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Price Negotiating?

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PuddyKat

Rough_Rock
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Nov 4, 2002
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My boyfriend and I are hoping to buy our diamond soon. Been looking at a few places and will probably go with a referral from a friend on a place that sells "wholesale priced" diamonds. I'm wondering about the 'etiquette' of price negotiation. Does one negotiate prices on jewellery especially diamonds, or expect to pay the asking price??

Oops. more more thing, is an 'ideal' cut diamond always H & A or is that not true? Do you have to specifically ask for a H & A diamond? If a GIA report doesn't mention cut, how do I find out if it's an ideal cut diamond? Can I trust them if the store appraisal says its an ideal cut?

Thanks alot guys!!

Laurie
 
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On 11/13/2002 12:02:44 AM

My boyfriend and I are hoping to buy our diamond soon. Been looking at a few places and will probably go with a referral from a friend on a place that sells "wholesale priced" diamonds. I'm wondering about the 'etiquette' of price negotiation. Does one negotiate prices on jewellery especially diamonds, or expect to pay the asking price??

Oops. more more thing, is an 'ideal' cut diamond always H & A or is that not true? Do you have to specifically ask for a H & A diamond? If a GIA report doesn't mention cut, how do I find out if it's an ideal cut diamond? Can I trust them if the store appraisal says its an ideal cut?

Thanks alot guys!!

Laurie
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I would negotiate in a store but consider not doing that for an online place that already has a good price. But you can negotiate all you want in a store and never get as good a price as online right off the bat. Honestly, I have been in a dozen stores and only two knew what they were talking about, and I did not buy from either because neither had decent stones in stock (nice stones do not sell because nearly no one is educated enough to seek out nice cuts so the store has no reason to buy them). I saw no reason to have the store "order me" a good stone since I could do that myself and save a lot.

Yes, you have to ask for H&A. And be careful with "Ideal Cuts" as many (most) stores will say a cut is "Ideal" when they mean their own poor definition of it rather than a Towkolsky ideal or some genuine ideal.

No, you cannot trust a store that says a cut is ideal -- not at all -- because there is a ~80% chance any stone they call ideal really is not.

The easiest thing to do is either buy an AGS0 stone (rated for cut), or get a GIA with a depth of less than 61% and a table of less than 58%. If you want to go a step further, then only buy a stone in which you know the crown and pav angles (from a GIA cert or from a Sarin report) and run it in the Cut Advisor program. If you cannot get the dealer to run a Sarin report to give you those numbers (and it is a pain since chances are it will do poorly on the report!), then just buy an AGS0 and you will have a 90% chance of it being really great. The Sarin will find the remaining 10% of problems.

Just buy online with this search https://www.pricescope.com/sift.asp
And if you still chose to shop in a store, at least print out the stones you like from this search and bring the printouts into a store and ask them if they have any stones like them. Then they will not be able to rip you off because the price difference will be glaring.
 
It is very, very wrong to assume that the online vendors will not negotiate. Indeed, it is, in some ways, easier to negotiate with online vendors than B&M vendors. The brokers know that you can get the stone anywhere, and that they only have to pay for the stone if you are buying it. You can't get a very large discount -- because their margins are already comparatively small -- but you have all the leverage in the world.

The non-broker vendors also face stiff competition from the brokers. You can't really negotiate with Blue Nile or Mondera, but the little guys will definitely work with you.
 
I didn't mean that online won't negotiate. You can always pressure someone into giving a lower price. I meant that if you pay the published online price for a quality stone you are 90% ahead of the people who negotiated in a B&M store.
 
another thing to mention is watch any store that says they sell "wholesale" diamonds. you are a consumer, not a wholesale purchaser. therefore this cannot exist.
 
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