Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experience

[purplelife]

Hello all,
Long story short - discovered this website several years ago when now ex-bf and I were looking for a diamond. Relationship didn't work out. Fast forward to now - current bf and I are ready to get engaged. I've read extensively on this site and have tried to educate myself the best I can - I think you all are wonderful! Went to an independent local jeweler today (we live in northeastern USA and went to this particular store because their website said they carried a line of settings I'm interested in) and had a horrible experience. When they asked what we were looking for in a center stone (we want a round stone) I started off general, didn't mention PS or "numbers" - just our budget, carat weight we were aiming for, and a color/clarity range. The first stone they showed me had a 65% table and was a "good" GIA cut (I caught a glimpse of the cert). I'm not sure how things went sour so fast, but when I said I wanted to see more stones they asked me for more specifics so I said I was looking for certain "number" ranges (i.e., what's typically recommended on here for table/depth/crown/pavilion to get you safely in the HCA < 2 range) and they were NOT receptive at all, immediately started lecturing me on how they buy from the "heart," they buy stones that "speak" to them, they've been doing this for 25 years, etc etc. Basically telling me I was a FOOL to even care about numbers or labs (they tried to convince me EGL is fine), that they could never sell to me, that the stone I want doesn't exist, etc. Showed me two stones in which one was very obviously sparklier and whiter and tried to convince me it's always that easy to pick, etc. It got very ugly - to the point where one salesperson asked me if I picked my bf based on "numbers." They had never heard of PS (I mentioned it because they wanted to know where I got my info) and it took awhile to even get them to understand that PS doesn't sell diamonds (I think at first they thought PS was an online jewelry store similar to Blue Nile). Anyway, I think you get the idea so I'll spare you the rest of the details. It was extremely stressful, I was in tears after we left, and I'm feeling sort of lost now. Looking for advice on how to avoid more experiences like this and how to communicate with local jewelers who aren't aware of PS. I'd prefer to buy local rather than online but bf and I haven't ruled out online. Thank you so much!

 

[Archerp]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

Ugh, I hate when jewelers try to make it seem that the consumer doesn't know what they are talking about in a situation where the jeweler obviously has no clue themselves (or is trying to sell you inferior stones).

I would politely but firmly insist on only seeing stones with GIA or AGS certs. Sounds like you're looking at round brilliant diamonds so further request only GIA excellent cut and AGS 0 stones. If the jeweler cannot provide you with a selection of these stones, then you know they are not going to be a good fit for you and you can move on and find the right jeweler.

As for a deeper narrowing down of your selection by the numbers and other info you learn on Pricescope, you may need to just apply that knowledge yourself and with the advice of the knowledgeable folks here. Get the cert #s and also judge the stones with your eyes in different lighting environments.

Forget this jeweler and enjoy the search once you find one that has quality stones to show you!

 

[DiamondsDiamonds]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

You should consider purchasing from reputable online vendors, such as WhiteFlash, JamesAllen, BrianGavinDiamonds, BuleNile, etc.

 

[footshooter5]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

+1 for online vendors. I've had great communication with White Flash - their sales reps are exceptionally friendly and they have a fantastic in house inventory.

 

[purplelife]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

Thanks all! Yes, we are looking for a round brilliant stone. The primary reason we've been focusing on local stores rather than online is because I will not buy a setting online, and I do like the idea of actually seeing the diamond in real life before buying to make sure it looks good to my eyes. I've tried on enough settings now to know that I have to see the setting in real life on my hand to know whether I Iike it. I've tried some that looked gorgeous in photos or in the case but they just didn't look right on my hand, and vice versa (didn't love the picture but love it on my hand). Bf and I have narrowed down settings to a handful at this point. I've looked to see if they can be purchased directly online but that doesn't appear to be the case. However, we'll certainly consider just buying the diamond online and having it set in a setting we buy locally. I haven't given up yet on buying the diamond locally so if anyone else has any words of wisdom they are greatly appreciated. Another store had 1 stone in our size range that was also clearly not a great stone, too small for its weight and looked kinda dark. The salesperson asked me directly why I didn't like it, it was just what I asked for, etc. and I don't know how to respond to this kind of questioning. I told him it was too small for its weight, and he tried to convince me otherwise (for reference, it was .9 carats and diameter was 6.09ish - I know a .9 should be closer to 6.2). The typical store seems to have a handful of stones in our size range and they try to convince us that they are all great, numbers don't matter, they only pick good stones, etc. The person at the store today was insulted that I would "trust" PS ("someone you don't even know!") over him. Also, when I'm only looking at one stone under bright lights I have nothing to compare to!

 

[galeteia]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

What I would do is use the PS search and helpful PSers to come up with a range of stones in your price range, with their numbers, and familiarize yourself with those numbers so you can talk about them confidently enough in a conversation.

Then, with your notes ready, start calling local stores and asking them if they have stones in X to Y range and give them some of the basic stats you are looking for. The salespeople you are calling will have no clue, but if they offer to have their jeweller/owner/whoever is their expert look at your inquiry and get back to you, that would be promising.

You will pay a premium for getting a stone from a B&M, though. Are you comfortable with losing a part chunk of your budget for a local vendor?

Alternately, you can take a look at some of the stock setting designers that you like, and then call around to see if stores carry them. The store that set my stone is very full of itself and is massively overpriced, but they also carry Tacori, Artcarved, Ritani, etc. So I got to see some of the settings I've seen online in person instead. Yes, you will probably have to spend a few hours on the phone, but you will be able to take notes and have notes in front of you so you don't get people trying abuse you into making a purchase. That was despicable.

Then, once you have some places that carry the settings you think you'd like, go there and try them on. Tell them you have an heirloom diamond your BF will be using to propose, and therefore are just shopping for settings right now. When you find the setting you want, then take it back to the online vendor of your choice where you are sourcing the stone and see if they can get their hands on that setting.

Lots of vendors use stock settings, can someone post some usual suspects?

 

[Dreamer_D]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

Hello, do you carry GIA diamond? No? Ok, thanks, good bye!

Hello, do you carry diamond with GIA lab reports? Yes? Great, I would like to see some with GIA Ex cut grades. You don't like that grade? You think it is silly? Ok, thanks, good bye.

Hello, do you carry diamond with GIA lab reports? Yes? Great, I would like to see some with GIA Ex cut grades. Great, I will be by to see them when you have them ready to view.

Simple simon. Never try to argue with them, never try to educate them, never try to engage in a conversation about the plusses or minuses of a certain stone. Ask for the lab reports before you see them and run through the HCA yourself. They don't like it? You don't buy it. If they do not see things like you do, simply leave.

 

[CharmyPoo]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

Good advice Dreamer.

When purchasing locally, I don't want to waste their time or mine. I want this - you don't have this - goodbye and thanks.

 

[swingirl]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

Where in the NE are you located? Gold Old Gold, a well-respected PS vendor that has a store where you can try on setting and see stones is located in Massapequa Park, NY. (Long Island).

Also, if you find out the brand of a setting you like, other vendors can order it and set your stone. All the preferred PS vendors have a return policy so if you buy a stone, you can have it sent to you or an appraiser to view, and if you don't like it you can send it back.

 

[pregcurious]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

I would not mention PS unless you are working with a vendor that you know is PS friendly.

I agree with the posters above to just see the GIA certs and not bother trying to educate. Just thinking it from the side of the vendor, they consider themselves more knowledgeable than their customers, and I think it might be construed as insulting to disagree with them, even if you are correct.

 

[denverappraiser]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

The good jewelers ARE better educated than the majority of consumers. The problem is that they are expected to be experts in everything that has to do with jewelry and consumers tend to learn the portion that applies directly to what they’re hunting for at the time. That said, it’s common for jewelers to hire staff that don’t know much whose job is to sell what is in the store. Particularly at this time of year, they often aren’t interested in taking the time to educate customers and even less interested in special ordering things that they don’t happen to have.

Pricescope is a very narrow community and you may have noticed that we don’t have a lot of jewelers here beyond the advertisers. There’s a variety of reasons for that, some of them good and some not so good, but it’s no great surprise that folks who don’t participate aren’t all that familiar with what goes on here. It’s their loss but, at the same time, I would cut them some slack on this topic.

None of this is an excuse for bad behavior, just an explaination of what might be happening. There are definitely jewelers out there who are better at supplying Pricescope type customer requirements than others. It’s good for both sides to figure this out early in the negotiation. If they’re selling something different from what you’re buying, move on to a dealer who is more to your liking. It’s a VERY competitive business. I disagree with the above that it benefits you to keep it a secret. On the contrary, I think it delivers the message nicely if you happen to have an idealscope in your purse, if you know how to use a loupe and tweezers properly, you know how to compare color (face down on a white background and look from the side), or if you call them ‘lab reports’ instead of ‘certificates’. By all means use the word ‘pricescope’ in a sentence. It can be both a verb or a noun.

 

[purplelife]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

Thanks all, excellent advice. I would love to go to GOG but unfortunately they are about a 4-5 hour drive from us. Based on all your advice, my primary problem is that I wasn't calling stores before visiting, and it's a lot easier for jewelers to try to "sell" you on a stone if you're already in the store. I'm really picky about setting, we've found only a handful I've liked enough to consider buying. I do like some of the designer styles (e.g., Tacori), but those are generally out of our budget. Fortunately, we've found that most "no name" or less well known designer settings in the general types of styles we like are within our budget.

Galateia - I'm willing to pay a little more to be able to see a stone before buying, but I'm definitely considering online this point. If I decide that we're definitely buying online I'll be back with all my budget details and I know the PS-er's will find something great!

A little more info... my original post mentioned two stores, let's call them A and B. Store A is where we originally found the setting I like the best. The same day we found this setting, we asked about diamonds but they only had one stone to show us (the small .9). However, Store A seemed receptive to finding a PS-approved stone for us, and said they'd be in touch. So, after that experience I went online to see if the setting could be purchased directly online or elsewhere. According to the setting company's website, it doesn't appear that a consumer can buy direct, but their store locator brought up 1 more store in our area (Store B) that carries their stuff. Bf and I then went to Store B and had the awful experience described in my original post.

Later (before I'd seen all your replies), we got a call from Store A telling us they found another .9 stone we can look at. We went and looked, and they let us compare side-by-side to the small .9 they showed us before. Stone 2 was a GIA very good cut, and definitely looked better to my eyes than the other stone, but I told them I wanted to see a few more in the GIA excellent or very good range (I regret that I wasn't FIRM on GIA excellent!). Also, I told Store A that we would consider buying the stone online and they could set it for us in the setting I like, they were totally ok with that.

If we end up considering any other stores, I will definitely CALL first as you suggested so we don't get into another situation where they are trying to show us anything but GIA excellent (or AGS but we haven't found AGS stones in our area).

One more question - what if I'm shown a bunch of GIA excellents but none are HCA < 2 - how do I explain why I won't buy one without mentioning HCA or PS? I want the opportunity to SEE an HCA <2 stone and don't know how to convey that without the jeweler trying to argue with me again about numbers. I can see them saying "but these are GIA excellent, that's what you wanted, why don't you like them? Stop focusing on numbers!" Perhaps I will discover that I actually CAN'T see a difference and we will end up buying a "lower" stone, but I won't feel comfortable doing that until I see the "best" there is (the "best" according to PS).

I definitely do not want to come off to jewelers as insulting, or that I know more than they do, etc. - this is so hard! Sometimes I wish I'd never found this site. But at the same time, I imagine if I were the jeweler at Store B (where we had the bad experience) and I genuinely believed in what I was saying (i.e., that you should ignore numbers), if someone walked in asking for specific numbers I'd do my best to find it for them anyway, even if I thought they were being silly! I'd try to please - that's how you make a sale!

 

[denverappraiser]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

The HCA is not widely known outside of the Pricescope community and if you plan to use it as one of your shopping criteria, definitely make sure the jeweler knows this in advance. The usual way both jewelers and online merchants get you what you want is to decide what your specs are and then contact their suppliers with them to see what they've got. Some are more efficient about this than others but it's unlikely they'll have it in stock. It's not without cost for them to do this and it works best for everyone if you give them all of your known specs upfront so that they don't waste their time and energies bringing in things that aren't going to be suitable. If they want to argue the point that your requirements are silly and should be reconsidered, the time to make their case is in advance, before they spend time and money on hunting and shipping stones. Sandbagging information like the fact that the HCA score is going to be one of you deciding points is a setup for frustration for both of you and gains you nothing.

 

[purplelife]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

Thanks denverappraiser, really appreciate the advice. On our original visit to Store A (the one we're still considering - DEFINITELY not returning to Store B), they showed us the one stone they had (the small .9) and when I said we'd like to see more I gave them a list of "specs" that included HCA < 2 with a link to the website. When they called to tell us they had gotten a second stone in (several weeks had passed since original visit), they were upfront that it did not match all of our specs (it was only GIA very good and lacking a few other things), and gave us the option of whether we wanted to look. We did, figuring it couldn't hurt, and I'm glad we did since we could so clearly see a difference from the first stone. They are continuing to look for us. They warned that it might be difficult to find something that matches all our requirements, but they were nevertheless receptive to trying which I appreciate.

 

[Smith1940]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

For most jewellery I would consider a local jeweller, but if I was buying one big diamond, or two for studs, personally I would use the online vendors because I do love to see the specs properly. (By one big diamond I mean a major purchase such as an engagement ring or expensive studs - a piece of jewellery which is really a once in a lifetime purchase.)

I have just posted about buying a rose gold scatter ring at E.B. Horn, which worked out really well, and I felt it was so nice to support a local business. However, if buying a diamond as opposed to any other piece of jewellery I would want to know exactly what I was getting, and I would want to have control over exactly what specs I choose - this is the beauty of the online vendors. At a local jeweller, I feel you just don't have the same level of control over the specs - you can only buy what they choose to show you or what's in the case. Online, you can sift through mountains of the things and look at every aspect of a given stone.

I have had good experiences always with Blue Nile, and I own a pair of Signature studs which just breathe fire. I should also mention that I got a fabulous diamond from James Allen at an unbeatable price. It was about nine months ago, and it's a D, Hearts and Arrows, HCA 0.9, and although it's S12 it's eyeclean and the inclusion is white so I can't find it even with my jeweller's loupe. It's 0.52 ctw and it cost $1090 I believe. I thought it was an excellent price - D colour, over half a carat, amazing cut...so yes, I am a big believer in the online vendors for single-diamond purchases.

I am sorry about your experience with the local jeweller. If you find a local that you like and trust, and have a good relationship with, that's great. But like everything, they're variable, I guess!

 

[distracts]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

I had similar issues when trying to buy my engagement ring. Most b&m stores had HORRIBLE customer service. There were two we found that were really good (out of literally dozens visited) and had good quality merchandise at prices that weren't insane. My fiance was more comfortable with one of them, so that's the one that we went with. They had GIA diamonds and AGL reports on their colored stones (which was mainly what I was worried about since I wanted an unheated natural sapphire for the center stone), and the sales guy was willing to talk to us at length and answer all the questions we had (many of which were pulled from things I read about here). So while it was tough and annoying to have to spend several months visiting 3-4 jewelry stores a week, in the end we ended up at a store we liked, that listened to what we wanted and did their very best to provide it. We called first and talked to them about what we wanted, and then my fiance emailed them pictures of the sorts of settings I thought I'd like and the sorts of sapphires we were looking at, and they had all those things pulled and sitting in front of us when we got to the store. However, the store we ended up at was at the World Trade Center in Dallas and visiting was by appointment only, so you would be the only customer in the store for the couple hours you were there, and all the staff would only be concentrating on you and your needs, which is a different dynamic than the other stores we visited.

So the conclusion here is that it may take some effort, but I bet you'll be able to find a store that's suitable!

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

When I started looking locally, I never found a store that had a selection of GIA excellent and AGS Ideal cut. Most jewelers simply don't have the demand for that, and they buy what will sell in their stores. I really had no choice but to buy from one of these vendors.

But there is no issue whatsoever about seeing the stone when buying online! I sent for two stones from 2 different vendors and returned them because they weren't exactly what I wanted (I sort of had to learn what I wanted through a process of elimination at that point!). Then I settled on Good Old Gold because they had two potential stones. At that time diamond prices allowed me to put both on a credit card and have them sent to me to look at. I chose one and sent the one I didn't want back and got the refund for it. If I had been buying the setting from them, which is the best thing to do, I would have also sent back the stone I chose for them to set. YES, by all means pick out the setting you want locally. Vendors such as Good Old Gold and Pearlman's carry most major designers! Then buy the stone from the vendor that has the setting you want.

You'll still come out cheaper having the stone sent to you to look at and then send back as opposed to paying the premium of buying locally in most cases. I'll never buy a new diamond locally, ever. I wouldn't bother looking because no one has the quantity or quality of in-house stones like GOG, WhiteFlash, Brian Gavin, etc.

 

[atp223]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

Hi purplelife - are you by any chance in the DC area? Your experience sounds really similar to one I had at a local DC area jeweler when first started looking, too!

 

[purplelife]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

Hi atp223,
I'm not in DC, so it definitely wasn't the same jeweler. It's reassuring to know I'm not the only one though! In case it wasn't 100% clear from my previous posts, I'm nearly certain we were talking to the owner of Store B, so this wasn't a case of a hired salesperson lacking in knowledge. I still can't believe how awful it was, and how negatively they reacted to the idea of PS and internet research on diamond "numbers" in general. They basically told me I must be one of those people who just "believes whatever I read on the Internet."

It was especially stressful because I'm a people-pleaser by nature and I hate confrontation. We should have walked out WAY earlier than we did!

 

[Unknown]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

Buy from reputable online vendor, most of them offer free overnight/2-day shipping and free return.
So give a try, simply return it if you are not 100% satisfied.

 

[50shadesofblack]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

I inquired about the specs of a stone I was looking at and a woman that was selling it looked at the label, then looked me straight in the eye and said very proudly that it is "VVS, meaning very very shine".

I thanked her, walked out and never set foot in that store again.

 

[kenny]

Re: Advice for dealing with local jewelers? Had bad experien

I inquired about the specs of a stone I was looking at and a woman that was selling it looked at the label, then looked me straight in the eye and said very proudly that it is "VVS, meaning very very shine".

I thanked her, walked out and never set foot in that store again.

How Very Very Stupid! Hahaha.