Frustrated with local jewelry shops

[PearCraze]

I want to know if I am being unreasonable, and if others had similar experiences. I live in a large city, and started my diamond search with local jewelry stores in June. I was looking for a 3 carat plus radiant or cushion diamond, and since this wasn't my first rodeo I knew that that online videos and pictures were not enough for me to make such big decision. I had good budget (or what I thought was good -10 to 15k more than online prices). There were two stores who required I pay 10% up front for every diamond that I saw. That just sounded like a bit much- especially since I wanted to find something special. Anyways I went along with it, and when they showed up with ONE diamond and I didn't like it- I was met with disdain and criticism. I finally found a store that only required a down payment if I wanted to hold a diamond- well that seemed fair. But our discussions were odd- they tried very hard to keep me from buying a diamond online ( I was open with them that I was looking at various places). They stated that the online diamond stores like blue nile, adiamor, james allen...etc are the "left over" diamonds. The ones that no one wants to buy after all of the other jewelers had their pick of the crop. IS THIS TRUE???? Well I continued to look at about 15 diamonds from this particular jeweler, and they all were MEH- forget even getting to the topic of fluorescence- I could not get that picky -and was not even shown the certs. Anyways I proceeded to take a shot with an online diamond because of all of these experiences. Unfortunately I had to come into the store to "return" the stones I had on hold. They requested that I bring the ring that I bought online- again ODD. They then proceeded to inspect my diamond through a loop, trying to get me to question my purchase, told me my "H" color was yellow and asked if I was sure it was GIA, they said it wasn't laser inscribed (it was), was critical of the fluorescence (recall they didn't even tell me what level of fluorescence their diamonds were), asked me how much it was, and were "worried" for me. *sigh*

Fast forward to last week, I love my online diamond but knew I was wanting a different setting. Again I set off to local stores because I'm just visual- need to see things in person. And I was serious in buying a setting from the store that spent so much time showing me diamonds- I felt bad not going with them and thought at least I could buy a setting from them. I start off by saying I want platinum, and I get "why would you want platinum, white gold is so much better"- why would a jeweler say that? I then look at Tacori, and they were really turning me away from it "why would you spend so much when you can have a similar design for half the price". Then they failed to understand why I wouldn't want a 4 prong peg head. I get passed to 3 different people within 15 minutes (it was busy, so that's ok). But it felt so difficult to spend my money. What is going on- do jewelry stores not make a profit on designer settings? Just really frustrated by my experiences.

 

[PearCraze]

Oh and I forgot to mention, one of the three associates even said "your husband did such a good job picking out your current setting, why do you want to change it?" Really- they must really not want my business?!

 

[lovedogs]

In my experience many jewelry stores are absolute trash (unfortunately). They either don't know anything about diamonds or they purposefully lie in order to make you doubt your purchase. Online inventory is NOT "leftover diamonds" by any stretch, that's just a silly myth that dishonest jewelers use to make you purchase their subpar diamonds. Most of them don't even have GIA stones and try to argue that EGL is better (which is a lie). I was told once that ideally cut diamonds (such as cut to order from HPD) are a lie and that XXX is all you need (LOL). Needless to say, I simply ignore the local jewelry stores when it comes to diamond info.

 

[Karl_K]

"The ones that no one wants to buy after all of the other jewelers had their pick of the crop. IS THIS TRUE????"

The opposite is true actually some online dealers have access to stones they dont own that the local guys can not get these days. Volume allows some companies to write the rules.

Other mostly smaller online dealers are stocking dealers and only they have access to their inventory.

There is some truth however there are a lot of duds on the lists that some dealers may reject so their is just a hint of truth. The prosumers here can help you learn how to avoid them.

 

[AllAboardTheBlingTrain]

I think a lot of it really comes down to luck and how marketplaces are structured in your area. In the US buying diamonds online is well established and easy to do and so large inventories are highly accessible to the end consumer. Your B&M stores often can’t compete. It’s not like there aren’t great B&M stores in the US as well (probably concentrated in big cities like NY) but the average store in the US doesn’t have access to large and good inventory. Then again, they don’t need to. They’re targeting a different kind of consumer - the average uninformed buyer who will pick up a few pieces max over the course of a lifetime and won’t ask many questions. Eye roll worthy practices (putting down online / other jewelers, or crapping on a diamond they didn’t personally sell) are pretty popular unfortunately because they work well as scare tactics on uninformed customers.

I don’t live in the US, and where I buy the market is completely different. Online sales aren’t popular here, so concierge services offered by jewelers is more the way people go. The pricing is often better than online US retail, but you do need to get your hands stuck in and do your research in order to buy a good stone. However, custom and handforged settings are easily accessible here and the prices are much lower than the US.

I do find it ridiculous that your store wouldn’t sell you the designer settings etc. I would assume they’d make a great (healthy) mark up on those. That’s weird to me! Unless they didn’t want to work with someone who is as discerning as you came across - they’d have to then make sure the setting/polishing/prong work would be perfect (unless when you buy a designer setting they ship your stone back to the designer’s bench? Not sure how that works).

 

[Bron357]

Unfortunately some jewellers are snobs, they just want a client who asks no questions and happily hands over the $$$$ for whatever diamond / ring they offer them.
that’s how it was in the “olden days”, now consumers ask questions, heaven forbid, want to see a range of gemstones, what !!, and are educated (thanks to Pricescope and similar online forums) OMG OMG OMG!
they are often so critical of online vendors, they’ll disparage any online purchase you’ve made and make you second guess yourself, they are critical of any setting not made or sourced by them, it’s total rubbish, it’s flimsy, it will fall apart in 2 weeks.
Ive even have jewellers refuse to work on anything not purchased through them!
I have found myself a lovely jeweller here in Sydney Australia with a fantastic bench and they’ll happily take on any challenge I throw at them. They even put me in contact with their veteran watchmaker, he’s 82 now, he has irreplaceable knowledge and skills and a healthy inventory of parts - he only does manual watches and he trained with Rolex back in the day.

 

[caolsen]

I agree with everything said here about the diamonds. On the platinum versus gold metals smith side of this, their comment is a dead give away for me.

Platinum is a more dense, and more brittle metal than gold - it is harder to work with and requires higher temp torches than gold. That is not a ding on gold, it’s just a fact. A bench that doesn’t want to touch platinum tells me all I need to know!

 

[sydneyatl]

When we were talking about getting engaged I was very adamant I wanted to use a local jeweler, support local businesses, etc etc etc.

First jeweler gave us the same spiel about it not being possible to source a good stone on your own online (we would still have considered using him, but then I found a stone via PS that I loved so that was that).

Second jeweler really ticked me off- we sat down to discuss our vision, they took our information and we left. They then proceeded to spam the hell out of my fiancé’s email with ads and when he called several weeks later to ask about progress on our design, they told him they had no record of him coming in. (Then how did you get his email?) We finally received an atrocious drawing that was a) not even the style we had discussed and b) was more than 3x the budget we had given them.

After that we gave up and went to one of the bigger, not quite “chain” but established jewelry stores. Nobody gave us crap about having brought in our own stone. Everything was done exactly to timeline. I’ve been back regularly over the better part of a decade for checkups and cleanings and have never, ever had a bad experience.

Funnily enough the second jeweler called my fiancé long after he had already proposed with the completed ring and was all OH HAI IM HERE TO TALK ABOUT MAKING YOUR DREAM RING!!1!1!!1!11

Yeah, no.

 

[OoohShiny]

I think the short answer WRT the jewellers in the OP is that they may be morons lol

 

[PearCraze]

I agree with everything said here about the diamonds. On the platinum versus gold metals smith side of this, their comment is a dead give away for me.

Platinum is a more dense, and more brittle metal than gold - it is harder to work with and requires higher temp torches than gold. That is not a ding on gold, it’s just a fact. A bench that doesn’t want to touch platinum tells me all I need to know!

Thats super helpful! I knew there had to be a reason why they would turn me away from platinum. I will use that as a screening tool from now on

 

[Cerulean]

I also tried to support local business, and I live in Chicago. I had appalling experiences at most places.

One in particular stood out - they insisted I make an appointment because they just had SO many setting options for the style I wanted. A 3-stone with pear sides. I said, ok, I want to compare sizes of size stones before choosing setting design, and they said they'd pull multiple options for me to look at size ratios. I also warned this was for sizing only, as I wanted antique cut pears.

I went. We paid for parking. We sat down and the woman brought out one setting that wasn't remotely what I wanted. They had one pair of pears to show me, despite promising to have many options for me, ready to go. I was livid. They had talked my ear off on the phone, made fill out some stupid request form with tons of detail online for an appointment, I waited two weeks for said appointment, and then they had ZILCH. Total waste of time.

I was transparent and said already had a quote from a diamond cutter (Yoram) for antique pears, and didn't expect them to source them. They just insisted I get a quote from them for custom cut pears, they'd send it in a follow up email right away.

Almost two weeks later I got a quote in an email, that was 2.5x what Yoram quoted me for two ~0.25 antique cut pears. I laughed! And never thought about them again until now.

 

[PearCraze]

I think the short answer WRT the jewellers in the OP is that they may be morons lol

You have no idea how many times I had to bite my lip. Like when I was promised Tacori only charges 300 dollars more to set a larger diamond, and that "crushed ice" is a term I supposedly made up and that the look of cushions has nothing to do with faceting- some are just more rectangular than others. Or about the time a jeweler tossed my ring in the air stating "what is this a CZ?". Even if it was.... you really shouldn't be tossing someone's engagement ring around.

 

[LLJsmom]

You have no idea how many times I had to bite my lip. Like when I was promised Tacori only charges 300 dollars more to set a larger diamond, and that "crushed ice" is a term I supposedly made up and that the look of cushions has nothing to do with faceting- some are just more rectangular than others. Or about the time a jeweler tossed my ring in the air stating "what is this a CZ?". Even if it was.... you really shouldn't be tossing someone's engagement ring around.

Tossing your ring?!?! I cannot...

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

I just started a poll on this very issue

% price difference (if any) between +5ct unheated un treated fine blue sapphires from Ceylon / Sri Lanka and Madagascar?

 

[Tonks]

Yeah, I think you can find great people at local jewelers, but you can also find people that really make you scratch your head.

The last time I was at ours, I was browsing, and they offered to clean my engagement ring. I said sure. They took it back and steam cleaned it, and the guy brought it back, and I was making chit chat about how it looked great, etc. The guy who handed me my cleaned ring was like, “Oh yeah, we do all the stuff to make it look great. We polish it, we rhodium plate it so it looks brand new.”

I look at the guy, and said, “If you rhodium plated my platinum we are going to have a MAJOR PROBLEM.”

Thankfully, they had not. And he honestly looked surprised that I would not have wanted it.

 

[Modified Brilliant]

I can only comment that in some stores it is mandatory to "TO" (turnover) a customer if you feel that you are not a good fit or losing the sale. It might bruise an ego, but a "split sale" is better than no sale. The customer senses this and continuity is often lost during the sales presentation. I speak from experience as a former District Manager for a retail company.