Congratulations. You are just about ready to buy a diamond. Perhaps you have finally proposed to your girlfriend, or maybe it is an anniversary gift for your wife of many years.
Buying a diamond is an expensive proposition. For this little thing you are going to pay hundreds, or more likely thousands, of dollars. Even worse is you look at the diamond and you have no idea what you are looking at – if it is what the salesman told you it is, if the issues the salesman pointed out are really the important ones and what did he “forget” to mention about the diamond, what to look at to know if the diamond you bought is worth the money. So not only is it an expensive proposition, but it is also a frightening proposition.
There are really two aspects of buying diamonds by which you can save yourself a nice amount of money. One of those is where you buy your diamond, and the second is what features of the diamond you concentrate on.
The first question is where you should buy your diamond. The old fashioned way would have you going into the shop of a local jeweler and having him tell you which diamond to buy, since they all look the same to you. Nowadays though, there is another, a better, option.
The better option is buying your diamond online. There are numerous benefits to buying diamonds online, while there is only one benefit to buying the diamond in a bricks and mortar jewelry store.
If you are buying the diamond in a bricks and mortar store, you have the obvious benefit of being able to see the diamond before you buy it. You get to hold it in your hand and inspect it to the best of your ability. You can look at it under the lighting, and lay it up against a couple rings and get a good idea of what it might look like on your wife’s finger.
The drawback of this is that even though you get to hold and look at the actual diamond before you buy it, if you are like most people you probably have no idea what you are looking at and how to evaluate the worth of the diamond in your hand. And you will be paying 20%-30% more by buying it from the jeweler just for that advantage of getting to see it.
B&M stores have a lot of overhead. They have to pay rent, they have to stock an expensive inventory, they have general overhead such as salaries, electricity, water, and the like, and all that gets added to the sales price of every item they sell.
When you buy diamonds online you are really harnessing the power of the internet. The major benefits you achieve in this are the amazing savings you will enjoy, along with the vast inventory available to you.
There are a number of benefits to buying diamonds online, though the most important benefit is the savings. The financial savings is the issue that most people care about the most. Because online diamond merchants have no overhead, or very little overhead, they are able to offer their diamonds for sale at much lower prices.
The lack of overhead allows the diamonds to be priced lower. This will give you savings usually in the range of 20%-30% and sometimes even more!
Is the ability to look at a diamond, even though you probably don’t know what you are looking at, worth 25% more? Think of it like this – if you were buying something for $10, you might be willing to pay $12 just to have that slight extra confidence because you got to hold it first.
When you are buying a diamond that is worth $5000, $10,000 or even more, the difference is going to be in the hundreds, or thousands, of dollars. All that extra money being saved by buying the diamond online can either be saved and pocketed, or it can be used to buy a diamond of even better quality than originally planned.
The second issue is the quality of the diamond you buy. Much of the diamond industry is built upon the successful marketing campaign of the DeBeers syndicate. The average person can’t tell the difference from one diamond to the next.
There are many features to consider when buying the diamond. The main qualities include Color and Clarity – two of “the Four Cs”. There is a wide range of color, starting from color D and moving down to Color J. D is considered colorless, and then the range moves at different levels down to J. Beyond J is already called fancy color stones.
The thing is, unless you are a trained diamond dealer, most people cannot tell the difference between a G color and a F color diamond. Or between a diamond rated an E and between a diamond rated at F.
In clarity as well, the range begins with IF (internally flawless) and I2/3 (Included). Again, to be brief, most people cannot tell the difference between a VS1 diamond and a VS2 diamond, or between a VS2 and a SI1 diamond.
There are definitely qualities of the diamond that you are not appreciating, but are paying a lot of money for. If you buy a diamond rated at VVS2, you are paying hundreds of dollars more for a quality that you see no benefit from. You can save a few hundred dollars, and buy a VS1 diamond instead.
The above is just an example, but my point is that there are many aspects of the diamond that give you plenty of room to maneuver and allow you to save money.
Bio:
Phil Golden is the editor of Clarity of Diamonds where Phil uses his vast experience to help you get the most for your money and buy the biggest and best diamond within your budget. Phil gives daily recommendations of great value diamonds available online, offers free consultations by email regarding diamonds you are considering buying, and writes articles in layman’s terms so that you will make your purchase with better understanding of what a diamond is.
