When Should I Start Shopping for an Engagement Ring?

Some companies have a large stock of unique engagement rings that can be shipped virtually overnight if needed! However, if you have a more sophisticated design in mind that needs to be custom-made, they would need a minimum of 20 days to deliver the engagement ring to you. It takes at least five days to agree on the CAD design. Once they have your approval of the design, they need at least ten days to manufacture it, and another 2-5 days to deliver it to you – and again, this is a seriously rushed service we are discussing here.

The same applies to most of the industry. Since most online jewelry stores don’t have in-stock jewelry as they use drop shipping, they will need at least a week for in-stock jewelry and a month to design something customized for you.

There are so many details involved in the cut, color, clarity, carat weight, and certification of a diamond that by the time you feel confident to purchase a diamond, it may feel like you’ve completed a graduate-level course in gemology. To make things easy for you, we have developed an in-depth diamond guide for each shape of diamond that can be a good place to start – for example, check this one for a round cut or this one for a princess cut diamond.

Again, for most jewelers to send you a diamond you want, they would need at least 10-15 days at a minimum. As stated earlier, most online jewelry retailers use drop shipping as a business model. This means they don’t own any diamonds listed on their websites. They list other merchants’ diamonds and take a commission by selling them to you – once you buy the diamond, it goes from the merchant to the online retailer (5-10 days), and then the retailer mails it to you (2-5 days).

In conclusion, the morale of the story is simple, if you want to spend your money wisely and take your time to find the best and most unique engagement ring within your budget range, we suggest that you start at least two to three months in advance to shop for your diamond engagement ring or loose GIA certified diamonds.