Background
We ended up going through Topazery.com because of we both felt it was THE ring. I was initially a bit suss about their legal agreement - there are some very specific clauses in there regarding returns and refunds that might cause you to raise an eyebrow. Also the lack of feedback online was worrying, thus why I'm writing this now.
Cost
Any international orders from Topazery are slugged an extra "special processing fee" which is 3.5% of the order cost, plus an extra $7.50 "transaction fee". I suspect that they use the "special processing fee" to cover the high costs of international couriering, as I doubt the US$55 postage they charge covers it. Honestly, it'd be better if they upped their postage costs than charge this random fee on top of postage.
Communication
They were quite prompt with replying to my queries. I first asked if they offer holds/laybuys, and was told they didn't. I then queried the wording of their shipping information - it wasn't clear whether they posted 7-10 business days after receiving the order, or 7-10 business after the payment cleared. Turns out it's the former, not the latter - I received all replies within 24 hours.
Payment
It took 5 working days for my payment to clear from my Australian credit card account into their merchant account. They shipped the ring the following day.
Postage
Our order was posted via FedEx, and the tracking was amazing. As the ring was over Australia's $1,000 limit for duty and GST, we had to pay extra so the ring could clear Customs. I waited until the tracking information displayed "package ready for clearance", then called up FedEx and paid the duty and GST over the phone with a credit card. The parcel cleared Customs that same day (a Sunday, mind you). As we weren't going to be home to sign for the delivery, I called the FedEx customer hotline and chose to authorise the driver to leave the parcel at our address (hidden somewhere of course). The other option was to reschedule delivery, but we work full time so no workday would suit. The parcel was delivered on the predicted delivery date, five days after being posted.
The ring
We knew the ring was about 1.5 sizes too small, so we took a chance that our jeweller would be able to enlarge it. They couldn't say for certain without actually seeing the ring in person. Topazery.com offer their own resizing service, but I was a little uncertain as a) resized rings are not returnable, and b) I've seen some variation in ring size conversion charts across the internet, and I felt it would be safer for it to be resized here. We had no trouble getting it resized in Australia, but we did have to find a specialist who worked with (and stocked enough) palladium.
All in all, it was a success and we would buy from Topazery.com again!
UPDATE (31/08/12)
So it has been nearly 12 months since we bought the engagement ring from Topazery, and we have only just sent it into a local jeweller to have the metal confirmed... turns out the ring IS NOT PALLADIUM as was advertised, it is white gold. Plated white gold. Even the jeweller in Australia who resized my ring initially did not alert us to the fact it was white gold, despite us mentioning it was supposedly palladium. My fiancé is understandably pissed off, but it doesn't change the fact that I love the ring to death.We are currently awaiting the jeweller's valuation of the ring - I will update this post when we get that back.
UPDATE (10/04/13)
Sorry for taking so long to update this with the valuation details - I don't blog these days so completely forgot about this post until somebody commented on it!
The valuation came back at $1,000 more than what we paid for it, so we're extremely happy. I am now married, and the ring looks wonderful against my wedding band too :)
2 comments:
Any news on value?
Sorry BlueEyedMommy - was away on my honeymoon. Have updated the blog post to include valuation.
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