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Diamonds & Engagement
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Fine Jewelry
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| Customer Service Hours: |
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9am to 12am |
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10am to 6pm |
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| Questions? Contact us: |
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 877-826-9866 |
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outside USA? call: |
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+1-301-631-1414 |
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service@jamesallen.com |
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For phone orders,
please mention:
217Ø1
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All our diamonds are
conflict free diamonds
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What it means to buy a diamond in 2006Tue, December 12nd 2006, 01:25 EST | |
| The Internet has changed the world. Never again will people shop for cars, hotels, airline tickets or even houses without first using the tremendous power of the Internet to educate themselves about these most important purchases. Buying an engagement ring is no different. Consumers no longer need rely on just a salesman`s suggestions and a thirty minute lesson explaining the basics of the 4 C’s before making one of the most important (and often expensive) purchases of their lives. Like every other subject on earth, the Internet is demystifying the diamond market. It is allowing customers to find out more than just the difference between color or clarity, but to also better understand the entire diamond industry. People can research the history of the Debeers Cartel, learn of the South African Diamond Rush of the late 1800’s, or most importantly – compare the prices of almost 100,000 diamonds located all over the world. You see, not only has the internet forced price transparency and extreme competition in major industries such as new cars and computer electronics – the diamond industry has been completely turned on its head by the overnight commoditization of this previously private and profitable trade. Here’s what happened. Prior to about 1998, jewelry stores around the country (and the globe for that matter) all basically had an unwritten agreement with each other. Diamonds that were purchased “wholesale” for $1,000 (lets say) would be offered to the man off the street for $3,000. If he was a good enough negotiator or happened to catch the jeweler on a good day he might be able to buy the diamond for $2,000 give or take. In the end, however, the jeweler would always double his money, if not triple. But then came the Internet, and with the internet an entirely new breed of diamond sellers. These new sellers were not part of the “network”. They didn’t know about the rules, and even if they did they wouldn’t have followed them. These new sellers lacked the history, the heritage, the pride of being part of a transgenerational calling. They didn’t understand what it meant to be a jeweler; what it meant to be a diamantaire, what it meant to calculate your life savings by the amount of carats in your safe – not dollars in your bank account. There was one thing they did understand, however, and that was money. With easy access to once private lists of diamond stock, these new sellers quickly created websites that offered tens of thousands of diamonds at prices that would never have even been considered a few years before. There lack of investment in education or inventory, jewelry store or diamond diploma made it easy to rationalize selling a $1,000 for $1,100. Why not? It was an easy $100 for the seller and a great deal for the buyer! And so they did. And with that the industry turned a corner and has never looked back. The internet sellers slowly become more and more powerful and influential in their ability to attract customers and set pricing. Everyone from the 1,000 store chains to the one stoplight jeweler was forced to reevaluate what it meant to be in the diamond industry. And now today, less than ten years after the internet was born, customers are being forced to redefine what it means to buy a diamond in 2006…
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