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I built the website for, and helped run a company that sells discount diamonds on the web. Over the course of working for them, I became pretty cynical about the industry. The diamond market is incredibly over-priced and price-fixed. It was very easy for us to undercut retail jewelers because they typically mark up diamonds by 3x wholesale. (this is actually recommended by all of the wholesalers I've seen).

On the other hand, diamonds do look much better than CZ, and you can always tell the difference when they are next to each other, especially under natural lighting. Moissanite, however, look very close and can even fool less skilled jewelers.

Diamonds *do* have resale value. Some dealers won't want your diamond, because they don't want to risk getting de-frauded, but many dealers do buy good used diamonds, and it isn't hard to sell a decent diamond in the newspaper or forums.

I personally think stones like ruby, sapphire or emerald are more beautiful and more rare. I bought my fiancee a diamond (wholesale for me of course) because I was concerned that she would be self-concious around friends if I didn't. Would they think I didn't value her as much?

In the end, I think buying a diamond is one of those things that doesn't make much sense, but you will take a lot of crap if you ignore it, kinda like women changing their last name when they get married or celebrating Christmas. But if your fiancee doesn't mind, and you don't mind taking some crap from friends, then you can save the money.

1. You definitely don't have to bribe Yahoo to get in. My site, Rings-Online.com got in the first time in only two weeks. The trick is that your site needs to be good. They typically pass over crap sites.

2. Google crushes AltaVista like a grape. AltaVista almost never returns relevant results no matter how much you tweak your search.

If you haven't tried Google yet, you really are doing yourself a disservice, it is so good, I actually started using search engines again.

Brian Woodring
Rings-Online.com

1. You definitely don't have to bribe Yahoo to get in. My site, Rings-Online.com got in the first time in only two weeks. The trick is that your site needs to be good. They typically pass over crap sites.

2. Google crushes AltaVista like a grape. AltaVista almost never returns relevant results no matter how much you tweak your search.

If you haven't tried Google yet, you really are doing yourself a disservice, it is so good, I actually started using search engines again.

Brian Woodring
Rings-Online.com

No sweat. Just remember, your local jeweler will screw you to the wall.

They feed on ignorance, we try to educate our customers.

Brian Woodring
Rings-Online.com

Just to clear the air, Rings-Online.com does not require a photograph or a photocopy or anything of the sort. I merely sympathize with companies that do.

That having been said, we put the exact same restrictions on phone orders as we do online orders.

Brian Woodring
Rings-Online.com

Just to clear the air, Rings-Online.com does not require a photograph or a photocopy or anything of the sort. I merely sympathize with companies that do.

That having been said, we put the exact same restrictions on phone orders as we do online orders.

Brian Woodring
Rings-Online.com

Joking: Countries outside the one I live in. What's yours?

Serious: Unfortunately, no. The USPS and the Canadian Postal Service do not work smoothly together.

If we ship to someone in Canada, and he or she claims to have not received it, it takes at least 90 days for the USPS to retreive tracking information from the Canadian Postal service.

Plus, we have very little ability to prosecute fraud in Canada.

I finally understand why large businesses split into many national divisions (ie. Nintendo of America, etc), so that they have actual legal power in those countries.

Regards,

Brian Woodring
Webmaster, Owner
Rings-Online.com

How much information does a small business selling on the Internet need about potential customers? As much as they can get.

I own a small, web based retailer selling engagement rings, and I can tell you that we need as much information as possible about each customer. You have no idea how much fraud there is on the Internet: on average, 4 out of every 5 orders at our site are fraudulent. Most of these orders come from the UK and Australia. As a result we have had to stop all international orders. We simply cannot afford the enormous risk.

A few facts that might help you empathize with small Internet merchants.

1. There is no way of reliably tracking international orders if you are a small business. Sending a diamond ring to the UK or Australia is like sending it to Timbuktu. You might think that the USPS and the UKPS would work smoothly together, but this is not nearly the case.
2. Credit card companies always side with the customer. No matter how ridiculous their claim. The merchant services company (in our case, Nova) will take money out of our bank account without warning, charge us a penalty for doing it, and hold the money as long as they want (we have never won a case against a fraudulent company).
3. The credit card companies don't care about fraud. They make a big deal about fighting credit card fraud, but it is all bluster. We have seen dozens of examples of outright fraud, which we promptly report. We have never heard back from anyone at any credit card company. Our complaints fall on deaf ears.

I have bought thousands of dollars of merchandise on the Internet and sold much more, and I can say from personal experience that the Internet is a much more dangerous environment for small businesses than it is for customers. I have never experienced fraud on the net as a consumer, but I see it every day as a merchant.

Remember, you are asking a merchant who has never seen you, and knows very little about you to ship expensive merchandise to you before they receive any money for it. Additionally, customers can almost always cancel the order without returning the merchandise and the merchant is out of luck.

Large corporations can absorb some of these losses, but most small business owners can't.

Regards,

Brian Woodring
Webmaster, Owner
Rings-Online.com

How much information does a small business selling on the Internet need about potential customers? As much as they can get.

I own a small, web based retailer selling engagement rings, and I can tell you that we need as much information as possible about each customer. You have no idea how much fraud there is on the Internet: on average, 4 out of every 5 orders at our site are fraudulent. Most of these orders come from the UK and Australia. As a result we have had to stop all international orders. We simply cannot afford the enormous risk.

A few facts that might help you empathize with small Internet merchants.

1. There is no way of reliably tracking international orders if you are a small business. Sending a diamond ring to the UK or Australia is like sending it to Timbuktu. You might think that the USPS and the UKPS would work smoothly together, but this is not nearly the case.
2. Credit card companies always side with the customer. No matter how ridiculous their claim. The merchant services company (in our case, Nova) will take money out of our bank account without warning, charge us a penalty for doing it, and hold the money as long as they want (we have never won a case against a fraudulent company).
3. The credit card companies don't care about fraud. They make a big deal about fighting credit card fraud, but it is all bluster. We have seen dozens of examples of outright fraud, which we promptly report. We have never heard back from anyone at any credit card company. Our complaints fall on deaf ears.

I have bought thousands of dollars of merchandise on the Internet and sold much more, and I can say from personal experience that the Internet is a much more dangerous environment for small businesses than it is for customers. I have never experienced fraud on the net as a consumer, but I see it every day as a merchant.

Remember, you are asking a merchant who has never seen you, and knows very little about you to ship expensive merchandise to you before they receive any money for it. Additionally, customers can almost always cancel the order without returning the merchandise and the merchant is out of luck.

Large corporations can absorb some of these losses, but most small business owners can't.

Regards,

Brian Woodring
Webmaster, Owner
Rings-Online.com