'£6,000 profit buying cheap engagment rings - surely not' blog discussion 11 February 2010 at 5:11PM edited 11 February 2010 at 5:18PM in Martin's blogs & appearances & MoneySavingExpert in the news 32 replies 14.5K views

Former_MSE_Penelope

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "Buy discounted engagement rings and make £6,000 profit - too good to be true" Blog.

Please click reply to discuss below

Kavanne

I'd say those diamonds are not going to be the best quality. You can't view the quality of the cut, table, etc on those amazon listings so you don't really know what you're going to get

I wouldn't risk it. Best to go to Hatton Garden or Birmingham Jewellery quarter, or websites that are better known (Blue Nile, Samara James) so you can get all the information about the diamond you're purchasing before you buy

Also:

It is listed as a 1 ½ carat, H color, SI1 clarity, certified, round cut, diamond ring on a platinum base, priced at £1,460 reduced from £14,000.

it's actually only a 0.56ct centre stone and the rest of the weight is made up by smaller stones around it.... definitely not worth £14k, I don't know where that number has even come from!!!

Speedfitpete

I also saw this yesterday, i'm very dubious about the actual quality of the diamonds... although in fairness it does give a break down of the diamond with regard to all the C's - cut, clarity, colour etc... I would still be very wary about buying expensive rings online.... If they were really worth £14k surely thats what they would be selling for!!!! I thought the value of gold and diamonds were fairly constant (high!!!)

Sillychuckie

a) As Kavanne points out Martin, the diamond weight is actually 0.56 carats. The 1.5 represents the 'total ring' carat.

b) Even if 1.5 was the main diamond, your search tool coming back with £8100 is pricy.
If you look at the bluenile.co.uk one, I see diamonds for ~£5k which match the specifications you wrote.
e.g. http://www.bluenile.co.uk/round-diamond-1-carat-very-good-cut-h-colour-si1-clarity_LD01535860
Round cut/1.5 carat/H/SL1/Ceritified
Bank wire price of £5006

Your blog compares apples and pears.

MSE_Martin

Sillychuckie wrote: »

a) As Kavanne points out Martin, the diamond weight is actually 0.56 carats. The 1.5 represents the 'total ring' carat.

b) Even if 1.5 was the main diamond, your search tool coming back with £8100 is pricy.
If you look at the bluenile.co.uk one, I see diamonds for ~£5k which match the specifications you wrote.
e.g. http://www.bluenile.co.uk/round-diamond-1-carat-very-good-cut-h-colour-si1-clarity_LD01535860
Round cut/1.5 carat/H/SL1/Ceritified
Bank wire price of £5006

Your blog compares apples and pears.

Aha! Now that makes sense.

oakhouse13

The OFT launched an investigation into online pricing for this very reason. Sellers can easily manipulate pricing to show up in lists of 90% off products.

Price comparison sites highlight what is described as 'bargain of the day', or whatever, with products selected by a computer program. Once a computer program is running things, you can fool it and it can fool you. Jewellery companies especially exploit this, for example by listing appraisal values as retail price and then discounting by 90% to give a 'sale' price. The punter thinks they are getting a bargain - probably tells everyone about it too so many punters and many bargains.

Here's an example, 'best online deals':

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/best-online-deals/5407863/Best-deals-of-the-day-luxury-for-less.html

In this list of 'luxury brands' see qpjewellers - its products are not what I think counts as a premium brand but this list is generated automatically by a comparison site that supplies the data to the newspaper based on whatever is showing the biggest discount that day.

£555.00 including delivery, appraisal value £3420.00

To show up in the Telegraph therefore, if I was a trader, I would list prices high for the required period then drop them 90% and show up in your tool, price comparison sites, the Telegraph etc.

It gets better because a search for qpjewellers takes you to a discussion about SEO and building links. The value for qpjewellers, it seems, is links from the Telegraph, not the actual editorial feature.

It's all sales. My answer, stop shopping.

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/search.php?searchid=4198255

oakhouse13

Having thought about this a bit more, since your links are affiliate links, are you ok earning off people buying engagement rings because they think it is 90% off?

bigpound

Phoney prices or illegal source.

minerva_windsong

Personally I'm not sure Amazon is a place to be buying engagement rings. I'm sure there's nothing wrong with them but there's something very impersonal about it.

Sparhawke

But you aren't saving any money at all by buying stuff regardless of the price, you are spending money

I never trust "valuations" as they are invariably only worth what someone is willing to pay at that moment...

Errata

Usual rules apply: if it looks too good to be true, it is.