If you are preparing to purchase wedding or engagement rings, you have probably heard that a good ring can cost you anywhere from $400-$1000, with the most impressive rings being priced well above that.
You might wonder, then, why you can buy jewelry on
Wedding rings sold on
Here’s a dive into all of the factors that contribute to the disparity in prices between jewelry stores and online sellers.
Jewelry Stores
Jewelry stores are the place to go to if you are planning on getting engaged or married.
A wedding ring, unlike lots of other major purchases in your life, is something that you will (hopefully) only buy once in your life.
Jewelry stores do everything that they can to make their rings, necklaces, and earring as easy to purchase and protect as possible.
Unfortunately, this means that these stores have a lot of costs.
They need to pay for the rent on the store, for their employees, and for store security.
Furthermore, most jewelers are craftsmen that are not only trained to make and set jewelry but also to repair it.
So you might ask yourself, how do jewelry stores stay in business?
If it costs a lot of money to make, protect, and sell these high-risk products, so how do jewelers make a profit (and more importantly) what do they really have to offer that helps them get customers?
Well, first of all, a jeweler offers potential buyers a lot of options.
Most jewelry stores have a wide variety of different precious stones set into different precious metals.
The jewelers can help you find the right ring that works for you and your potential spouse.
Their guidance can be crucial in helping you pick a ring style that will work for you not just for now, but also many years down the road.
The ring that you end up with should be perfect for you and your spouse.
Having a variety of options is really helpful for jewelers because it helps them sell valuable pieces of craftsmanship.
Thankfully, having so many pieces of valuable inventory doesn’t drive up a jewelry store’s profits very much; most of the pieces are probably not owned by the store but rather are there on consignment.
If the store manages to sell the piece, they pay a part of the price to the owners and if they don’t manage to sell it, it will go to another store.
Another thing that jewelry stores offer is the ability to customize rings.
Because the jewelers are available in the store, they can easily resize, engrave or shape a ring to your preferences.
Custom engravings are a feature that is rarely provided by online sellers, so buying from a jewelry store means that you can have a pair of wedding rings that are unique to you and your spouse.
Jewelers will also be able to size a ring and mold it into whichever shape best fits your finger.
Rings bought online that are generically shaped or that are just simple circles will be loose and even bothersome.
If you are going to have a ring for your whole life, it’s best to be sure that you will want to wear it.
Lifetime Maintenance
However, shaping and sizing a ring you buy isn’t going to last for your whole life.
Depending on how you grow, your ring may need to be resized and reworked a couple of times.
Thankfully, rings that you buy from a jewelry store come with a lifelong maintenance policy.
You can bring them back to a jewelry store to get them resized whenever you need to, sometimes without having to pay a dime.
If you have outgrown your ring but it is made of a material that is too hard to rework, the jewelry store will simply replace it with an identical ring that fits your finger.
Rings purchased online won’t offer you the same opportunity.
In a similar vein, when you buy a ring from a jewelry store you are also buying a lifetime warranty for the ring.
Unfortunately, rings break. Unlike a broken television, a wedding ring isn’t something that you want to simply replace.
For this reason, buying a ring online is a very risky prospect. You might need to replace said ring multiple times during your life, rather than taking advantage of a jewelry store’s warranty to get it fixed by an expert.
Material
Jewelers, of course, also pretty much only sell rings made of valuable gems and metals– after all, if you are selling only a couple of rings each week you probably want to be selling rings that are worth more money.
In comparison, online sellers get their cheaper prices by skimping on materials, often in more ways than one.
Cheaper rings are usually set with imitation diamonds or made with less valuable alloys.
They are often made out of common industrial-grade metals rather than jewelry-grade components.
This is what allows them to bring their prices to such a competitive number- the rings they sell do not cost hardly anything to make or put together.
Conclusion
Still, you might be saying that as nice as these benefits are, it is impossible to compete with a price that is so much lower.
In reality, you might be right. If your budget simply doesn’t allow for a lasting ring purchased from a jeweler, then go with the online option.
When doing so, be sure to look for a ring market “Comfort Fit” in order to avoid a bad ring fit and try to find rings that are made with jewelry grade metals as they will be less likely to scratch or tarnish or irritate your skin.
In comparison to rings bought online, the more expensive rings bought from jewelry stores are going to match your style, fit you better, and stay with you for longer.
Apart from quality rings, jewelers offer free maintenance and protection on the rings that they make and market in order to sell their products.
Whatever your needs are, there is a ring for you.