News: MHJ Michael Hill International Says For First 45-Weeks Sales Were Up 4.7%, page-72

Yeah, and before that they were dealing with record high diamond prices. The other issue for these guys is the lag between input and output. Remember, they're not just buying diamonds, gold and silver for resale, they are buying those inputs and manufacturing jewellery. Inventory turnover is 10-12 months so input price changes and their affect on COGS take a while to show up.

OTOH, mid-market jewellery like this is not like that ultra top end jewellery where so much of the margin is driven by the GPM – have a look at CODB over the past few years to get a feel of what drives EBIT. GPM plays it's part but this was really about a story about increasing basket size during that spending boom. But, I guess, a weak consumer and high input prices on an expensive, discretionary item feels like the perfect storm.