The thought process behind Hiba Jaber's new sister brand.
AlMasati by Hiba Jaber is Hiba Jaber’s newly launched sister brand that focuses on creating personalized diamond designs.
About ALMASATI by Hiba Jaber
Launched in 2020 and based in Dubai, Almasati is a contemporary fine jewelry brand for the modern, independent woman focused on offering customers the best possible service for creating their dream diamond jewelry creations. Inspired by the idea of your favorite jeweler, the brand assists you through the process of finding your ideal certified diamond, turning it into a unique jewelry creation and then see it come to, because we believe that jewelry made together means a lot more then jewelry you just buy. Each creation is a reflection of a collaborative process between the designer and the wearer and is as unique as the woman who wears it. The brand focuses on custom made creations with a lot of emphasis on the customer experience and personalization, and the brands also offers ready-made classic jewels, and delivers locally as well as internationally.
The creations are created using 18k gold and set with precious stones, focusing a lot of premium quality diamonds. Solitaire diamonds are handpicked with a lot of attention to detail, and are certified. Jewelry creations are also made with quality diamonds and are accompanied with a detailed diamond and jewelry report. Designed, produced and delivered with personalization present at every step of the process, putting our customer’s comfort at the forefront of everything we do.
Below Hiba talks us through her inspiration in creating the new brand and how it truly outshines the rest.
1. Describe a day in the life as Founder of both Hiba Jaber Jewelry and ALMASATI.
The day starts with breakfast with my husband, I head out to the office and I get started on emails to make sure everything is moving as it should be, as most of our business is focused on customization, ensuring everything is being processed on time is always a priority.
After the morning part, every day is different. Together with the team, we always need to check what orders will be ready for that day to arrange delivery and shooting and shipping. I move on to meetings with the team or with the suppliers. Sometimes I need to meet and talk to clients, other times I just need to get things sorted like ordering a diamond for a new order… Whether it’s meetings with the social media team, or the CFO revising and going over our numbers, every day is different, and there has to be a specialty coffee sometime in between! The day ends with either chilling at home with my husband, or a casual night out or walk with family or close friends, but work always takes up majority of the day!
2. How do you multi-task between both brands?
Thanks to the great team we have grown into lately, everything is possible. The process for both brands is quite similar, we process orders for Almasati the same way we do for Hiba Jaber, we do the social media for each separately, but in the same way so it’s like double the work, keeping each brand’s tone of voice and look and feel different from the other. It’s a mix of organization and planning things ahead of time.
3. What made you launch ALMASATI.
Almasati by Hiba Jaber, is our new sister brand, basically it’s like your favorite jeweler at the comfort of your own home. At Hiba Jaber, we process orders in a very personalized way, we give our customers the time and effort to make sure they are very happy with the outcome, and because of that, we felt out customers started trusting us and coming to us for advice and recommendations for their high jewelry orders, like the classic solitaire ring or tennis bracelet, and so we started doing more of these orders.
We realized there might be a gap in the market for that kind of service, where you are giving your customer a very personalized online experience. Being GIA Diamond Certified myself, I wanted this brand to be all about sharing our knowledge and advice, it’s online and it’s all about quality diamonds. I developed the new brand with some of the similar pillars of the first one; like personalization, quality, all about working with our customers and creating together jewelry that mean something, but with a slightly different tone and feel, to match the higher range of diamond jewelry creations this brand offers. This way each has its own persona. Instead of trying to be everything all in one brand, we dedicated a brand for each.
4. What does the name ‘ALMASATI’ mean to you?
Almasati means “my diamond” in Arabic which is what we felt would be a great name for this brand. We are working with customers on finding the ideal certified diamond, and turning it into the unique jewelry creation that they have dreamt of. The piece becomes their own diamond, hence the name “my diamond”, or Almasati.
5. What trends have you seen emerge in the diamond industry (regarding design or customer behavior) over the past year during COVID?
On the contrary to fashion and retail, the jewelry industry actually was one of the best performing industries during the lockdown period and the crisis according to some reports I had read and from some of the designer friends I have spoken to. Because while people couldn’t care less about buying new fashion as they don’t know when they could wear it, jewelry is a purchase you buy and invest in and you keep and enjoy for a lifetime. The main difference in customer behavior was that people had to move online, which was a good thing for us.
6. How has your experience been with selling diamonds on your website and social media? What has helped you successfully launch?
Social media is our main selling channel, it has been for our other brand, Hiba Jaber, and it is at the moment for Almasati as well. What has helped with the new launch is the existing brand; we have built a loyal customer base throughout the 3.5 years and they have been very supportive and curious to find out more.
Our customers are our priority, we do our best to ensure the best experience possible. This has always worked out well for us since they come back and they always tell your friends and family about you. It’s the best form of marketing!
In general, people are becoming more aware and more comfortable in making very high ticket purchases online, like fine jewelry and diamonds. They are seeing the value of buying a solitaire online than in-store, because you have a wide range of options online. You see the certificates, videos and images of the diamond you want to see at X 10 magnification and all the details that will make you feel very confident in making the purchase online without actually seeing the stone or the piece in person.
"We realized there might be a gap in the market for that kind of service, where you're giving your customer a very personalized online experience."
7. What are the challenges in selling diamonds online?
I can’t think of any. We only sell certified diamonds. We choose them very wisely and we only share the options that we are happy and confident with. Today’s technologies allow for a lot of detail and accuracy that may have not been available before.
The only issue is that you can’t try on the piece and see how it looks on your hand. Nonetheless, we do our best to share as much detail, knowledge and advice as possible to make sure that the design we choose and work on together will be a great fit.
8. What are customers looking for when they buy diamonds?
People are spoiled with options; they have several different websites and now shop to compare prices and qualities before buying. They are more educated on diamond qualities now than they have ever been before, so they want the best value and best quality they could get. Currently fancy shapes are in more demand than the brilliant round diamond.
9. What do you hope to achieve with ALMASATI in 2021?
We just recently launched the brand less than two months ago and we hope to grow this brand to become a trusted go-to-place for people’s classic and modern high jewelry purchases. We also want to share our knowledge and expertise with our customers in helping them find the best diamond for them and their loved ones. We don’t waste our time and energy on endless stock, we put that energy into giving our customers the best possible experience; it’s like your own ring or jewelry concierge service. Diamonds are a very beautiful natural product of earth, it takes millions of years to grow and takes a lot of skill to turn into these beautiful sparkly diamonds, and then a lot of art and great craftsmanship to turn them into unique jewelry creations that you can enjoy for a lifetime.
Jewelry made together means a lot more.
