TOKYO – Recession may be looming large in Japan, but there are still some people willing to splash out on diamond-encrusted mobile telephones.

Japan’s Softbank Mobile said Friday that its eight limited-edition phones, each studded with 537 diamonds from Tiffany and Co., sold out in just three days.

The phone, designed by the luxury New York jeweller, went on sale for about 13 million yen each ($134,000) on November 1.

“All eight were sold by November 3,” said Softbank spokesman Katsuhide Furuya. “I guess the buyers found them worthwhile.”

Japan is the world’s largest market for luxury goods and nearly everyone owns a cell phone, leading fashion companies to try to tap into the mobile market.

Earlier this year Softbank rival NTT DoCoMo Inc. launched a phone designed by Italian brand Prada. Gucci also started a website for items accessible only by Japanese mobile phones.

Source: chinadaily.com.cn

At Tiffany’s new Glendale, Calif., store, which features the retailer’s new store concept, customers are encouraged to interact with the jewelry. Photo: Kim Kupart

Glendale, Calif.—Tiffany and Co. has unveiled its first store featuring a new retail format meant to make shopping for jewelry a more accessible and comfortable experience.

The store, at Glendale, Calif.’s Americana at Brand lifestyle center, features jewelry at entry- and mid-level price points, and customers are encouraged to try pieces on, according to a report in Women’s Wear Daily. The report also noted that jewelry is openly exhibited on mountings, under glass that is not fully closed off and in drawers that customers can open. Price points range from $80 to $42,000, but average between $200 and $5,000.

Tiffany spokesman Carson Glover confirmed that the retailer has identified 70 potential locations for the new store concept and has plans to open three to five of them annually. Glover also said that two stores are expected to debut in 2009, and three or four will bow the following year.

The stores will range from 2,000 to 3,000 square feet and will be located in Tiffany’s existing markets.

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Companies such as jeweler Tiffany & Co. are responsible for policing their trademarks online, not auction platforms like eBay, a federal judge said Monday.

Tiffany had sued eBay over the sale of counterfeit jewelry on eBay’s sites. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Sullivan in New York Monday is a defeat for the luxury jeweler.

The judge ruled that eBay can’t be held liable for trademark infringement “based solely on their generalized knowledge that trademark infringement might be occurring on their Web sites,” The Associated Press reports.

continue reading "Tiffany Defeated in Trademark Case vs. eBay"