When you buy diamonds online, you can protect yourself if you do your homework.
The biggest concern online shoppers have is knowing who to trust. With so many scams around today, it pays to know what you’re doing before spending money on diamonds or any other product online.
So where do you start?
It’s really not that difficult to figure out which merchants can be trusted and whether you can be sure to get the product you ordered.
Three top things to do before you buy diamonds online.
- Educate yourself on what makes a good diamond. Learn what you should be looking for in making your selection. Learn about the 4Cs (cut, clarity, color and carat weight).
- Do price comparisons to get an idea of what certain types and styles of diamonds cost. This will help protect you from paying more than a diamond is worth. It will also clue you in to what you can expect if you pay too little.
- Investigate the vendor to ensure they are legitimate. This can be done by checking things like their affiliations with organizations that govern the practices of diamond sellers. Go through the vendor’s site and read all the fine print about their policies. Pay special attention to guarantees, refunds and other assurances. You can also run a search for the particular vendor to see if it brings up any negative feedback on forums or other sites from dissatisfied customers.
When you buy diamonds online it is no more unsafe than buying anything else online. If you follow these 3 steps, you should have no problem figuring out which vendors can be trusted.
When your research is done and you’re ready to actually buy diamonds online, you’ll want to know how to sort through the information you gathered about diamonds.
Here is a quick format to help you.
As discussed, you’ll be looking at the cut, clarity, color and carat to be sure you’re getting a good diamond, based on how each one is affected by price and beauty.
Carat has the biggest effect on price. Clarity is second in line as it affects price. It’s unsure how the carat affects beauty although a large diamond certainly attracts a lot of attention. Clarity has some influence on the beauty of the diamond, whereas the color and cut contribute most to the beauty and have the least effect on price.
This means that a diamond with high color and high clarity will cost more than a diamond with medium or low color and clarity.
High color and high clarity combinations cost a lot more than high color and medium clarity or medium color and high clarity.
One other thing to consider before you buy diamonds online is if they come with a grading report from a recognized lab.
The best known gem stone labs are Gemstone Institute of America (GIA), American Gem Society (AGS), European Gemological Laboratory (EGL) and HRD (The Antwerp World Diamond Center). The top two are the GIA and AGS are considered by the experts to be most consistent and reliable when grading the diamonds. For this reason, less expensive diamonds will be those with an EGL report.
Your final stage is all about personal selection. Use the above information to get the background you need to be sure you are getting a good quality diamond from a reputable and trustworthy vendor. Then, look at the actual mount of the diamonds.
Do your homework, and when you’re ready to buy diamonds online, you will have all the necessary information to make an informed decision.
