• Bloomberg, Wednesday, September 16, 2009 10:40 AM

Faberge has established a Web site where shoppers interested in --oh, say a $7 million dollar brooch -- can zoom in the way that they might using a jeweler's loop in a retail environment to pretend that they know what they're looking for. The company expects to close the seven-figure deals by dispatching sales representatives bearing real gems to clients' homes.

The storied brand started taking orders over the Internet last week, Keith Campbell reports. Suffice it to say that it is not a hard-sell site. It does invite visitors to have a brief phone conversation with a representative to learn how to use the "very innovative navigation and features," which were designed with IBM.

"It's an efficient and cautious way to test a difficult market without committing too much fixed cost beforehand," says Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Luca Solca. He also feels that jewelry is more suited to the Internet than other luxury goods because it's "describable with metrics" such as the number of carats in a diamond. Faberge retains one retail outlet in Geneva.

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