By Rob Bates
(jckonline.com) - Out of the blue, De Beers’ lab-grown diamond brand, Lightbox, began selling engagement rings on its website last Thursday. Unlike the carefully choreographed 2018 Lightbox launch, De Beers never made an announcement or issued a press release in advance. The engagement rings just appeared on the Lightbox homepage. I found out about it on LinkedIn. Sightholders felt blindsided. De Beers executives have told me privately that Lightbox hasn’t veered from its original strategy—it wants to disrupt the lab-grown engagement ring sector with a more competitively priced product.
