My loose diamond online experience

[turkeyfoot27]

I have found buying an engagement ring online tiring and gruesome. My bf and I have been looking for nearly a year. We started first by going to all the local big chain stores, all of which were very helpful. However, my taste is a little bigger that my bf's budget. HOWEVER, we soon discovered buying online was the perfect solution for us.

We have purchased a diamond and it is estimated to arrive tomorrow (I can't wait). Here are my few pieces of advice for those of you who are wondering where to start:

Buy GIA certified-they are all assigned a number (or other reliable certified diamond). If it is assigned a certification number does it really matter where you buy it from chain or online? I don't think so!)

Decide EXACTLY what you want before you contact the online vendors to help you find a ring. Otherwise your search may be too broad. Determine if color or clarity is more important to you, budget, etc.

First I will say I bought my ring from Adiamor. So far they have been great! Although I will say I am a little disappointed in their return policy-you have to pay for shipping and insurance. The great plus with going with Adiamor is I saved over $500 on the SAME EXACT ring on Bluenile.

I will say Bluenile was extremely helpful and friendly; I just had to go with the site that offered the best price on the diamond I wanted. They were very prompt with my questions and VERY knowledgeable. I have bought other jewelry from them and had a great experience.

I also spoke with several online vendors. I must say I found Brilliance.com to have the BEST customer service. They were ALWAYS HONEST and if I would have found my diamond on their website I probably would have bought from them just because of how generous they were with honesty and straight forward. I spoke with Vinney several times, very awesome.

I also spoke with Union Diamond. They were very prompt on their replies (always responded by the next day) but I just didn't find what I was looking for. The benefit of working with Union Diamond is they will email with you to find your diamond and will let you know when they have it "on hold." This way you will not be disappointed and find out after your purchased your diamond it might have been bought by another vendor and is no longer available. I would say I would be a little hesitant to buy from them. Although my brother bought a diamond from them and was very pleased.

Lastly I worked with B2Cjewels a lot. They by far seem to have the best prices of any of the competitors. Their return policy is AMAZING because they pay for return shipping and insurance which can cost you a pretty penny as I found out when I looked it up. HUGE plus in my mind. They are friendly, but depending on who you work with their customer service can be superb or rather slow getting back to you. If you have patience I would recommend checking them out. Although I would confirm with two vendors if a diamond is eye clean. I had three differing opinions based on one diamond from three different vendors.

Hope this helps someone and I hope my diamond comes in shiny and bright tomorrow

 

[swingirl]

Although I would confirm with two vendors if a diamond is eye clean. I had three differing opinions based on one diamond from three different vendors.

How did three different venders evaluate the same diamond to determine whether or not it was eye clean? Did they mail it back and forth?

 

[Christina...]

How did you find the online experience compared to shopping locally? You mentioned that it was tiring and gruesome, did you have a more positive shopping experience in person? Other than price, did you find any other benefit to shopping online?

The vendors that you mentioned don't actually add a lot of value to the online shopping experience. To my knowledge, other than B2C they do not ever view the stone and can't provide additional images crucial in determining a stones likely light performance. Of course most BM stores can't either, but many many other online vendors can. I find these images and the fact that other vendors can actually view the stone in person and make a professional recommendation an enormous benefit over shopping at most BM stores.

I'm excited that you get your ring tomorrow and hope that it's everything that you hope for! Can't wait to see photos!

 

[ariel144]

There are online vendors who supply pictures and performance testing which insures that you are getting a really nice stone for your $$'s.

Buying from vendors online that you mention who don't even have the stone in their possession, nor pictures of the stone so you can see the quality of the faceting/clarity, nor ASET, Diamexray, or Megascopes is a crap shoot, which PSr's don't recommend, as stated above. Hope it turns out well for you though. Post your pics when your ring comes.

 

[diamondloveaffair]

a little confused here. Where did you finally get your diamond from?

 

[sha4000]

I looked on all those site as well and decided to go with B2C and had a great experience with Franco. I called several times over the weekend and had in depth feed back from him. Although the stone was in India, He was able to provide me with an actual photo of the diamond as well as an ASET and Ideal Scope. Even if they were not the best by PS standard (photos) they helped to assure me a great deal. I was also emphatic that the stone be eye clean which he got in touch with the actual seller and was assured that it was indeed eye clean. I know that he never had the stone in his possession as it was on several other vendors site most notably Zoara which also listed it as being eye clean. I stated that if is was not that I would be sending it right back so when they received it they gave me a call and let me know that it was indeed beautiful and eye clean again before they shipped it to me. Once I got the stone everything was confirmed by myself, an ID appraiser and the Yekutiel at ID jewelry when they set the stone. So overall I had a great online experience once I found this sight and I would not hesitate to purchase online ever again.

 

[sha4000]

a little confused here. Where did you finally get your diamond from?

She said Adiamor.

 

[westcoastmom]

I know that he never had the stone in his possession as it was on several other vendors site most notably Zoara which also listed it as being eye clean.

Did you find this out by googling the GIA report number?

 

[sha4000]

I know that he never had the stone in his possession as it was on several other vendors site most notably Zoara which also listed it as being eye clean.

Did you find this out by googling the GIA report number?

No, I knew this from searching different sites with the exact specs before I realized that it was the same diamond but if you search for a diamond with the online search tool you will clearly see the stone listed at different vendors. There was a thread here that confirmed it though. I also checked the certs in the end.