There are many reasons that someone might need to resell a Moissanite ring. Change of plans, break up, financial need, upgrading, etc. Regardless of why you need to sell, I’ll show you where to get top dollar—based on how quickly you need to move your ring.
Where can i sell my moissanite ring? Selling to an individual through a local, private party, transaction will often yield both the highest resale price and the lowest selling fees, but it typically isn’t the fastest way to sell. If you have to sell quickly, you’ll need to discount heavily. You’ll essentially trade cash for transaction speed.
If you’re thinking of reselling your Moissanite engagement ring, wedding ring, anniversary ring, or promise ring, and want to maximize the amount of cash that you walk away from the transaction with…I’ll show you how. I’ll provide plenty of real-life current information and examples throughout, so keep reading!
Getting as Much Cash as Possible When You Resell
Maximizing the cash that comes from the resale of your Moissanite ring involves several key elements:
- Identifying how quickly you need the cash, and choosing the most appropriate selling channel given your time frame.
- Minimizing transaction fees (platform selling costs) and shipping costs
- Avoiding middlemen as much as possible.
Generally speaking, the more time that you have until you really need to sell your ring, the better. You’ll be able to find the buyer that’s willing to pay the most if you’re able to wait for them. When you need to sell right away, you typically can’t maximize your sale price. Instead, you incentivize potential buyers to act quickly by deeply discounting your ring.
I posted an article about the value of used Moissanite several days ago that you might find helpful. To review that, CLICK HERE.
Before diving into specific opportunities for selling, I want to take a moment to provide a little more insight into the three important considerations that were outlined above.
Identifying how quickly you need the cash:
Would you rather have less money now or more money later? Sometimes you don’t have any good alternatives to accepting whatever you can get right now. In that situation, you might happily accept 20% of what you originally paid in order to get some immediate cash in hand.
When you don’t need the money NOW, but you will need it soon (within the next 2 or 3 weeks), you have the ability to hold out for a different kind of buyer—one willing to pay a price that’s a little closer to retail.
If you want to get as much as you can out of the ring, but don’t particularly NEED the money immediately, you’re in a great position to attract that ideal buyer. Your patience will allow you to maximize the resale value of your ring. You won’t feel pressured to accept the first low-ball offer that comes along.
Minimizing Transaction Fees:
Anytime that you pay a fee and/or commission to list your ring with a particular platform or merchant, it’s eating into the money that you ultimately walk away from the transaction with. Paying fees isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it puts you in contact with the right buyers, but you have to remember to account for that selling cost while comparing your selling alternatives.
Some selling platforms might charge a fee on the frontend when they list your item for sale. Occasionally, that may be the only fee that’s required, but in most cases, you’re going to be charged a final value fee, of some sort, that’s a percentage of whatever your ring ultimately sells for. Some companies will ONLY charge a fee on the backend (once the ring sells), that’s a percentage of the selling price. You’ll want to add up all the various fees charged to see if you’re comfortable accepting the overall costs of the service. Some are worth the cost, others really aren’t.
There are really only two reasons that justify paying a fee to list, or sell, your ring:
- You gain access to significant visibility. They have thousands, tens of thousands, of people on the site every day. That exposure will allow you to sell faster and for more money.
- Convenience. You need to sell, but you don’t have time to make a part-time job out of it. In some cases, it may be worth paying platform or consignment company that does most of the work for you in exchange for a fee that you’re comfortable with.
The Christies Auction House, for example, sells high ticket jewelry to wealthy individuals from all over the world. Many of those auctions are now done online, which expands their global reach even further. When you sell through them, they put your item in front of a mass of very wealthy individuals. Since it’s an audience of highly qualified buyers, their sellers are happy to pay a healthy commission in order to gain access to their community.
Again, Christies is just an illustration of the value of the buyer communities that some platforms have. You won’t be selling your Moissanite ring through a Christies auction, but hopefully, that helps you to see where paying platform fees might make sense.
Avoiding Middlemen:
Middlemen always come at a cost. Sometimes they bring real value that fully justifies their cost, and sometimes they don’t. If you’re aware of this, and doing the math, you can ensure that you aren’t using them at the wrong time or in the wrong way.
For example, if a particular consigner charges 50% of your sale price as a selling fee, they had better be able to sell the ring for A LOT more than you could on your own in order to justify the expense. If they sell the ring for $800, you’ll get $400 (net) once their fee has been accounted for. If you’re able to sell on your own for $500 (without any kind of selling fee, you would come out $100 ahead. The real question, is would it be faster or easier to sell the ring yourself for $500 or through a consigner (or some other platform) for $800?
Hopefully, you get the general concept—selling channels, or platforms, need to produce more value than they cost in order to be justifiable.
How Much Will I Need to Discount my Ring in Order to Sell?
Here are some basic guidelines for discounting on various platforms. This comes from my own research, as well as many years of personal experience selling through these channels. Generally speaking, I would anticipate needing to discount a Moissanite ring as outlined below for each type of platform. The actual discount needed ultimately depends a great deal on the quality of your listing (we’ll talk more about that below).
- Pawn Shop: 80-90% discounts
- eBay: 80% discount
- Local Online Classifieds: 30% discount
There are MANY factors that determine how successful a particular listing through local classifieds or eBay is going to be. The quality of the images matters A LOT, as does your description of the item being sold. Many years ago, I had a whole business that was focused on buying items that weren’t listed well (through various platforms) and then reposting them with better listings at higher prices. Improving the pictures, titles, and descriptions got my ads noticed and kept inventory moving. Of course, your reputation (feedback rating) also has an important impact on how you sometimes fare in the short term with the buyers from certain platforms like eBay.
“It’s astounding how much more you can sell an item for when you put a little thought and effort into the pictures and description.”
Best Selling Options Based on Time frame
Selling Time Frame | ||||
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Now | ||||
2 Weeks | ||||
No Big Rush |
Will Pawn Shops or Jewelry Stores Buy Moissanite?
Pawn shops will buy just about any item that they’re certain they can resell at a profit. They’re a middle man, in the sense that they’re going to turn and resell your Moissanite ring to an end user. They’ll want a decent profit, and their ultimate buyer is going to want to get a steal on the ring too—after all, no one goes into a pawn shop to buy jewelry at full retail value. Because of the simple math involved, they won’t be able to pay much.
In reality, the pawn show will likely be more interested in paying based on the value of your setting than the Moissanite. Gold and Platinum, for example, as materials that they can easily move, and profit from, in various ways. Don’t be surprised if their offer doesn’t attribute much value to the stone that’s mounted to your setting. They play it safe with their bids and love to lowball. They may, or may not, be very familiar with Moissanite. You would likely get different offer amounts from multiple pawn shops, so if you consider selling this way, it’s worth visiting more than one.
Pawn shops are in the business of preying on people in desperate situations. Like it or not, that’s what they do. Much of the inventory that fills their shelves wouldn’t have been sold to them for pennies on the dollar if the seller wasn’t desperate.
When I was growing up, my parents struggled financially and pawned some things. Even minimum payment became difficult and they lost many of the items they pawned. It’s a common story. While pawn shops don’t pay much, they do pay immediately. That immediate liquidity is the ONLY real value that they bring for people in desperate situations. I’d suggest that you NOT sell to pawn shops if you can avoid it.
Selling Rings on eBay
Ebay offers a fairly quick sales cycle (assuming your ring sells). Selling your ring on eBay could take anywhere from a few hours to 7 days on average (again, assuming you find a buyer). Finding a buyer has to do with the following dynamics:
- Where you set your starting bid
- The pictures added to your listing
- Your item description
- Whether you set a ‘Buy it Now’ price
- Whether you set a reserve (a minimum amount that the auction must reach)
- Whether you allow potential buyers to submit lower offers
- The category that you put your listing in
- Your feedback rating
- Whether you promote your listing
Fraud is one of the major challenges that indirectly affects you as a seller on eBay. Because some sellers scam buyers by mailing rings that weren’t properly described, or that don’t include the stone that was promised, buyers are often understandably a little cautious. Because there’s some level of risk involved in the transaction, buyers demand a discount to compensate them for the risk.
In general, eBay shoppers come to the platform expecting big savings on used items. If your asking price isn’t set low enough, your item just won’t sell. To validate that, I searched the completed auctions for used Moissanite rings. Out of the last 100 completed auctions, only 36% ended in a purchase (64% of listings expired unsold). Not all of the ‘successful’ transactions were completed at the full asking price. In fact, 50% of the listings that ended in a sale, accepted an offer for a lower amount than they were originally asking. This means that only 18% of listings ended in a sale at the original asking price!
Not all sellers disclose the amount of the discount that they granted when they accepted the lower offer (most prefer to keep that information hidden), but for those that didn’t hide it, the average discount was 22%. That’s not an insignificant amount for the seller to have to give up, but when 64% of rings go unsold, they likely feel forced to accept less now instead of getting nothing at all if the buyer goes elsewhere.
Let’s take a closer look at just one of the ‘successful’ auctions that I came across. There was a Moissanite engagement ring that was originally purchased for $1,615 (They provided a copy of their receipt). I was also able to find a new version of the same ring online to verify the cost. The ring ultimately sold for $315.
In my experience, the fees paid to eBay for selling, combined with the fees paid to Paypal for receiving funds, total approximately 13% of the sale amount. After deducting those selling fees from the proceeds of the sale, we can see that the seller only netted $274 in total. That means that they took an ENORMOUS 83% loss on the sale (recovering just 17% of their original purchase price). That’s a TERRIBLE result!
Because of overall buyer mentality, the frequent need to discount pricing further for haggling potential buyers, and heavy platform fees, I’d stay away from eBay if I’m trying to maximize the cash that I get out of my ring. The only way that I’d feel comfortable using eBay, is as a backup plan. If you list for a reasonable price, and then try to sell through other channels in the meantime, there’s no real harm in it. You might get lucky. If not, then you might ultimately end up wasting a little time, but it can’t hurt you to use the platform in this way otherwise.
Online Used Ring Consigners
There are several ring consigners online that draw shoppers to their sites through online and offline promotion. Believe me, I’ve investigated MANY of these platforms but the one I’m most impressed with, at this point, is I Do Now I Don’t. Years ago, the founder of the site got stuck with a ring that he had trouble reselling for a fair price. Pawn shops and all other available outlets at the time were offering him pennies on the dollar—for a ring that was valuable and in excellent condition. That difficult experience led him to create an online platform where sellers could unload quickly and be treated much more fairly.
Creating a ring listing on the site is free. Many types of rings are offered through the site. In addition to Moissanite, you’ll find diamonds (both mined and lab-grown) and an assortment of colorful gems. After creating your listing, you’ll get an offer from the site to buy your ring directly if you’d rather sell to them immediately rather than waiting a little longer for an individual buyer to purchase. If the ring ends up selling to a buyer through the platform, you’ll end up paying 10% to 20% of the ultimate purchase price as a selling commission to the platform. Watch the total fees carefully, as you compare with other services, because they’re important! Most other consignment platforms charge multiple fees that combine to total 40% or more.
Another thing that I REALLY love about the platform, is that they validate the authenticity of the rings that sell through their platform, so buyers can purchase with real confidence. When buyers feel confident that they’re buying a genuine item, they’ll typically bid more generously. On most auction sites, for example, you never know for sure if the item you receive will be genuine, so buyers shop and spend much more cautiously.
These guys are the very best I’ve found for helping sellers that want to go the consignment route. The site is worth checking out if you have a ring that you need to sell.
Local Online Classified Ads Sites
My favorite place to resell Moissanite rings is through local classified ad sites. Craigslist.org, kijiji.ca, and UsedEverywhere.ca are two quick examples of the type of site that I’m referring to. Some areas also have listing sites run by a local newspaper, media company, or private organization. These local classified sites can be really great selling platforms when they’re available. The get your ring in front of people in your city and surrounding areas, that are looking to score some savings on a new ring.
To find new local sites that might be worth listing your ring on, search the name of your state or city (or a major city that’s nearby), followed by words like ‘free online classifieds.’ For example, if you lived in Fairfax, Virginia, you could try searching ‘Fairfax Virginia free online classifieds’ or ‘Virginia free online classifieds’ to see what comes up.
Only the larger classified sites are typically worth your time to list rings on. I just looked at a small classifieds site with coverage in my area, that I have never heard of before. They only had one listing in the office furniture category and three in the home furniture category (which is simply an indication of just how tiny they are). Their listing base was super small, which tells me that they don’t get much buyer traffic.
Facebook can actually be used like a free local classified ad site not. There are both public and private buy-and-sell groups and local exchange groups where you can post used items that you’re wanting to get rid of. Some of the groups might specialize in things like clothing or jewelry, but others will accept posts containing almost anything. There are LOTS of people that watch the items that are posted to these groups LIKE A HAWK! It’s not uncommon to get messages about your item within moments of posting.
As a side benefit, you’ll be able to review the profile of the prospective buyers that you’ll meet up with so you recognize them and can make sure that you feel good about connecting with them to complete the transaction. If you’re planning to post through classified sites, Facebook should absolutely be one of the channels that you use! To find these groups in your area, search for groups using a combination of your city or county name along with other words like ‘sale’, ‘for sale’, ‘exchange’, ‘yard sale’, ‘swap’, etc.
Listing new items for sale is generally free on classified ad platforms. Because you have no selling fees with most of these platforms, you’re able to pocket more cash when you sell. You also have greater flexibility to decrease the price a little, if needed, without giving too much away.
You will almost always get, and KEEP, the most money when you cut out the middlemen and sell directly to the end-user. If a couple has been shopping for Moissanite Engagement Rings that costs $1,600 or less, for example, and you can offer them a beautiful used Moissanite ring (that looks brand new) for $1,100…they may be extremely interested. They could save significant money, but you might also end up with more money for your ring than you could have gotten in any other way—everyone wins!
Remember that, recently sold, Moissanite engagement ring that I referenced earlier? The seller lost 83% of the amount that they originally paid for the ring! They only recovered 17% when all was said and done. I love selling through local online classified ads because when I sell directly to the end-user, I get more net cash (higher sale price and no fees to pay).
To illustrate the impact that those factors make, I searched a local classifieds site, in my area, to see how many Moissanite rings they have listed right now. I found 4 current listings in total. Three of those listings mentioned the amount that they originally paid for their rings—and most of those listings displayed pictures of the original purchase receipt. Here’s what I found…
Used Rings For Sale: | Original Price: | Asking: | Total Loss in $: | Discount %: |
---|---|---|---|---|
Moissanite Ring #1 | $1,005 | $700 | $305 | 30% |
Moissanite Ring #2 | $1,200 | $900 | $300 | 25% |
Moissanite Ring #3 | $1,200 | $790 | $410 | 34% |
Overall Averages | $1,135 | $797 | $338 | 30% |
Based on all of the listings that provided data, it looks like the average ring is being sold at just a 30% discount. That’s a significant improvement over the kind of loss that our eBay seller incurred. In fact, if the eBay seller, which I highlighted earlier, had been able to sell through a local classifieds platform like this, with only a 30% loss, they would have been able to walk away with $1,114.35, instead of $274!
I’ve had A LOT of experience selling through local classified ad sites. Here are some important lessons that I’ve learned.
Picture quality, background, and lighting are important. You don’t need professional equipment, but you do need to avoid dark or unfocused pictures, as well as cluttered backgrounds. Likewise, you don’t want pictures that are overexposed, making ring detail difficult to see. This is common sense stuff, but many people don’t take the time to do these simple little things right, and it often ends up costing them big money in lost revenue or extra time.
You’ll also want to make sure to take pictures of the ring from several different angles and distances. I often take 15 pictures, or more, and then post my favorite 4 to 5. Make sure that your main listing image is the one that sells the ring best. That picture will have a lot to do with whether someone clicks on your listing or not.
Carefully craft your listing title and description. Like your main image, the listing title helps people quickly determine whether your ad is worth clicking on. You need to try to create a title that’s descriptive, but also interesting and enticing. The worst thing you can do in a listing title or description is to be too brief, ultimately saying little to nothing about the item. An overly brief title like ‘Engagement Ring’ sells the listing short. If you instead write something like ‘The Most Perfect Moissanite Engagement Ring Ever!’ or ‘Gorgeous Moissanite Engagement Ring – An Inexpensive Option!’) you might describe the item, and entice clicks, a little better.
The language in your listing helps prospective buyers get a better sense for the ring, but it also helps them to get a feel for whether they trust you as a seller. If you tell them about the ring and why you’re selling it, they’re more likely to see your offering as safe and legitimate (rather than a potential scam).
Protect yourself from scams and danger. Online Classified sites are happy hunting grounds for scammers. There are a number of ways that they’ll try to separate you from your money, and/or your ring if they can. You’ll stay safe if you follow a couple of basic rules religiously.
- Accept Cash ONLY (absolutely no exceptions for anyone or any reason … regardless of their story)
- Local pickup ONLY (no shipping for ANY reason).
It’s also a good idea to make sure someone else is with you when you meet the prospective buyer to exchange their money for your ring. It’s common to have a buyer come to your home to pick up an item they’re purchasing, but it’s probably safer to meet them in a public place. I’ve met people inside a McDonald’s restaurant to buy or sell things on a number of occasions, for example. They aren’t always the quietest spots, but you’re pretty safe, with are other people around, and security cameras rolling in most areas. I don’t want to scare you with all of this talk of safety, but it’s important to be careful and take precautions where possible.
In Summary:
How you sell your used Moissanite rings, will make a huge impact on the amount of cash that you’re able to walk away from the transaction with—and the difference isn’t small. Being able to keep 69% of the original purchase price, instead of just 17% is a big deal for your bottom line! Based on all that was outlined above, My favorite way to sell Moissanite rings is through local online classified ads (which are free). My second choice is working through an online consigner, like the group mentioned above. I would personally avoid selling through pawn shops, online auctions, or similar outlets if I can avoid it.