How to Minimize Your Loss if You're Selling Your Diamond Ring

Selling Your Diamond Ring Article: diamonds.pro/education/sell-diamonds/

Our Top Recommended Vendor: abemor.com/diamond_buying_program?a_aid=1

Transcript:
Hey there, it’s Ira and Mike, the Diamond Pros. Normally at The Diamond Pro, we’re all moonbeams and unicorns. I mean, what’s not awesome about helping people in love get more diamond for their money and avoid getting screwed? But sometimes it’s unavoidable to discuss an uncomfortable topic and today’s one of those days. Today we’re going to discuss what to do when you need to sell your diamond ring.

That’s right, Ira. This topic is such a bummer, we weren’t even sure we wanted to make this video in the first place because of the vibe. But we’re doing it because we’re here to help you guys with your diamond issues, whether good or bad.

So let's get the first rule out of the way. Rule #1: Unless you’ve had your ring for a very long time, you are going to lose money. Let's take the best case scenario. That means you bought a GIA certified excellent cut diamond according to our specs from one of our recommended retailers that work on razor thin margins. Anyone buying your diamond is doing so in order to make money, which means YOU are going to lose money.

And unfortunately, that’s the best case scenario. If you’ve been on our site and read our reviews, you’ll know that all brick & mortar jewelry stores make much higher profit margins than online retailers like Blue Nile & James Allen. That means that the true cost of the diamond is a lot lower in relation to the price you paid, which of course means even bigger losses when you need to sell.

Another important thing to remember is that you get better return on investment for the diamond than you do for the jewelry piece it was in. The more intricate a piece of jewelry is, the more the total price is made up of unrecoverable costs. If, for example, a ring setting has a hundred pave stones, the setter charges a few dollars per stone. If someone is buying your ring for the cost of the materials, then that is just money out the window. Also, profit margins are anyway typically much higher for jewelry as opposed to loose diamonds.

While we like to pride ourselves on helping thousands of people a month with their diamond purchases, the sad fact is that most people don’t learn from the Diamond Pros before buying. That means that most of you watching this video may have gotten screwed in one way or another when you bought your ring. Guess what? If your diamond is certified by EGL or any one of the other unreliable labs, you’ll be losing much more when you sell your diamond.

OK, so now that we’ve prepared you psychologically for the losses ahead, let's discuss how to minimize those losses. You have a few options of where to try to sell your diamond. The first place people think of is usually the worst - and that’s pawn shops. Do not go there. Pawn shops are set up to take advantage of people at their weakest. They prey on diamond sellers, taking advantage of their ignorance of true diamond prices, and they feast on their desperation for quick cash.

As with pawn shops, jewelry stores are a terrible place to sell your diamond ring. Jewelry stores are under tremendous financial pressure. In order to cover the a brick and mortar retailer’s enormous overhead, they must make a very large profit margin just to stay afloat. Also, they usually owe diamond wholesalers tons of money for their current inventory, so they are more tempted to sell something they already owe money on.

So when a jewelry store makes you an offer, he’s thinking he has to pay you as little as possible in order to make enough money to justify investing in your diamond. This means less value for you.

You could always try to sell your diamond yourself on ebay or craigslist or whatever. You can try to get whatever price you want, but unless the price is sufficiently low to convince someone to buy from you as opposed to buying cheaply from a quality online vendor, you’re going to be waiting around for a long time.

This leaves us with the last option - selling to an online diamond buyer. We tested 3 such companies, getting offers from each for the same ring. We bought a half carat Ttiffany solitaire that we used for a few different articles. The ring cost us about $4,500 direct from Tiffany & Co. We got offers for this ring from White Pine, Worthy, and Abe Mor. Abe Mor gave the best offer BY FAR. White Pine only offered us $1,000. Worthy, after a long back and forth process, only offered us $1,200. Abe Mor, on the other hand, offered us $1,800. Even this sounds like a huge loss, but keep in mind that this ring was purchased directly from Tiffany, which we would never recommend precisely because their prices are so high.