One of the topics that people always want
more information on is buying diamonds online.
Today, we're going to discuss why you should never buy a diamond online.
People typically buy their engagement
ring diamond online for one or more of these reasons.
So there's the selection.
You know, they feel like they've got way
more diamonds to choose from than just a typical store. Pricing.
Right.
The price is a lot better than what they may find in a store.
The customization options they have are way more options, a lot more styles that
you can put, whatever shape you want in on it.
And then there's obviously the convenience, right.
So you can do all of this from the comfort of your own home.
Don't have to talk to anybody.
And so I actually worked in the e-commerce industry.
And what we're going to do today is peel back the curtain, really kind of give you
some insider insight into what actually goes on.
We're really going to show you
the illusion that is often kind of put out there.
And then we're going to actually show you what actually is really happening.
And then towards the end of the video,
we're going to show you the best way to buy your engagement ring.
Let's start with the selection or what I call a selection myth.
And so, first of all, you're going to website and it looks like
you got hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of stones to select from.
So here's the first thing that most of you may not know.
These websites do not have any of these stones.
They do not own any of these stones.
They are simply
feeding a feed from a database and they are basically a brokering service.
Think of like a realtor.com,
where you look for homes they're kind
of just showing all the options that are out there.
The only difference is that you can actually buy the home on there.
And so what most people don't realize is these stones are not only not only are
they not owned by these companies, they're actually mostly all around
the world and the vast majority of them are actually in India.
OK, so that's where it is when you're when you're buying it.
Online companies are trying to give you the illusion of comparison.
The problem is that all of these diamonds
have been shot all over the world with different sources.
They're using different studio lighting. Just take a look.
Why are even the lighting backgrounds not the same color?
Do you see that what was supposed to be
white or grey, some of them are coming off more blueish, more grayish.
How could we possibly compare those
diamond side by side when they've all been prerecorded?
You need to see diamond side by side to be able to compare the differences.
Let's take a look at what real comparison looks like.
OK, so let's start with this diamond.
Take a look.
What do you think?
Does it look good, does it look bad?
Well, it's hard to tell because you're not comparing it to anything.
So let's take a look when we're comparing them side by side in real time.
Take a look.
Can you spot the dud? That dud was the one that perhaps
maybe didn't look so bad when it was all alone?
Why? Because you can't understand how a diamond compares to other diamonds
unless you're seeing them side by side in real time.
OK, so, I mean, let's go with the price. Price is going to be one of the main
reasons that people will buy their stone online.
And if we really break it down, I mean, there's a lot of narratives that are kind
of sold that people will buy into, that these companies have lower overhead, t
hey're getting a better deal because
they're wholesalers or all kinds of different narratives.
But the illusion that you're getting
a good deal is kind of what's sold out there.
But what we're going to do is show you what's really going on.
So I'm going to try this one exercise. So typically,
let's say you go on to a website and you're looking for a round diamond.
Let's say it's like a one carat, a really narrow view.
They're all the same color, the same clarity, more or less the same cut.
You're going to get a listing of,
let's say, two or three hundred stones that fit your criteria.
Take a look at this.
I mean, the one that is at the top, the cheapest one is is one price.
If you scroll all the way down to the one that is the most expensive,
you are going to notice there is a big difference in price.
OK, and the number one simple question
that should come up is why is there such a big difference in price,
even though everything on paper basically is more or less exactly the same?
OK, and that should be the the burning question that you want to answer.
So here's what's going on.
So we relayed the information that these
diamonds that you're seeing are just really basically like a spreadsheet
with pictures or videos that are being relayed from a database.
OK, the problem is this. There
is a lot more details attached to these diamonds in this database,
but you're never going to see them and the e-commerce companies,
never share them, because if they ever share the information
that's on the back end, people would never feel comfortable buying a diamond online.
Let's see if we peel back the layers.
You see things like light milky, brown tinge, C2, B0.
All these weird things they do, they would not fit within the parameter of the 4Cs.
You know, the online companies want us
to just focus on what you would see on a certificate.
Take a look at our some of our other videos.
We did one on off the grade- all the things that you never see
on a certificate that matter, w hy diamond grading is not scientific.
But more to the point, these things matter and they do correlate to the price.
But you wouldn't see that because they're never shared with you.
Let's take a break from diamonds.
Let's say you're about to buy a house and you're looking at houses
on realtor.com and the houses that you're looking
at in the neighborhood that you want to be in are going for a million dollars.
All of a sudden, you come across a house that cost six hundred thousand dollars.
Are you going to stop right there and go
buy the house, no you're going to call your realtor and your
realtor will have access to back end notes and your realtor is going to tell you, oh,
yeah, that house has termites and that house has mold.
So even though online that house looks so
pretty with the pictures, the same goes for diamond's.
You're just looking at these diamonds
online, but you have no idea what's going on behind the scenes.
What are those back end notes?
So let's go over the customization or what I call the customization myth.
OK, so these sites typically have a build a ring feature or this feature where
basically you could pick the, you know, the ring style.
You could put whatever head basically gives us the illusion that you can
customize your ring, you can kind of build it with whatever you want.
Right. Here's what's actually going on.
These rings are basically a series of bodies and heads.
So you pick a body and you pick it in yellow gold.
You say you want a round stone.
There's a round peg that goes in.
You change your mind, you want a square stone, there's a square peg that goes on.
You know, there's issues with that.
But here's something that might be kind of extra disturbing for some of you.
OK, you're thinking that you're buying a ring that's new.
It actually might have been used OK.
A lot of these rings are returned.
They have pretty flexible return policies.
What do you think happens to them?
It's pretty simple.
They come back, remove the stone, they basically heat it up.
The peg gets removed, goes back into the peg bin.
The ring goes back into the ring bin.
Don't let someone else's no be your yes.
One of the other myths about buying
a diamond online is that it's fast and convenient.
The only thing that's fast is you paying for it.
So these are basically stock items that are coming from overseas.
So it could take weeks, several weeks for it to get to your door.
So I mean, I understand if it was handcrafted,
customized to your specification, if it took time to curate and and create.
But this is literally you're just spending
weeks waiting for your diamond and your ring to ship in from overseas.
So we've shown you why you shouldn't be
buying online and and quite frankly, I mean, it's a very antiquated approach.
I mean, that click, click, click self-service model doesn't really
speak to the needs that you have when you are purchasing a diamond, but we get it.
You want to do that because the other alternative of going into a store meeting
with a sales clerk, that's going to be pushy, pushy, pushy, it's annoying.
Nobody wants to do that.
So my husband and I came up with a solution
what we believe is the best way to buy a diamond through a virtual consultation.
So our virtual studios are actually
equipped with high definition cameras so our consultants can show you diamonds
curated for you within the budget range that you want to spend within the wish
list that you're looking at so that you can really see them side by side in real
time and compare and figure out what's right for you.
So let's break it down.
So selection rather than spreadsheet buying, which is what you see online,
we'll say curated selection, rather than just trying to find the best
price online, we'll say budget optimization.
Let's look at what your range is and we'll
curate a personally selected selection that works within your range.
You can actually see everything side
by side to see what it is rather than a faux custom or template body peg system.
We actually have our own manufacturing
facility where we actually craft it by hand.
It's so important. It's
every ring is handcrafted from scratch
to the exact measurement and dimension of the stone that you picked
that we work with you on.
So it's like a custom made suit.
And rather than just trying to get
something fast, let's figure out what your timeline is and we can work within that.
And it's more important for most of our
clients we find is to get it right than to just get it fast.
So before you check out, check us out.
We're Toronto based jewelers and you can
meet with us in our studio, in-store or online, virtually.
We ship all through Canada and the US. Look forward to hearing from you.