The pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated the shift to e-commerce by half a decade, with more people than ever before opting to shop online for items like groceries that have always dominated traditional brick-and-mortar retail. Now that customers have experienced the convenience of shopping online for products they never imagined, it’s unlikely that they’ll return to in-person shopping at pre-pandemic levels.
The luxury goods market may seem likely to buck this trend, as consumers have typically shied away from making large purchases of diamond jewelry or handbags online, where they aren’t able to evaluate the products in person and assure themselves of quality and authenticity. The pandemic, however, has changed this. While the lockdowns in the first half of 2020 caused a 15 percent drop in diamond retail, the second half proved the market’s resilience. Jewelry sales in the U.S. surged higher in 2020 than 2019.