Done right, our town offers smart buyers a wonderful opportunity to secure a great deal on wholesale jewelry. NYC has over 1500 stores in the diamond district alone, not to mention stores in the rest of Manhattan and the other four boroughs. All and all there are over 4000 places to buy jewelry. Given the level of competition, finding big discounts should not be that hard. But the fact is, it is really hard. The big challenge is that there are a lot of posers out there…
“Joe Schmoe’s Wholesale Jewelry, NYC” here and “Super Cheap Wholesale Jewelry” there. With all the stores that use the words “discount,” “wholesale” or “reduced,” one would think that paying full price in NYC would be for suckers. The reality is among those “discount” stores that say they offer their jewelry wholesale, many, maybe even most do nothing of the sort (any store can say they offer rock bottom prices – marking up and then marking down the prices of their inventory).
The problem is exacerbated by the very nature of the NYC jewelry trade. Pricing is opaque at best and often secretive. “Special prices” do exist, but the “real” wholesale jewelry stores don’t want to lose their edge vis-a-vis the competition. They complain about their lack of traffic to friendly competitors, while simultaneously waving customer after customer in the front door and out the back!
Finding these stores is like solving the New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle!
“Bait and Switch” or “In the Know”
If you think you are getting a nice price break, are you just getting a lesser quality product? If we reference a “one carat” diamond ring as an example, through almost 300 different combinations of color, cut and clarity, a “jewelry grade” diamond ring can range from $2000 to $20,000 or more! The store’s offerings may appear to be very cheap wholesale jewelry, but the buyer may actually be overpaying!
Wholesale Jewelry NYC – Three Steps to Big Discounts…
At Jewelers.NYC we wanted the cold hard pricing facts, not warm promises and bait and switch tactics. So, we use a simple three step method to determine just how much of a discount you are receiving on your jewelry, with diamonds being the primary focal point for this article.
Step 1: Establish a pricing benchmark for “box standard” diamond jewelry from well-known big chain retail jewelry stores.
This was quite easy because the two biggest, Zales and Jared allow you to buy their more standard offerings online. We chose two different “easy to compare” jewelry pieces.
- A round, GIA graded (very important), one carat, Excellent Cut, G color, VS2 Clarity diamond engagement ring set in a 2mm wide, simple platinum setting, and
- A pair of round GIA graded “diamond stud” earrings, weighing 2.0 total carats (1.0 each). Very Good Cut, I Color, S2 Clarity, set in 14 karat gold.
Step 2: From our list of over 100 “A+ Better Business Bureau rated” Wholesale NYC jewelers, price out those same two pieces. Making sure that their prices are consistently provable – before you go – on their website.
Step 3: List the top 10, in order of average price from lowest to highest average price. Giving you the cost of each of the two items and their savings vs. the big store retailers.
I. Establishing a Retail Pricing Benchmark
Zales and Jared are two of the most well-known jewelry stores in the United States. With over 1000 stores, no one can argue that their business model is successful. The price challenge with all retail store chains is overhead. The cost to run a big jewelry store is not cheap and wholesale prices don’t exist (if they want to stay in business). Rent, salespeople, and “on hand” inventory add 40-50% to the cost of jewelry. This means that if you are looking for wholesale prices, your store is not going to be sexy. But understand that once you walk out of the store, the only thing you see again is the jewelry. 10 years from now when you are gazing at the fire, brilliance and scintillation of the diamond do you really care if it came from Zales, Tiffany or “Bob’s Wholesale Direct Jewelry?” Of course not.
The good news is that these same stores offer a great, provable online pricing benchmark. And because of the sheer number, and related volume that goes through these stores each year, we can get a very good idea of what most people are paying for jewelry. Using the engagement ring and diamond stud earring benchmarks described above, we established the “average” retail price. As you can see, they didn’t vary much between these two retail giants.
| 1 carat diamond ring | 2 carat diamond stud earrings | Average | |
| Zales* | $13,199 | $6999 | $10,099 |
| Jared* | $9649 | $9699 | $9674 |
II. Price out those same two jewelry pieces at the NYC Wholesale Jewelry Stores
This is where the real value of this article lies. Admittedly, this took us several days to do. We couldn’t just download each store’s prices using a “bot.” We had to go store-by-store, matching (as closely as possible), the retail stores’ offering with the wholesale stores’ offering. We then price compared.
What We Found
First, many, many stores did not disclose prices online. Because we could not prove their prices, they were immediately discarded. Of the remaining stores that did offer price disclosure:
- 63% of the “cheap wholesale jewelry” stores were priced within about 10% of the big chain retailers.
- 11% were between 10% and 25% off.
- The rest were true, NYC jewelry discounters with prices between 26% and 41% off retail store prices. These stores are listed below, ranked from “best to least best” price.
III. The Top 10
Phew, now that we laid it all out for you, without further ado, please find Jewelers.NYC’s store price comparison*.
#1 Firenze Jewels (41% Average Savings)
15 West 47th St. #4
New York, NY 10036
800-790-6980
Engagement Ring Price $6700, Savings 40%
Earrings Price $5775, Savings 41%
#2 B2C Jewels (37% Average Savings)
16 West 46 Street, Suite 902,
New York, NY 10036
1-866-522-2539
Engagement Ring Price $6077, Savings 46%
Earrings Price $6951, Savings 28%
#3 Daniela Diamonds (37% Average Savings)
24 West 47th Street
New York, NY 10036
212-221-6565
Engagement Ring Price $6256, Savings 45%
Earrings Price $6800, Savings 28%
#4 Diamond Wave (36% Average Savings)
50 West 47th St
New York, NY 10036
1-866-978-7801
Engagement Ring Price $6099, Savings 46%
Earrings Price $7199, Savings 36%
#5 Dreamstone (36% Average Savings)
15 West 47th St. 10th Floor. Suite 1000,
New York, NY 10036
1-800-818-8386
Engagement Ring Price $6587, Savings 42%
Earrings Price $6810, Savings 30%
#6 JBE Diamonds (29% Average Savings)
580 5th Ave #2900
New York, NY, 10036
212-221-1095
Engagement Ring Price $7219, Savings 36%
Earrings Price $7611, Savings 22%
#7 Valetin Magro (28% Average Savings)
42 W 48th Street
New York, NY 10036
212-575-9044
Engagement Ring Price $6334, Savings 44%
Earrings Price $8500, Savings 12%
#8 Excel Diamonds (28% Average Savings)
888C 8th Ave, Suite 452
New York, NY 10019
866.829.8600
Engagement Ring Price $7535, Savings 33%
Earrings Price $7475, Savings 28%
#9 Enchanted Diamond (27% Average Savings)
147 West 35th Street
New York, NY 10001
888-816-0610
Engagement Ring Price $6700, Savings 41%
Earrings Price $8440, Savings 13%
#10 MDC Diamonds (26% Average Savings)
580 Fifth Avenue Suite 349,
New York, NY 10036
866.239.4315
Engagement Ring Price $6413, Savings 43%
Earrings Price $8878, Savings 8%
So, there you have it, some of the best discount stores in town. While this list may not capture every store that sells wholesale jewelry in NYC, it will give you a great start. As always do your own due diligence, recheck prices as of today’s date, check references and make sure your diamonds are GIA certified. Also, please make sure you tell them that Jewelers.NYC sent you!
*prices at June 10, 2017
Related Articles: Diamond District NYC Best Stores [Top 10]