It so happened that the customer’s dissatisfaction with jewellery assortment has become the peculiarity of the Russian jewellery market; alongside with the apparent abundance there is lack of adequate diversity. Besides, the design of the import jewellery is better.

The development of the jewellery industry in Russia is influenced by many factors, such as seasonality of sales, the expansion of the leading players’ mass campaigns, the imperfection of the Russian legislation, obsolete production capacity of enterprises, and even, since recently, Russia’s accession to the WTO.

The Central and Southern Federal Districts dominated in Russia’s jewellery market in 2012; their total sales amounted to 43%. Among the leading were the "Adamas" and "Krastsvetmet" companies, which together realized about 11% of total sales a year, as well as the “Almaz-Holding”, "Russian Gems" and "Esthete" companies.

Despite the positive, on the whole, development of the jewellery market, last year was marked by decreasing retail sales. During the year there was retail customers’ steady decline of interest in jewellery. It was seen at almost all the major exhibitions held in 2012. According to Rosstat, the overall retail sales growth increased by only 8% during the first nine months of the year. In 2011 it was two times more, 16%. November 2012 was the most “dead” for the jewellery trade for the last decade, and even the New Year holidays didn’t improve the situation.

Among the ways of surmounting the crisis many jewelers considered the expansion into the new markets (tested choice is the Central Federal District). Others reasoned of the introduction of new technologies of production and sales, the improvement of the design of manufactured products, more frequent updating of jewellery collections, competent approach to the range and careful study of consumers' preference.

Jewellery production statistics says that diamonds are still in demand. In 2012 in Russia the production of jewellery with diamonds grew by 13.7% compared to 2011and, according to Rosstat, was 1.7 million items. In December 2012 the production of diamond jewellery increased by 14.5% in comparison with December 2011 and decreased by 3.6% as compared to November 2012. Buyers show greater interest in rings, including wedding rings. The production of wedding rings from January to December 2012 increased by 1.0% and amounted to 741 thousand pieces. In December 2012 the production of wedding rings grew by 3.4% compared to December 2011 and by 13.8% compared to November 2012.

The combination of gold with diamonds is still the most popular with the Russians, according to the online survey, held by the analysts of the research “Jewellery Retail Chains 2012”, almost in all product categories it amounts to not less than 40%.

As for silver, during the last two years the volume of silver jewellery production decreased significantly due to the market saturation. During the crises, many enterprises survived thanks to the increase of the production of silver jewellery, which was willingly bought, but it caused a reverse effect. Significant silver supply at the market has led to a slump in demand.

Today in the jewellery market structure, silver items make up the biggest share, 45%; gold jewellery amounts to 27%, items of palladium – 19%, and platinum – 9%.

According to NeoAnalitics experts’ forecasts, in 2012 – 2014 the average growth rate of the market capacity of gold jewellery will be 5-6%, silver jewellery – 13-16%.

Internet-project “Club W” conducted a survey of wealthy consumers who belong to the category of high net worth individuals (HNWI). In Europe they are consumers whose private fortune is about 25 million euros, in the USA – on average 1 million dollars, and in Russia – 30 and more million rubles.

Almost half of the respondents (47% of wealthy Russians) made their purchases on the Internet to the amount of more than 30 thousand rubles. An average check was: at restaurants  – 3.2 thousand rubles, clothing shops – 16.9 thousand rubles, jewellery stores – 57.3 thousand rubles, taking care of health and resorts – 5.2 thousand rubles. According to Euromonitor International, the share of online jewellery trade in Russia in 2012 was 0.5%.

IMPORT AND EXPORT

Russia is a net importer of jewellery. According to BusinesStat study “Analysis of the Jewellery Market in Russia in 2007-2011, the Forecast for 2012-2016” import 7 times exceeded export in 2007-2011. This tendency will continue during the nearest five years. Today Russia is a high volume importer of jewellery inserts made of precious and semiprecious stones. At present, the main flow of imported goods began to make direct competition with the domestic jewellery in the price segment of "mass-market". Import growth is promoted by high taxes and duties, which precious raw materials and equipment for the production of jewellery are imposed upon in Russia. This automatically increases the actual cost of production of domestic jewellery items by 38%. As a result they inevitably lose the price competition with imported products. According to BusinesStat’s forecast, export of jewellery from Russia in 2013-2016 will be 168.99; 195.23; 221.21; 253.12 million dollars respectively.

In March 2013 the Discovery Research Group agency completed the study of the Russian jewellery market. According to estimates its volume in 2012 totaled 193.3 million pieces in physical terms and 257.9 billion rubles in value terms, showing an increase of 7.9% and 23.4% respectively, when compared with the last year. According to DRG’s forecast, up to 2017 the market will grow by 4.6% in physical terms and by 6.7% in value terms per year.

With the entry of Russia into the WTO in August 2012, and the recent (in February 2013) introduction to the State Duma of the bill (on the liberalization of the jewellery industry) with the amendments to the law on precious metals and stones, the participants have a tremendous lot of questions and talking points, which they had been discussing long before those events, and haven’t stopped discussing after. What will it bring:  either troubles or advantages? Everything is around the main question, what the future holds for the Russian jewellery industry, and whether it will be at least a little bit like the one which each of them at least once imagined in his riotous fancies...

But one thing is clear: the jewellery market in Russia has very broad prospects for the development and growth thanks to both Russia’s raw materials base and age-old jewellery traditions which are, without exaggeration, known and respected all over the world. There’s only a little left to do, – to understand the numerous intricate loopholes of legal regulation.