Category of Diamond Retailer

The next C is the choice of category of diamond retailer that you purchase the diamond from.

The main categories of merchant are:

• International Jewellery Brand with UK stores(s)
• National Jewellery Chain
• Independent High Street Retailer
• Online Diamond Merchant
• Independent Diamond Merchant
• Diamond Jewellery Designer

Each of the different types has advantages and disadvantages. 

International Luxury Brand with UK store(s)
These are the world’s most exclusive luxury jewellery brands that command a premium price. Customers are then able to say that they own a branded piece.

Examples of these brands are:

• Tiffany’s www.tiffany.com/uk
• De Beers www.debeers.com
• Bulgari www.bulgari.com
• Cartier www.cartier.com

These brands employ the very best designers and use excellent quality diamonds to create spectacular rings. However typically these brands command exorbitant prices. They have been built around the concept of exclusivity and are aimed squarely at the upper end of the market.

While you can narrow down the search to a particular setting and size of diamond by visiting a national jewellery chain store, the famous brands offer their own particular designs of settings that national chains will not carry. If your fiancée/girlfriend wants a special design for her ring then famous brand stores could be the place to find it. However once she has found the design that she likes you can get the design replicated by a craftsman and pay far less doing it this way. Be careful about infringing copyright laws if you do decide to go down this route.

Pros:

• Absolutely beautiful jewellery, which can expand the mind as to what is possible for a diamond engagement ring.
• Staff tend to be highly trained and willing to spend more time educating prospects who walk in.
• Jewellery bought from these luxury brands is usually very exclusive and hence likely to not be found on many other fiancées fingers.
• As these are premium brands, you can be fairly certain that you are not going to be scammed (although always buy a diamond ring that has an independent laboratory report).

Cons:

• These stores are unlikely to hold loose diamonds, meaning that most will already be set. If you are thinking of purchasing one of these branded pieces this will limit your flexibility on the type of setting if you find a particular diamond you like, and vice versa.
• Potentially difficult to get to as most only have stores in London.
• Extremely expensive due to the fact that they are a luxury brand and charge a hefty premium.
• Unless you are smartly attired don’t expect a great deal of attention from sales assistants. These stores often get “rubber-neckers” and tourists who have no intention of purchasing, and subsequently a sales assistant will try to quickly qualify whether you are really in the market for a piece using whatever signals are available. 

National Jewellery Chain

These are the familiar national companies that advertise extensively in national media and have a store in most cities and main towns.

These stores are fairy common on the High Streets of most towns and cities. This makes them an excellent first stop when venturing out on your first browsing mission.

Staff will be moderately trained but you will have at least as much knowledge as them (if not more) after you have read this guide. Remember that these are sales assistants and will attempt to sell you a piece of their jewellery. Be sure to read all of this guide as it details persuasion techniques that these assistants are likely to use on you, and the methods to counter their tactics.

These stores will also use fairly standard High Street “Sale Ends Soon” type promotions and it is important not to be suckered into a purchase because of one of these seemingly “great deal going quickly” campaigns.

There are large profit margins that get added at each stage of the diamond supply chain, and one of your aims is to either avoid or to whittle down as many of these profit margins as possible.

Pros:

• Fairly common in most towns so a good first stop in your diamond viewing adventures.
• Should have access to a fairly large range of different rings so you can get a good idea of what your girlfriend/fiancée likes by visiting a few of these stores.
• Nationally recognised brands you can trust not to sell you a fake diamond.

Cons:

• Staff only moderately trained and you probably won’t learn anything new from them.
• As they have set prices on most pieces it is much harder to negotiate on their jewellery.
• Like the famous brand companies, most of the diamonds will already be mounted in a setting. This limits your flexibility around customising settings.
• They cater for the mass market so they are unlikely to have many creative designs. 

Independent High Street Retailer
These tend to be the family-owned stores that may have been retailing for many years in your local town or city.

Their main areas of strength are that they offer easily-trusted, personalised service which they use to survive competitively next to the national jewellery chain stores. They will probably have strong links with local jewellery makers so can be a good option for having a customised setting produced.

Pros:

• Should be fairly close to where you live so easy to get to. A good place to start ring browsing.
• Stay in business using personalised service, gaining high levels of trust and getting repeat business so you should be well treated in these stores.

Cons:

• Probably not as price-competitive as the national chain stores.

• May not have breadth of range of rings that national chain stores do.

Online Diamond Merchant
Many national chain jewellers and independent high street retailers have websites that their jewellery can be purchased from. There are also online retailers who have either very limited or no “bricks-n-mortar” stores at all.

The cost savings of buying through the internet can be considerable. An online merchant can avoid the high overheads of maintaining a shop in a High Street location and does not have to carry as much stock as a traditional jeweller. Adding to this is the fact that most online merchants actually reduce their profit margins so as to be an even more attractive proposition over the bricks-n-mortar retailers. This price reduction can be anywhere between 30% and 50%!

Pros:

• An excellent source of high-quality information about diamonds.
• Very price-competitive.
• Usually have many excellent tools, such as price comparators and build-your-own-ring functions.
• If you pay by credit card you are covered for fraud by your credit card issuer.

Cons:

• Unable to see and touch the ring before it is delivered.
• Difficult to associate a salesperson with the purchase if anything is to go wrong with the purchase.
• Don’t get personalised service (could be a plus if you want to avoid any hard-sell type tactics).

Independent Diamond Merchant

An independent diamond merchant is an individual or company that buys diamonds directly from a diamond exchange. They may also buy or trade diamonds with other diamond merchants. A diamond merchant may also be called a diamond broker or a diamond trader.

Typically, independent diamond merchants will only have a very small shop or simply an office, and deal on a one-on-one basis with their customers.

These two factors explain the large cost savings that can be made by purchasing from a diamond merchant. They are closer to the start of the supply chain and so a manufacturer and retailer store haven’t added their margin into the price equation, and they do not need to hold large amounts of diamond stock, or employ many staff, nor have the other overheads of running a retail store. Like the online diamond retailer price reductions of 30% to 50% can be achieved compared to buying from the High Street!

Typically, the diamond merchant will source the loose diamond for you and he/she will have that diamond set into a ring by a goldsmith that they have a supplier relationship with.

They could at your instruction, work with a designer to merge your perfect diamond with the perfect setting. This will of course be more expensive than using a stock setting provided by a goldsmith.

Pros:

• Diamond merchants usually have expert knowledge about diamonds.
• Very personalised service – often you deal directly with the merchant.
• Very price competitive, as they cut out parts of the supply chain and don’t have overheads of running a store(s).

Cons:

• Don’t necessarily have stock to hand so go there already having asked them to source a selection of stones for you.

Diamond Jewellery Designer

A jewellery designer will generally not source the diamond for you; they will leave that up to an independent diamond merchant. What they will do is bring to fruition the diamond engagement ring in your mind's eye.

Pros:

• Generally unique pieces, so no one else will have a ring like it.
• No matter how garish or unusual your design, he/she will produce what you want.

Cons:

• More expensive as the exclusivity carries a price.
• You will need to source the diamond separately before getting it set by the designer.

Friend's Recommendation

A good price, good service, no pressure to buy, and trust in the retailer are all factors which play a part in the purchasing decision and it is usually these factors that get mentioned when someone gives you a word-of-mouth recommendation.

Because we are in a time when the buyer is spoiled for choice for retailers who can fulfil his/her needs, a friend’s opinion can be a real time-saver.

Pros:

• Cuts out all the legwork of having to vet a merchant/retailer for trust, experience, authenticity.

Cons:

• Blindly following advice without doing any research will mean you don’t minimise your spend/maximise your diamond. Find out how much research your friend actually did first.