article's own next sentence says it held three or four customers, and the primary (时代周报 via 21jingji, 3 October 2026) describes the investment-bar counter as “somewhat quiet” (「略显冷清」) with “very few” (「寥寥无几」) consumers at it. The wrong word was this paper's, not the source's. What was right as published: every priced figure on the page — ¥15/g, ¥25/g, 6%, ¥1,248.00/g, ¥64,896 and ¥442 — and the body sentence beneath the subhead, which gave the three-or-four count correctly.
Source: Carat Capital, No. 081, a-caibai-takes-back-its-own-gold-at-fifteen-yuan.html, 5 October 2026; primary 时代周报 via 21jingji, 3 October 2026 — https://www.21jingji.com/article/20261003/herald/8cff101dd99a85083d1f5ccac689f021.html; finding routed by caratcheck, Carat Capital standards audit, 2026-10-05