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Fancy pink diamond from Lightbox - need advice

J

JDB320

Rough_Rock
Joined
Nov 26, 2018
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3
Hello! Long time lurker here. I'm in need of advice from the Pricescope community. I very much appreciate everyone's expertise here!

I was gifted a 1 carat fancy pink princess cut lab diamond from Lightbox. I was planning on resetting it into a white gold halo, however due to financial circumstances, I need to sell it and I would like to get the most for my money.

I checked on Brilliant Earth and the closest comp I could find was a 1.18 carat fancy pink princess cut lab diamond for $7,820. here is the link.

Lightbox seems to have discontinued the 1 carat pink diamond princess cut option on their website - the largest you can get now is 1/2 carat, so I think that could make it more valuable.

I've attached a few photos - the diamond in real life is a deeper pink than what is photographed.

Does anyone have any advice on how to sell this? Am I better off selling as is? Should I try and get it reset into ring to give it more "curb appeal?" I have never done this before so any advice is appreciated!


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Are you attempting to make a large profit (since you mentioned the 1.18 from BE)? Just trying to figure out what your intentions are.

Edit- BTW, you may need to move this thread over to the Lab Grown diamonds forum.
 
JMHO, I doubt there is an easy way to sell a 900$ lab diamond for anywhere near 7K.
Most people are interested in white/clear so the market for a pink will be much smaller than a clear and people are unlikely to be willing to pay over retail on an item that will likely come back into stock. The company is new and so the inventory will be changing over the next 6 months to a year and it is unlikely they will never again make a 1 ct pink.

Talk to the person who gave it to you and if it is within the return period ( I believe 30 days) you can return it though and get a refund and use the money toward your expenses!
 
tyty333 said:
Are you attempting to make a large profit (since you mentioned the 1.18 from BE)? Just trying to figure out what your intentions are.
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That would be the ideal situation but I honestly don't know how this works
 
Most people who might buy your Lightbox diamond would know that it cost $900 new so unless they are desperate for it, they won’t want to pay more than it originally cost.
And while a pink 1 carat isn’t currently available that doesn’t mean they are going to produce and sell more later on.
As with all things, you can ask whatever price you want but whether or not someone will pay you that amount only time will tell.
I wouldn’t invest more money into a ring setting as people’s tastes are wide and varied, your idea of a ring setting may not match theirs, plus there are dozens of different ring sizes and it’s an expense for people to size up or down. I don’t know if you’ll get that extra money back.
 
tkyasx78 said:
JMHO, I doubt there is an easy way to sell a 900$ lab diamond for anywhere near 7K.
Most people are interested in white/clear so the market for a pink will be much smaller than a clear and people are unlikely to be willing to pay over retail on an item that will likely come back into stock. The company is new and so the inventory will be changing over the next 6 months to a year and it is unlikely they will never again make a 1 ct pink.

Talk to the person who gave it to you and if it is within the return period ( I believe 30 days) you can return it though and get a refund and use the money toward your expenses!
Click to expand...

I'm not trying to sell it for $7,000. I just put that as a reference because it was the closest thing I could find. I would be happy selling it for less.

It's been over 30 days so I can't return it...
 
If you want to test the market, list it on eBay. You’d need to list with a starting bid of $1,100 to cover the eBay and PayPal fees and you can see what “the market” thinks it’s worth.
 
I think it will hold the most appeal as is with tags and everything.

It was clearly a popular product and the fact that it is now sold out may very well work in your favour. I would add that in the description and how much less expensive it is than a lab diamond of similar size/colour.

The major selling point could be that it is currently out of stock. There are some trainers I want which I have searched for ages, they are now out of stock. If I saw them on eBay for the retail price or even a bit more expensive , new with tags i'd buy them immediately.

Also Christmas shopping will start to peak soon so you may very well be successful on eBay.
 
@Bron357 sorry only saw yours once posted! yep starting price, you never know!!
 
Bron357 said:
Most people who might buy your Lightbox diamond would know that it cost $900 new so unless they are desperate for it, they won’t want to pay more than it originally cost.
And while a pink 1 carat isn’t currently available that doesn’t mean they are going to produce and sell more later on.
As with all things, you can ask whatever price you want but whether or not someone will pay you that amount only time will tell.
I wouldn’t invest more money into a ring setting as people’s tastes are wide and varied, your idea of a ring setting may not match theirs, plus there are dozens of different ring sizes and it’s an expense for people to size up or down. I don’t know if you’ll get that extra money back.
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Agreed, you might get away with a price that's slightly higher, but I don't know if there was crazy demand for this product, or lightbox just didn't make very many.
 
@MakingTheGrade true de beers may have intentionally done that.

@JDB320 perhaps keep expectations low ...like 50% of retail price return. Then if it works out better thats great. The tags should really help I think
 
Matilda said:
@MakingTheGrade true de beers may have intentionally done that.

@JDB320 perhaps keep expectations low ...like 50% of retail price return. Then if it works out better thats great. The tags should really help I think
Click to expand...

Yeah there's actually a well known concept in start up/business world called "Vapor testing"
Where you sometimes don't even have the product, and you just label it "out of stock" and see how many people sign up to get notified when it comes back as a way to gauge interest in a sneaky way. You can also just produce like 10 of an item, let them sell out, and same effect. It can let companies know whether they should sink time and investment into a product because just surveys is super unreliable.
 
@MakingTheGrade I suspected as much but I'm still shocked to hear about this! thanks for the tip, I'll keep it in mind when shopping, as when something I kind of want is out of stock I become a woman on an obsessed mission, suddenly needing it haha;)2
 
MakingTheGrade said:
Yeah there's actually a well known concept in start up/business world called "Vapor testing"
Where you sometimes don't even have the product, and you just label it "out of stock" and see how many people sign up to get notified when it comes back as a way to gauge interest in a sneaky way. You can also just produce like 10 of an item, let them sell out, and same effect. It can let companies know whether they should sink time and investment into a product because just surveys is super unreliable.
Click to expand...

Omg that’s totally what they did! Evil geniuses!
 
It was a gift so $800 is your profit anyways. Sell it at cost and see if it gets bid up.
 
I'm going to be a Debbie Downer here, but I would be surprised if you get over $500 for this, and I would think $300 is a realistic price. That's the price that would tempt me to purchase it. I say all this as a lightbox fan who has the white version of the necklace you're selling. Lightbox isn't well known. They have less than 5K instagram followers. To compare, whiteflash has 15.2K. It's a new venture that most people have never heard of and need to be educated about (a lot of potential buyers think lab diamonds are czs). Yes, that style appears to have been discontinued, but lightbox isn't at the point where it has a large consumer collector base who will seek out specific pieces.

That said, it's Christmas shopping season, and if you're in no rush to sell it, go ahead and list it high and shoot for the stars.
 
First, wrong forum. Please ask the mods to move this to the synthetics section.

What people will pay and what they like is highly subjective. I definitely would not sink more money into a custom setting, etc as you will likely guess wrong about what they want, their ring size, the metal color, etc.

I think it's unreasonable to expect a large windfall.

But if I were trying to maximize my profit on such an item and was going to use eBay I would list as-is with all the tags. Indicate it was a gift and is outside the 30-day window and you realize the stone is non-returnable. It may sound scary but I've found starting auctions at $0.01 normally attracts the most attention. It creates a buzz and ultimately what you want is to get a few dedicated buyers that gets emotional about the purchase and will outbid whoever tries to take "their" listing.

I did this with a tricked out Jeep I had several years back. Put it up for $0.01, took nice photos, gave lots of details about the mods and promptly answered questions. It shot up to about $15k in the first 24 hours. A day or so later I had a message requesting I call a buyer that was actually local and offered me a price I couldn't say no to if I would end the auction early and sell to him directly. It was quick, easy and yielded a higher sales value than trading or selling via traditional methods.
 
If I were you I would not change the setting and I would not price it over what Lightbox sold it for. All it takes is one buyer and you may find one who really wanted this item before it sold out and is willing to pay at or near what Lightbox charged. You can always take the price down from there if it isn't moving.
 
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FWIW I would pay about a 20% premium to get my hands on some of the chronically out of stock Lightbox items.
 
MissStepcut said:
FWIW I would pay about a 20% premium to get my hands on some of the chronically out of stock Lightbox items.
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I’ve just about given up on them and went different avenues.
 
MissStepcut said:
FWIW I would pay about a 20% premium to get my hands on some of the chronically out of stock Lightbox items.
Click to expand...

Same. If I really wanted an item.
 
I’ve been looking at light box and adore the pink color! I think people who really want the 1 carat size and don’t want to wait for it to be back in stock would pay a slight markup on eBay. I’ve paid a mark-up on limited edition Louis Vuitton.
 
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