About the author: Hong, executive vice chairman of the 3rd insurance institute of china Artificial Products Professional Committee and chairman of Qingdao Tianfu Commercial Society.

Since the reform and opening up, China's jewelry crafts market has been greatly developed, and different types of jewelry crafts have sprung up, including glass imitation diamonds. Glass imitation diamond is a product made by processing high refractive index glass into a diamond shape or ordinary glass into a diamond shape, and then plating a strong reflective film on the exhibition hall. After ordinary glass is plated with mercury, the reflectivity of the glass is greatly enhanced, and it can be used as a mirror. Glass with enhanced refractive index can be used as diamond, which is called imitation diamond according to national standards. This kind of imitation diamond product is called "diamond" by ordinary people. In recent years, glass imitation diamond products and deep-processed ornaments have developed rapidly. Glass imitation diamond has risen rapidly in the field of fashion accessories and has become an indispensable new force in the jewelry and handicraft market.

1. The production and trade of glass imitation diamonds and their ornaments are unprecedented.

1. It is said that glass imitates diamonds.

As we all know, diamond is the king of precious stones. It has a strong reflection and flash, giving people an extremely noble and beautiful feeling. However, real diamonds are expensive and the output is not large, so they cannot be consumed by the general public, nor can they be used in very cheap fashion jewelry or fashion accessories. Common imitation diamond materials include artificial rutile, artificial cubic zirconia, artificial colorless sapphire, artificial yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) and so on. These materials are much cheaper than diamonds, but they still cost hundreds of dollars (1kg), which is quite expensive compared with glass with only a few dollars (1kg). Therefore, there are many products that use glass to imitate diamonds in fashion jewelry or fashion accessories. Glass imitation diamond has become an indispensable new force in the jewelry and handicraft market. In order to facilitate the transaction, there are different colors of glass imitation diamond color cards on the market.

Figure 1 A glimpse of Yiwu small commodity market

2. Understanding of Yiwu Commodity Market in Zhejiang Province

1) Overall situation: Yiwu commodity market in Zhejiang is world-famous. This commodity market was formed in the middle and late 1980s. Under the situation that "building a market, driving a number of industries, invigorating an economy and enriching an industry have become the working goals of some local party and government leaders to develop local economy", Yiwu small commodity market has developed rapidly and gradually become a well-known small commodity wholesale market at home and abroad. In this case, the Yiwu municipal government took advantage of the trend and began planning and development in 2002. After development, Yiwu Commodity Market was renamed as International Trade City. By September, 2005, the first and second phases of the construction and development of the international trade city market have been completed, with a total area of 1 0.4 million square meters, making it the largest modern commodity wholesale market in the world (Figure1). There are 50,000 business premises in the market and more than 654.38+600,000 employees. More than 7,000 foreign businessmen purchase here every day, and the products are exported to more than 200 countries and regions around the world, with an annual export of more than 350,000 TEUs, accounting for 60% of all traded products. As a result of this situation, World Brand Lab and World Broker Weekly released the list of the most famous brands in China in 2005 at the World Brand Conference, and Yiwu China Commodity City ranked 158, with a brand value of 3.902 billion yuan.

2) The jewelry and crafts market is mainly in the first phase of Yiwu International Trade City. The first phase of the market covers an area of 350 mu, with a building area of 330,000 square meters and an investment of 660 million yuan. It consists of five connected rectangular basic units. The venue is divided into five commercial areas and 20 commodity exhibition and trading halls. Crafts, ornaments, toys, flowers, etc. 15 categories, more than 20,000 kinds of goods are arranged in an orderly manner. This market has four floors above ground and one underground. The underground floor is a parking lot, and the ground floor deals in flowers and toys; Jewelry business on the second floor; Handicrafts are handled on the third floor; The fourth floor is the direct sales center of production enterprises. Jewelry and handicrafts are mainly on the second and third floors, with about 4000 business households. Merchants' shops are filled with a dazzling array of raw materials, semi-finished products or finished products of jewelry crafts, of which semi-finished products or finished products made of glass account for the vast majority (Figure 2), and a few are plastic products or low-grade semi-precious stones.

Figure 2 A dazzling array of glass crafts.

3. The high rent in Yiwu commodity market reflects the large transaction volume.

According to reports, the first phase of the International Trade City project, a two-story jewelry mall and a shop of about 45m2 square meters, has a usage fee of 2 million yuan in just five years. In addition, the annual rent is 200,000 yuan, and the taxes and management fees are 50,000 yuan. Therefore, if you want to gain a foothold in Yiwu, the annual fee should be at least 650,000. So, can businesses make that much money? The answer is yes! Because 7000 foreign businessmen buy here every day, the purchase volume is 60% of Yiwu's sales, and tens of thousands of domestic businessmen buy here every day. As long as the products are suitable, there is no problem in commodity trading. We interviewed the "Fu Ying Rhine Stone" store on the second floor. The total area of the shop is about 45 square meters. Most of the samples on display are glass imitation diamonds, with only a few samples such as synthetic cubic zirconia and synthetic ruby (see Figure 3, Figure 4 and Figure 5). Many people come to the store to shop. Although the profit after the product is sold is less than one point, when the transaction is good, the daily transaction volume can reach hundreds of thousands, and the annual business is about 100 million. This shows that the transaction volume of 4000 pieces of jewelry on the second and third floors of Yiwu Small Commodity Market is very large.

4. From the perspective of jewelry production companies, the usage and product sales of glass imitation diamonds are relatively large.

Take Zhejiang Guangxin Jewelry Co., Ltd. as an example. The company has five series, including alloy, claw chain, copper and silver, more than 20 categories and more than 300,000 styles of products. The sales network covers the whole country, and the products are exported to more than 70 countries and regions overseas. In September, 2005, Guangxin Jewelry was recognized as a "China Famous Brand" product. According to reports, the company has 5,600 employees, producing and using 5 million glass imitation diamond samples every day, and only 600 people need to stick these glass imitation diamond products on ornaments every day (Figure 6). According to the data, by the end of June 38+ 10, 2005, there were more than 65,438+10,000 wholesale markets registered in the industrial and commercial departments nationwide. From the extensive use of glass imitation diamond in a company of Yiwu Guangxin Jewelry Co., Ltd., we can infer the extensive use of glass imitation diamond products and the mass output of accessories. ..

Figure 3 Sales counter of glass imitation diamond products

Fig. 4 Glass imitation diamond products

Fig. 5 Synthetic cubic zirconia and ruby samples

Fig. 6 Fashion jewelry processed with glass imitation diamond as raw material.

Fig. 7 The primary products of glass diamonds produced by Oriental Paradise Craft Jewelry Factory are being polished.

Fig. 8 Processing equipment for producing 20 pieces of glass products at a time.

Fig. 9 Primary products of glass rods and imitation glass diamonds

It can be seen that the production and trade of glass imitation diamonds and their ornaments are unprecedented. Glass imitation diamond is a small commodity, but it has expanded into a big market.

Second, the production capacity of glass imitation diamond products can meet the supply.

The production and trade of glass imitation diamonds and their ornaments are unprecedented. Will it lead to the shortage of glass imitation diamonds? Two private enterprises in China have introduced two sets of glass imitation diamond production lines, which are said to produce 400,000 diamonds per hour, with automatic polishing. Now they are installing equipment, which will definitely meet the supply after production. In addition, some processing plants have reformed their equipment, such as the processing equipment of Oriental Paradise Crafts Factory in Pujiang County, Zhejiang Province, which can process 20 pieces of glass products at a time (Figure 7 ~ Figure 9).

Third, high-tech coating transformation glass imitation diamond

Glass with different colors is cut and polished into a diamond shape, and its own refractive index is not high, generally 1.49, which is not beautiful. People rely on high-tech achievements to carry out vacuum coating, and transform the high-tech coating of glass imitation diamond primary energy products-vacuum plasma metal coating treatment is carried out in the exhibition hall of primary energy products. It has been determined that the refractive index of the glass diamond pavilion is greatly improved after vacuum plasma plating, which can make the glass diamond products and their processed ornaments more beautiful, attractive and popular (Figure 10, 1 1).

Figure 10 Coating Products of Glass Imitation Diamond Exhibition Hall

Figure 1 1 glass imitation diamond and ordinary glass products

Fourthly, the application fields of glass diamond-like products need to be further developed.

Glass diamond products can be used in many fields besides fashion ornaments or fashion accessories, such as high-end decoration in construction industry, high-end decoration in furniture industry, decoration of clothes, decoration of toys, decoration of mobile phones and so on. Each project is generally developed successfully, and the application of glass diamond-like products is very large, so the market prospect is very good.

To sum up, glass imitation diamond products and their ornaments are a rapidly rising industry in China, which enriches and beautifies people's lives and has a good market prospect. Glass imitation diamond, a small commodity, has opened a beautiful big market.