January 18th 2023

The Best Place To Sell A Diamond Online

By Devin Jones

I tried selling a diamond on 12 different websites. Here's what happened.

The Experiment

To find the best online diamond re-seller I conducted a simple test. I tried selling the same diamond across 12 websites that promised to help me get the most value from selling my engagement ring or loose diamond online.

We tried selling the same diamond on 12 websites. The results weren't great.

— StoneAlgo (@stonealgo) January 19, 2023

The diamond I tried "selling" was a 1.57 carat G VS2 princess cut diamond with good polish and symmetry. According to StoneAlgo's Diamond Check tool, the fair price of the diamond was $11,658 in January 2023. A similar diamond was available for sale on the day I conducted this experiment for $12,264.

The retail price of my diamond: $11,658 - $12,264

Below are the quotes I received when trying to sell my diamond. They ranged from $4,600 - $7,000. However, the quotes were not a guarantee. In order to get my final quote I would need to ship my diamond in for inspection.

Diamond Selling Experiment Results

As you can see from the table above, 6 of the 12 websites I reached out to did not provide a price quote to buy my diamond.

1 of those websites (Worthy) declined to put a price estimate on the diamond stating, "there isn’t currently enough demand for it in our marketplace".

"There isn’t currently enough demand for it in our marketplace" - Worthy

Another one, Have You Seen The Ring, did not appear to have an option for selling a loose diamond on their site, only full engagement rings.

Price Quotes

The other 8 websites sent me bids. They were pretty quick to reply (within 1 hour on average) and reached out via phone call, text, and e-mail.

However, 6 of the 8 websites that provided a price to buy my diamond did so in the form of a range and it wasn't clear how often sales occurred at the top of that range.

Here's a summary of the quotes I received:

1. WP Diamonds: $4,600 - $5,000 (avg $4,800)
2. The Diamond Oak: $5,000 - $5,500 (avg $5,250)
3. Circa Jewels: $5,500 - $6,500 (avg $6,000)
4. Truval: $6,050
5. DNR Diamonds: $6,150
6. I Do Now I Don't: $6,000 - $6,800 (avg $6,400)
7. Gemesti: $6,100 - $7,000 (avg $6,550)
8. Manhattan Buyers: up to $7,000 (very vague)

Manhattan Buyers only provided the high end of a range and said, "we see potentially up to $7000 for your diamond ring." That's pretty vague language, but it matches the top of the range provided by Gemesti ($6,100 - $7,000).

"We see potentially up to $7000 for your diamond ring." - Manhattan Buyers

In general, these bids were 40% to 50% less than the price of the cheapest 1.57 carat G VS2 princess cut diamonds available for sale from the 10 online jewelers in StoneAlgo's diamond search engine.

Marketplaces & Auctions

Most of the websites listed above made a direct cash offer for my diamond, but a couple of the websites take a different approach.

Those sites were Worthy, which auctions inventory to diamond dealers, and I Do Now I Don't, which promises to give both a cash offer and the ability to list your diamond in front of consumers on their marketplace. Then there's Have You Seen The Ring which didn't offer a clear way to list my diamond on their website (their listing process is geared toward engagement rings only).

I Do Now I Don't was slow to respond to my request and initially mistook my diamond for a lab grown. But, we eventually straightened it out and they e-mailed me both a direct quote (they buy directly with no fee) and a recommended list price for their marketplace. Their direct quote was a range of $6k - $6.8k, which was similar to Gemesti. They recommended I list the diamond in their marketplace for "$11,000 - $11,800". I Do Now I Don't would take an 18.5% cut of the final sale price (and charge the buyer an additional 2.5% commission).

I spoke with Have You Seen The Ring on the phone and when I asked what price I should list my diamond for sale, they advised me to list at near retail price ($12k) because people tend to use the "Make An Offer" button rather than the add to cart button. Basically, you're going to haggle with users - which could be worth it. All in all, it's just like I Do Now I Don't with lower fees.

The fees for these two website vary depending on the price of your item. The lower the price, the higher percentage of sale value you can expect to pay as a commission.

For a $6,000 sale the fees for each site are:

• Have You Seen The Ring: 13% 
• Worthy: 14%
• I Do Now I Don't: 21% (18.5% to the seller + 2.5% to the buyer)

The benefit of these websites is that they may help you get a higher sale price by entering your diamond into a competitive market. The downside is they take time. In Worthy's case it's pretty quick, less than 2 weeks on average. For the other two, it really depends on a buyer finding interest in your diamond or engagement ring for sale.

Is the price improvement worth the fees? I'm not sure as Worthy rejected the opportunity to sell my diamond.

Best & Worst User Experiences (U/X)

I asked a friend of mine who is a website designer to grade each of the websites on their user experience (U/X), specifically with how the experience relates to the diamond selling process. She graded the websites on an American grade school scale, with F being the worst and A+ being the best.

Based on her feedback, the best user experiences for selling your diamond online are WP Diamonds (A- and ironically the lowest bid), Worthy (B+ but refrained to quote), and Gemesti (B+ and one of the highest bids).

Reviews & Trustworthiness

I looked at reviews to determine the trustworthiness of each brand. I wouldn't personally consider any brand with less than 4 stars in Google or Trustpilot reviews.

Based on the above analysis, I've whittled our list down to 6 top places I'd consider selling a diamond or engagement ring online (in no particular order):

1. Worthy (4.8)
2. WP Diamonds (4.9)
3. Gemesti (4.8)
4. The Diamond Oak (5.0)
5. DNR Diamonds (5.0)
6. Manhattan Buyers (4.9)
7. Truval (4.7)

It's important to note that there seems to be review inflation on Google relative to TrustPilot. The 3 websites that relied on Google reviews over TrustPilot scored 5.0, 5.0, and 4.9 respectively.

All of the websites with at least 4 stars were graded C or better on user experience as well. Of these 6 websites, WP Diamonds (A-) had the best user experience and Truval (C) had the lowest rated website experience. However, the final quotes are what really matters here. Honestly, I felt all the quotes were low at 40% - 50% below retail price.

Worthy did not provide a quote, so we'll remove them from the list.

This leaves the following brands with their bids ranked from lowest to highest:

1. WP Diamonds: $4,600 - $5,000 (avg $4,800)
2. Gemesti: $6,100 - $7,000 (avg $6,550)
3. The Diamond Oak: $5,000 - $5,500 (avg $5,250)
4. DNR Diamonds: $6,150
5. Manhattan Buyers: up to $7,000 (avg $6,550?)
6. Truval: $6,050

Conclusion

None of the above listed bids are final. In order to receive a final offer from any of these websites you must send in your diamond or engagement ring with insured shipping. Each company will then place a final bid on your item. In the case of Worthy or I Do Now I Don't - they'll put your ring into an auction or marketplace to see if it sells and for how much.

Based on the above, it seems prudent to shop around for the best bid. Remember, the diamond we were trying to sell would cost $11,658 or more to purchase from retail. The highest average bid we received was $6,550 from Gemesti, although Worthy did refrain to give a quote and is known to be competitive.

Here are those bids again listed from lowest to highest average bid:

1. WP Diamonds: $4,600 - $5,000 (avg $4,800)
2. The Diamond Oak: $5,000 - $5,500 (avg $5,250)
3. Circa Jewels: $5,500 - $6,500 (avg $6,000)
4. Truval: $6,050
5. DNR Diamonds: $6,150
6. Gemesti: $6,100 - $7,000 (avg $6,550)
7. Manhattan Buyers: up to $7,000 (very vague)

I hope this article was helpful in summarizing the available options for selling your diamond or engagement ring online. If you'd like us to review another company that we missed, please drop me a note at devin@stonealgo.com.