I bought my wife’s engagement ring from Amazon.com and I learned a few things in the process…
Pros of buying a wedding ring from Amazon
When I began shopping for my wife’s engagement ring, I started browsing “traditional” jewelry stores to get a ballpark figure of what the ring I wanted was going to cost me. Like most other purchases I make, I did my homework and learned about the four C’s (color, cut, clarity, carat) so that I could make an educated buying decision.
All of the “traditional” stores seemed to be within a few hundred dollars of each other for similar diamonds. And this ballpark figure was tending to be higher than I was looking to spend. Coincidentally, I stumbled upon the Amazon.com Jewelry Store when I happened to be in the market.
I explored the site and studied the return policy. Once I felt comfortable that I would have no problem returning the ring if I wasn’t satisfied, I began actually looking at the ring design feature. The store is set up so you can actually design the ring you want and specify how good of a diamond you would like. It was a very easy process and gave me the liberty to create what she wanted rather than search for what she wanted.
Seeing the price of the ring that I designed, I became very skeptical, because it was thousands less than what I had seen in the stores (for the same specs). But after thinking about it for a while, I decided to take the chance since they had a good return policy.
Since the ring was custom designed, it took about a month to arrive. It came in a nice looking wood ring box (without the Amazon logo, thank God) and looked really nice.
Included in the package was an appraisal of the ring which stated that it’s appraisal value was a few thousand more than I had just paid. I didn’t put much confidence in their appraisal, so I took it to a high-end jeweler to have it appraised. He charged me $75 for the appraisal, but I figured it was worth it to know if I was getting ripped off.
When I received the appraisal back from this jeweler, it was a few hundred less than what Amazon had appraised it for, but still thousands more than what I had just paid.
Since Amazon goes direct to the diamond importers and sells directly to the customers, they can cut the costs that other jeweler’s have to pay for sales staff, rent, electricity, etc.
Cons of buying a wedding ring from Amazon
- The biggest downside to buying jewelry online is that you can’t see it until it arrives.
- If it is custom designed, it may take over a month to arrive.
- Most “traditional” jewelers offer free cleaning for life if you purchase from them, so you will likely have to pay for cleanings.
- It isn’t as easy returning it online as it would be driving to the jeweler who you purchased it from.
Overall, I am very happy with my decision to buy from Amazon. As mentioned, there are some cons to buying from them, but when all things are considered, I think it was definitely worth it.
I believe they sell all sorts of jewelry now, so next time you make a jewelry purchase it may be worth your time to check them out.
