From the perspective of the best jewelers, an educated consumer is the best customer because they know a deal when they see it. That’s really the basis of finding the best ring in your price range that fits the taste of your future mate. With that being said, here are 5 tips for finding a great ring at a great price.
1: Get Educated!
Before you even start looking, you need to become as educated as possible in the four Cs of diamonds as a start (Color, Clarity, Cut, Carat weight). It’s the worst thing to comparison shop thinking you are comparing apples to apples when you are not. At Earth Treasures, we give you a thorough education and explain that for the quality and value of our items they are priced to sell without any bogus gimmicks and sales.
2: Understanding Price Versus Value and Quality
Once you begin to get educated on diamonds, you’ll quickly see that price is fairly subjective. In other words, the lowest price does not always mean the best price or the greatest value. Quality has some pretty well-defined parameters in the diamond industry, but many of the top jewelers go beyond the four C’s to six C’s, which also includes Certificate and Confidence. These last two go to the reputation and qualifications of the jeweler, which are our next two points.
3: Look for Proven Reputations
It all starts with the reputation of the jeweler. In other blog posts we’ve talked about asking friends and family for their referrals and recommendations and matching that with other benchmarks of a stellar reputation. In the social media age, you can learn a lot about businesses from online reviews as well as reader’s choice polls that have defined criteria for picking the best of everything.
At Earth Treasures, we’re pretty proud of the many positive reviews written about us online as well as our impeccable record with all consumer protection agencies (BBB etc.) We’re also proud winners of the Asbury Park Press Readers’ Choice Award for Best Jeweler in Monmouth County for many years in a row.
4: Verify Qualifications
Knowing how a jeweler treats you before, during and AFTER the sale is very important. While many sales associates at other jewelers work on commission, Earth Treasures’ salespeople do not. But they are very knowledgeable, well trained professionals (not clerks!) that are interested in developing long term relationships with their customers. With us, our goal is to make the shopping experience like “coming home” for every customer.
These highly trained professionals are backed by our five staff GIA Graduate Gemologists as well as Jewelers of America Master Bench Jewelers on the premises. These are two important qualifications a jeweler you pick should have. Many bench jewelers don’t have official degrees and schooling to prove their expertise. Consequently, many jewelers do not have even one GIA Graduate Gemologist on staff.
Not only does this level of education, certification and experience ensure that Earth Treasures can provide accurate and thorough education to consumers, it also enable us to do our own repairs, creations and custom work right here. That expertise is an important consideration when it comes to the potential need to have a ring sized, adjusted and repaired. Without it, you could be looking at a long wait to get the ring of your dreams without any guarantees of what it will look like when completed.
We started this list of tips for finding a great ring at a great price by making the statement that the best jewelers love educated customers. At Earth Treasures, we’ve worked hard to earn each customer’s trust in order to develop the long-term relationships that have enabled us to be in business for the past 42 years.
Our stellar reputation is founded on our ability to educate our customers so that they can see and understand our craftsmanship and quality in everything that we sell and everything that we do. That’s because our mission is to service your every need with honesty and integrity.