Doug Meadows

The determining factor has been the price and the size of the stone.

You know, the phrase, size matters.

They're going for the biggest bling that they can afford, I guess.

That's Doug Meadows.

He's an Atlanta-based jeweler.

At the end of the day, I have to give my consumer what they're asking for or looking for.

In the past five, six years, our natural diamonds have dropped to represent about 20% of our total diamond sales.

And Lab Grown has become 80% of my diamond sales.

It's just collapsed.

Yeah.

Some of it's perception, you know, people coming in thinking of the idea of a blood diamond.

The Lab Grown community has touted it as being ethical.

and eco-friendly and all this kind of stuff.

And, you know, I could never buy that.

I've always been an advocate for what I call mind-to-market, to where I can know the traceability of either a gemstone or a diamond.

But to try to educate a consumer the value in a natural diamond, it's a new task, a new challenge that I don't know how we do it yet.

I'm hoping the industry can give us some help.