You can’t open a newspaper (or news app) these days without reading at least one article about supply chain woes.

Everything is out of stock, from auto parts to zucchini. Is the jewelry industry exempt from supply chain woes? Well, yes and no.

The ocean freight problems plaguing many industries do not affect us (except in packaging and display products), because most jewelry supply is moved via air freight. So that’s a bit of good news. But Bloomberg News recently reported that all major retailers stocked shelves aggressively in September and October out of fear that supplies of critical holiday items would be low or late. In some consumer goods categories, inflation is higher than 8%.

But Afsaf Herskovitz, CEO of GN Diamond, suggested in an interview in Southern Jewelry News in September that retailers should stock up on diamonds before the holiday season this year as well. According to Southern Jewelry News, “GN Diamond has seen a major uptick in small and large retailers - that have never bought for stock before - buying now so they will not miss any diamond sale opportunities.”

In our analysis, this is not due to threat of insufficient diamond supply, but instead smart opportunism by retailers who are gearing up for a strong holiday season. Of course, interest in special shapes like ovals and emeralds can make it challenging to find a stone a customer is looking for, but that has historically been true and does not seem to have any relationship to the supply chain problems.

So our prediction is that unless you are waiting for a few skids of custom boxes to arrive, you should be able to find plenty of what you need to have a fantastic holiday selling season. And of course, if you have someone standing in front of you looking for something special that you don’t have in your case, don’t forget to pull up the VDB app and find it there!

(PS - do your Thanksgiving Day shopping early if you can . . . that’s where you’re likely to see some supply chain challenges!)