December 2008 Archives
Cyber Monday is Dark Day for Blue Nile, Amazon.com
Cyber Monday, the first shopping Monday after Thanksgiving is typically a bell weather sales day for e-commerce websites. Not so on today's Monday.
Blue Nile shares dropped today almost 13% to $20.82 per share on consumer fears and tightening credit and is down over 65% in price in the past year . In an effort to jump start sales, Blue Nile is discounting many of their listed jewelery items by up to 35% through the end of December.
Amazon.com was down over 5% and tech stocks were slammed down over 9% today.
Retailers are hunkering down for a grim Holiday shopping season.
Yehuda Diamonds Sues Blue Nile-Again.
Yehuda Diamonds known for its fracture filling of broken diamonds and diamonds that have many face up visible inclusions in order to improve their face up look has sued Internet Diamond dealer Blue Nile.com alleging that Blue Nile sold emeralds (including emerald-containing jewelry) that had been filled with oil, wax, resin or other substances to enhance their appearance without notifying or disclosing this information to their customers according to guidelines set forth by the Federal Trade Commission.
Fracture filling is a process that is susceptible to heat and such diamonds require special care when being cleaned.
More details here: Blue Nile Sued By Yehuda Diamonds
Engagement Proposal Ends in Tragedy.
Engagement Proposal Washed Away
Recession for Diamonds? Not here, Not today.
Christie’s International in London sold a colored diamond once owned by King Philip IV of Spain for $24.3 million today!
Bloomberg News reports: Mama Mia!
Gemex Shines The Lawsuit Light on Zales
Gemex Systems, Inc. of Mequon, Wisconsin (www.gemex.com) the manufacturer of the "Brilliancescope" light spectrophotometer which measures and display a diamonds optical light performance has sued Zales, Inc. 
for false advertising and breach of contract on Dec. 8 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, naming Zale Corp., Zale Delaware Inc. and GemEx rival company, GS Laboratories of America (GSL), of Irving, Texas, as defendants.
Gemex Brilliancescope
Gemex Light Performance Report
Gemex claims in the lawsuit that it was involved from the start with the development of Zales new branded diamond, but was left out of the project just before Zale launched the diamond this fall.
GemEx began working with Zales on the Celebration Diamond project in 2006. Over the next two years, GemEx claims that Zales agreed to purchase GemEx trademarked grading reports, which measure a diamond's "light performance," for the launch of its branded Celebration diamond.
Between 2006-2008, GemEx trained Zale's staff on the sale of the branded diamond, trained suppliers on the cutting and testing methods necessary to produce a Celebration diamond and provided the Cutters with its patented Brilliancescope light-performance-measuring device.
In January 2008, Zale requested that GemEx be prepared to deliver an additional 758 BrillianceScope Viewers, an in-store sales aid, to Zale stores, requiring GemEx to manufacture the units.
In July 2008, Zale asked GemEx to hold shipment of all previously ordered BrillianceScope Viewers and repeatedly failed to answer repeated requests by Gemex to discuss the situation.
Zales instead retained the services of a GemEx competitor, GSL, that provided Zales with substitute diamond analysis reports (OGI Firetrace reports) which Gemex claims does not measure light performance and thus misleads consumers.
