diamondyes
Brilliant_Rock
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2020
- Messages
- 1,833
Saw this as well, I think it must be a Valentines day thing. No harm in waiting until Feb 15th to see if it changes!
Yep, I noticed that too. One I had on my watch list went up 40% overnight. Crazy!!
I bet prices will go down again after Valentine's Day! Overall, it seems like pricing has been volatile, but on a general downward trajectory (though it's not clear when we hit bottom, or when the market corrects)...if you check out this price chart on Stone Algo for 2 carats, you can see that! https://www.stonealgo.com/lab-grown-diamonds/round-cut/?carat=2
Absolutely! Just holler!
July is a great time to bargain shop for jewelry!
Oh yeah? My hope was March… after Valentines and Christmas, but before summer wedding insanity…
Jewelry high season is Christmas through Mother’s Day.
Fun fact - the diamond that Kim N & DejaWiz originally helped me select from Ritani (that didn't ship from the vendor for two weeks) was $2,393 when I bought it on 1/19...I just canceled the entire order yesterday after my replacement Frank Darling order came in. Totally fell in love with the FD, and Ritani also confirmed that this diamond never shipped from India. This morning, it went back into inventory and is listed at $4,437!
Are you freaking kidding me?!!! This is so wild! And makes me very nervous about buying a lab diamond- seems like my odds over “over-paying” run a little high for my comfort!
Wow thanks for sharing!
FYI, not sure if this is common or not, but I was able to chat with a Ritani rep about the spike in price and they were able to price match / adjust to the lower price that was previously listed. I provided a screenshot of the price and they had to get the approval from a higher up. Perhaps I was lucky on the matter, but worth a shot if you were wanting to acquire the stone. Hopefully it works out for you if you're trying to get it sooner rather than later.
So my advice for this would be the following (I'm also an economist!) - Primarily, I would ground yourself in what you're willing to pay - what is "mind clean" for you?
From a pure markup perspective, you will "overpay" for any luxury item. That's how prestige pricing works. But even for big-ticket non-luxury purchases (think cars/homes), there are huge fluctuations for similar specs, components, and cost of labor to produce. The key is thinking about what you're willing to pay for this item for the pure benefit and intrinsic value to you, that won't come with regret even if prices drop in the future, because that's how much you've deemed it to be worth.
Here's my own diamond-buying example: I was originally interested in getting a lab diamond 4 years ago. A quality ~2 carat lab was still running well over $10k, and I felt that I would feel regret if the price dropped a lot further in the future. Fast forward to very recently, when I found a high performing ~2.7 HPHT D/VS1 for under $3k. Will the price for a similar diamond ever be lower in the future? Very possibly. But I will be content, because: 1/I found the diamond that I want forever, at a size and quality that will not cause me to want another upgrade, 2/I came to the great prosumers on PS and we ensured that this diamond is a great performer, and 3/at this point, a natural diamond with the specs I'm getting runs anywhere from $45k-$60k+...even if the price for lab diamonds drop, I will have recouped the majority of the savings differential, and I'm at a place where I will not regret spending $3k on a lab diamond vs elsewhere.
This is just my own example of my rationale against the roller coaster that is price signaling, but yours will be unique to you! The bottom line is - determine how much you value your diamond - the cost vs. benefit to YOU - and pull the trigger when you're satisfied with that.