Necklaces are the Rolls Royce products of the jewellery trade. They’re among the most ancient forms of jewellery, starting as far back as the prehistoric era. In those days necklaces were made of strings of seashells. Now they’re made of diamonds and gold. One diamond necklace can be a work of art worth more than many millionaires. These fantastically beautiful things are still considered the high end of the jeweller’s art, for the proven master craftsmen.
Some basic points:
- Buying even mid-range value necklaces requires some knowledge. You need to have a pretty good understanding of the basics of jewellery and its values. If you’re intending to pay good money for jewellery, you can also pay to get good information from a valuer, when necessary.
- You need to know how to compare prices for major jewellery purchases. “Discount” can be a very relative term in the jewellery industry, especially if you’re talking about diamonds, gold or other top-end products. It can be a high price “relative” to an even higher price.
- “Sale” prices aren’t sale prices unless the retailer is offering regular discounts. Don’t assume a markdown is a significant markdown otherwise, because the “markdown” usually comes off the original mark-up. Again, comparing prices is the best way to spot genuine price reductions.
- Don’t rush into a purchase. Check out your options and see what else is available for the same price in the necklace range. You need to be able to make an informed decision regarding the value and design quality of your purchase.
Choosing a necklace
There are a lot of very beautiful, very exciting necklaces on the market, and the choices, to put it mildly, can be baffling if you don’t make a few decisions beforehand about your purchase.
You can narrow down your choices pretty easily:
- Budget- Define a price range, say $10,000, and stick to it. Competent jewellers can always offer good deals in this price range.
- Gold- Do you want gold, yes/no?
- Gold or white gold? This choice can make a difference of thousands of dollars.
- Diamonds- yes/no?
- Gems- yes/no?
Talking to jewellers
Don’t just buy “off the shelf”, unless you’ve found something you really like. Talking direct to jewellers can open up some interesting lines of inquiry, particularly having said how much you want to spend. Using your budget figure, a good jeweller will be able to give you quite a range of deals.
This isn’t “haggling”. Jewellers sell on margins. They know exactly how much they can make on any piece of jewellery they have, at any given price. If you’re shopping for a particular piece of jewellery, it’s more a question of what they can find for you within their margins. At prices over about $2000, jewellers have bigger margins and more leeway to set prices that make them good cash profits.
Ask, and you will very probably receive a better deal than you could off the shelf.
Now- Get online or on the phone, get in contact with a jeweller, and see what sort of deals you can get to buy your necklace at the price you want to pay. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.
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