Diamonds are practical. Like the song, diamond's are a girl's best friend. A kiss will not pay the bills. A rose isn't going to pay for her rental. A diamond, on the other hand, in times of emergency, can be a life saver. A single diamond can be sold for enough money to pay for a woman's bills when times get tough.
Jewelry websites should have many years' experience and connections in the industry. They manufacture jewelry pieces and diamonds from wholesale vendors in New York or Los Angeles, add a margin and resell them out. Some jewelry sites are run by students fresh out of college. They create great websites, and get their vendors drop shipping directly to their consumers. Because they don't have to pay high rent in expensive location, they don't have the same high mark up as local jewelry stores. They highly threaten traditional jewelry stores, and with financial experts' prediction, 1/3 of the traditional jewelry stores will either disappear or go on line in the next 5 years. Recently, I have found few companies take it to a new step. Like other industries online, they manufacture jewelry and sell their quality jewelry directly through their website. Their prices are surprisingly low.
THE GRADE BUMPING DIAMOND SCAM: A jeweler exaggerates the grade. The FTC says that a jeweler must be accurate within one grade of color and one grade of clarity on a diamond. So many jewelers bump the color and clarity just one grade. Unfortunately, this can mean a great deal of money if you are talking about a fine-quality, 1-carat diamond. For instance, you might find a stone that the jeweler quotes as a 1.00 carat F color / VS1 clarity for $6,500. However, if you sent it to a reputable gem lab like GIA, it would come back as a G color / VS2 clarity, which is only worth about $5,500. This means you lose (and they profit) about $1,000.
But girls know they deserve it! If you aren't sure whether bigger is better than have a look at the jewels at this years Oscars which are said to total over $50 million dollars in value. Wonder how many vaults it took to keep those locked up for the night? With bling being the in thing one has to stop and wonder how the heck normal average working guys plan to pay for these rings. When their fiancs are asked the standard answer is "doesn't matter I'm worth it. That's great if your guy is earning a 6 figure salary but wait what if he's not. What if he's joe average living from pay day to pay day. What should he do move into the bush and give up his home, perhaps take up walking and sell his car? Wait guys maybe you can get away with a really good quality cubic zirconia. No guarantees but it might be worth a try. Most of the high end ones can only be identified by a quality jeweler. Then again maybe she won't care as long as it's big and impressive.