Moissanite: A Tale of Expanding Distribution

Since its breakthrough offering in 2004 by J C Penney, Charles & Colvard created Moissanite is now offered by an expanding number of major national retailers and jewelry chains. In 2005, J C Penney expanded its offering to all of their 700-plus stores.

Also in 2005, Finlay Fine Jewelry started to offer moissanite through their licensed outlets. If you are not familiar with Finlay, they operate licensed jewelry counters for major retailers. For most of their history, they operated licensed counters for the May Corporation chain of department stores. In 2005 Federated Department Stores, who owns Macy’s merged with May and decided to consolidate the May brands under the Macy’s moniker.

In the summer of 2005, Gordon’s Jewelers, a division of Zale Corporation started testing moissanite and late in 2005, Helzberg Diamonds, a division of Berkshire Hathaway began offering moissanite at 40 of its locations.

In 2006, Charles & Colvard continued to expanded moissanite distribution into all of Helzberg Diamonds 275 doors and in forth quarter of this year rolled out into 180 doors of the 800-door chain of Kohl’s department stores.

While progress at Zale appears modest, Charles & Colvard succeeded expanding moissanite availability at 20 Zales Outlet stores, 41 doors of Peoples (Zale Canada), and 3 Gordon’s Jewelry stores – the significance of which signals that the year long testing at Gordon’s appears to have been successful as rollout is commencing.

Having these major retailers and jewelry chains offer moissanite confirms its acceptance in the jewelry industry as a separate category based on its own unique qualities. I also don’t want to overlook the significance of the regional chain jewelers and the many online web-based jewelers offering moissanite. Clearly the word is spreading about this fabulous gemstone with unmatched and unsurpassed fire and brilliance.

Thanks,
WB