By Eurasia Business News – January 3, 2021

The rise of online jewellery retailing will offer immense growth opportunities – Photo credit : Pexels.

The Russian company Alrosa has completed the consolidation of its jewellery production and launched its first online jewellery store. The company’s goal is to promote origin-guaranteed Russian diamonds, improve the user’s experience and combat fraud in the market.

The alrosadiamond.ru online store began full-fledged operation in December 2020. Prior to that, the website had been operating in test mode for several months. It features over a thousand pieces of jewellery. In addition to buying a finished elite product, the customer has the opportunity to purchase a loose diamond or order an individual piece of jewellery using a special designer service.

Irina Morozovskaya, Director of the Alrosa Jewelry Group, said in the press release :  

“As the world market leader and the largest rough and polished diamond company in Russia, we set ourselves the task of raising the level of user experience, developing the Russian jewellery market towards greater organization and safety. Our business model sets completely new standards for the quality assurance of diamonds and jewellery with them for the Russian market.”

The Alrosa jewellery group was formed resulting the consolidation of the jewellery business of the Smolensk Diamonds company, which ALROSA acquired as part of the acquisition of the largest diamond cutting enterprise in Russia, Kristall Smolensk. In addition to production facilities, Alrosa network includes jewellery stores in Moscow, St. Petersburg and the regions. Thus, Alrosa has become the only Russian company in the industry with full vertical integration, engaged in diamond mining, cutting, jewellery production and sales. This gives the consumer absolute guarantees of the authenticity and origin of diamonds, since a closed production cycle without the participation of third parties completely eliminates the risk of replacing precious stones.

Irina Morozovskaya then explained how the quality of Alrosa’s diamonds is highly secured :

“So far, there is no obligation under Russian regulation to disclose the origin of the diamond. As a result, a customer might buy a synthetic stone, a diamond with inaccurate characteristics or a counterfeit stone that was imported from nowhere. All this for the price of a natural high quality diamond. We demonstrate a fundamentally different approach: ALROSA can say with confidence where its diamonds were mined and cut, and guarantees that there are no intermediaries. This level of information disclosure gives the consumer the maximum guarantee of reliability. We hope that over time this will push other manufacturers and sellers to also increase the transparency of their work, which will have a positive effect on the entire Russian jewellery market […].”

The Alrosa group sells now jewellery in nine stores (six own and three franchised), as well as through partner stores. However, the Russian company sees the main industry development in the online retail, which allows delivery throughout the country even during the COVID-19 crisis. The online jewellery industry, a several billion euros sector, is expected to grow in the coming years.

Irina Morozovskaya commented :

“This is a new direction for ALROSA. The main task of this stage is to integrate into the market, work to promote natural diamonds with guaranteed origin and convey to the market the need to work according to high standards of transparency. Not the entire range is presented on the site, discerning clients can discuss with consultants the possibility of choosing jewellery in the website’s chat or by phone. Many of the presented collections were produced by the Smolensk Diamonds jewellery group. Currently we are actively working on updating the assortment matrix […].”

According to the corporate communication, Alrosa guarantees the authenticity of jewellery products sold on the platform alrosadiamond.ru and provides a convenient pre-fitting service for buyers from anywhere in Russia. The range of diamonds in terms of quality and guarantees is fully consistent with that which the company supplies to jewellery brands around the world, while prices in the online store are significantly lower compared to them, starting from 20 thousand rubles (220 euros) There is also an option to order jewellery with especially rare diamonds with individual design.

Read also : A Russian pink diamond sold for a record $ 26.6 million

Alrosa ranked 6th among 53 companies from various sectors analyzed by RAEX-Europe in 2020. The rating agency highly appreciated the Alrosa’s achievements in the field of corporate governance, as well as efforts to implement environmental protection measures.

The Russian diamond mining company is also committed to improve its corporate social responsibility performance. In 2019 Alrosa invested RUB 12 billion in social projects (around 130 million euros). This amount includes pension payments, regional development programs, corporate social programs for employees and their families, as well as about 500 social and charitable projects. The amount invested in environmental activities was 7.7 billion rubles (around 85 million euros).

The company was ranked in the top 10 rating of environmental responsibility of mining companies in Russia, developed at the initiative of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) of Russia. In 2019, the company received the Diamond Empowerment Fund (DEF) award for the implementation of social projects for residents of the regions of its presence (Community Stewardship).

Alrosa (Russian : АЛРОСА) is a Russian group of diamond mining companies that specialize in exploration, mining, manufacture, and sale of diamonds. The conglomerate leads the world in diamond mining by volume. Mining sites are located in Western Yakutia, the Arkhangelsk region and Africa. The main sales system of Alrosa is based on the conclusion of long-term contracts with companies that cut diamonds and manufacture jewellery. 

The release of Alrosa’s 2020 operating results is scheduled on January 21.

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