What is Rare Carat and How Does it Work? | Rare Carat
Rare Carat USA is a search engine that helps anyone buy diamonds from our retailers and wholesaler direct companies. It provides tools like the Rare Carat Report and Rare Carat Deal Score to help diamond shoppers evaluate diamonds for sale intelligently using machine learning and human expertise.
How Does Rare Carat Work?
Essentially we cut out the middle man to offer you lower prices on diamonds. Since we have no retail locations or sales agents, it saves you the cash! We connect you directly with wholesalers that provide GIA certification for all of our natural diamonds, and IGI, GIA or GCAL certification for lab grown diamonds.
Once you’ve ordered your diamond, if you’re getting it set in a ring, the diamond is shipped to one of our ring manufacturers to be set. All packages are shipped overnight via FedEx or UPS. Each package is fully insured and will need to be signed for by someone 18 or older upon delivery. You will get tracking information sent via email the night before the package ships out to ensure someone is home to sign for it.
From start to finish, Rare Carat is here for you every step of the way.
Does Rare Carat Have a Warranty?
Absolutely! All of our products are covered with a manufacturer’s defect warranty. Take a look at it here – Rare Carat Warranty
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What Do Consumers Say about Rare Carat?
“Online Diamond Shopping at its Best! I was nervous about buying a diamond online since it’s hard to judge a diamond from pictures and I was worried about scams or theft. However, I was more than happy with the product that I eventually purchased. Even my local jeweler (who had been trying to sell me lower quality diamonds at a higher price) admitted that I had a great quality stone and at a price he would never be able to offer me. As someone who cared a lot about quality, metrics, and of course price/value, Rare Carat was the perfect place for me. I do recommend going to a few jewelers in person to find out what you like and don’t like, but then use those metrics and features to find the right stone on Rare carat – the value can’t be beat.”
Millennials and Generation Z
When Isabelle Crew chose a lab-grown diamond instead of a traditionally mined sparkler for her engagement ring, one friend warned her it would have a lower resale value.
But with the 1.7-carat oval-shaped diamond solitaire of her dreams twinkling on her finger, the 28-year-old Toronto woman says she found it easy to laugh off those concerns.
“This is an engagement ring. I really hope I don’t have to resell it some day,” Crew said.Read More
Three years later, Crew – who chose a lab-grown diamond primarily for environmental and social reasons – remains happily married and happy with her ring. And the “resale value” comment notwithstanding, Crew said most people’s reactions to her choice have been positive.
“I’ve had so many compliments on my engagement ring … and I think now honestly at least five of my friends have followed suit,” she said.
More than 70 years after international mining giant De Beers came up with its hugely profitable “A Diamond is Forever” advertising campaign, diamonds have grown into a US$84-billion market.
But while the diamond is still embraced in 2022 as a symbol of lasting love, millennials and Generation Z are increasingly rejecting stones formed naturally in the Earth’s crust in favour of man-made, lab-grown alternatives.
In fact, industry statistics show that lab-created diamonds are outpacing growth in the overall diamond market. While lab-grown diamonds make up only about 10 per cent of total sales, their share of the are real, not fake, and they have the same physical, chemical and optical characteristics as mined diamonds. But rather than occurring naturally over the span of billions of years, man-made diamonds are created in labs using a vastly accelerated process that takes just weeks.
Most lab-grown diamonds today are created using a process called chemical vapour deposition, or CVD. A small slice of a diamond, or “seed,” is placed in a sealed chamber which is then filled with compressed gases (usually methane and hydrogen). The chamber is then heated, which splits the gases and allows the carbon atoms to begin to “build” around the diamond.
The result is a gem that, to the naked eye, is identical to a natural one, said Luke Sinclair, chief financial officer of Groupe RSL. The Canadian company uses hydroelectricity to power its lab-made diamond process at a facility in Quebec.
“The difference really lies in the consumer perception of the two. That’s really the only difference,” said Sinclair.
“When you think about it, it’s a bit funny that lab diamonds are perceived as non-luxury just because they’re man-made,” Sinclair said. “Most, if not all, luxury goods are man-made. Purses, cars, shoes – these are all man-made, luxury items.”
Part of the allure of lab-grown diamonds for consumers is that because they can be mass-produced and don’t have the rarity of natural diamonds they sell for, on average, about half the cost of a traditional stone – though that may change in the future as lab diamonds become more popular.
But many young consumers are also attracted to the sustainability claims. According to a 2018 survey by MVI Marketing LLC, 70 per cent of millennial-aged consumers would consider buying a lab-grown alternative in an effort to reduce the carbon footprint, deforestation and wildlife habitat loss associated with traditional diamond mining, as well as ease concerns about child labour and other human rights abuses in the global mining industry.
Jamie Kneen, program co-lead with the non-profit organization Miningwatch Canada, said lab-grown diamonds are a better choice for a number of environmental and social reasons – and added he believes they have the long-term potential to significantly disrupt the traditional mining industry.
“There are some energy use implications with the lab-grown diamonds, but it’s not at all on the same scale as digging a huge crater and crushing millions of tonnes of rock.”
As consumers increasingly look for alternatives to traditional diamonds, retailers are taking notice. For example, Pandora, the world’s largest jeweller, recently launched a new collection of lab-created diamond jewellery at its U.S. and Canadian retail stores.
“The lab-grown (segment) is a very small fraction of the overall market. But the data shows it’s growing at double the pace of the mined diamonds,” said Lucian Rodembusch, Pandora’s North American president, in an interview.
“We believe that more and more – once you understand that there is no difference chemically, physically, or visually and the price is much more affordable – I think naturally we will start to see more and more migration.”
Pandora has also stated its intention to stop using mined diamonds entirely, a decision that suits younger consumers increasingly concerned about the environmental and human rights impact of traditional diamond mining.
Some consumers still see lab-grown diamonds as less special their naturally occurring counterparts – perhaps not surprising considering another successful diamond industry campaign also managed to convince generations of lovers that an engagement ring should cost “two months’ salary.”
But Crew, the Toronto newlywed, doesn’t buy into the argument that the greater the spend, the bigger the love.
“Honestly, I think it’s a bit strange that anyone would think there’s a negative connotation to (lab-grown diamonds),” she said. “It just seems like a prudent financial and environmental and ethical decision to make. And the arguments against it don’t seem particularly logical or compelling to me.”