BRILLIANT EARTH
Diamond Score: 4.58
WHAT WE FOUND
To start, we love the name. Just makes us feel good when we say it 😃. The landing page has an immediate clean and soft feel to it. Luxurious, but not overly. Maybe elegant is the word we should use?
But let's first talk about the education component they offer. We decided to hit that area first before we began our diamond search.
1st Impressions:
4.6
User-Friendliness:
4.5
Inventory Selection:
4.4
Customer Service:
4.7
Price:
4.6
Bells & Whistles:
4.7
At first glance, we are thinking there is not going to be a lot of education here because there is no tab for it. However, if you hover the cursor over " Diamonds", you will find a "learn about diamonds". This is where things got interesting for us as we can immediately see the " BUYING A DIAMOND ONLINE". If you take your time to scroll, the information begins.
Scroll and you will be pleasantly surprised to find easy to read information that is not overwhelming and gives you the option in each category to go further in read more. So you get a summarization of each category and a link to hit if you want to do a deeper dive into the topic. We spent a lot of time reading and we have to say, they do an excellent job of not overwhelming the user with big words or industry phrases that the average person is not going to know. So clap clap, well done Brilliant Earth
Now let's shop!For this review purpose, we are going to be searching for a diamond engagement ring.wants quality, so we set out to see what we could find.
The site is very clean and inviting. We clicked the tab for diamonds and we were directed to a page that asked if we wanted to Shop Natural Diamonds or Lab Created Diamonds.
We chose natural and were taken to the all-familiar slider scale screen. Now this we found a bit interesting. The search function on its face is very basic. The site asks you for the shape, carat size, and price range you are looking for.
Side Note: The tab function is ok. Still not as fluid as we would like. Boy are we picky on this! Don't ask us why.
Ok...so the search function. Only shape size and price? Huh? Ahh... you have to look up on the page a bit and know that UP there is another tab that can take you to color, clarity and cut From there, you can continue to drill down for color, clarity, and cut with also a nice drop-down that asks "what matters to you most?". We thought this was a pretty cool feature. You can choose Best Sparkle, Most Sparkle, and Premium quality and the site will help filter what they deem the better options based on cut and light performance(no clarity though).
There is another tab labeled More Filters, which, among all the sites we reviewed, was the easiest to locate. This allows you to drill down even further. It gives you several options to choose from like Origin, Traceability, Length to Width Ratio, Fluorescence, Polish, Symmetry, Table, and Depth. Now Stop! In this section, you MUST be very careful because Brilliant Earth is offering 3 different types of Laboratory Certifications. IGI, GIA, and HRD. 2 of these 3 labs we are not in love as they tend to be very lenient in their grading...let's just say they are generous to the manufacturer who is submitting the diamond for grading. So we filtered for GIA only.
The site very quickly populates a list of diamonds that is presented in an easy-to-read format. Most of the diamonds have a nice high-resolution video with them and some even have hearts and arrows pictures as well. We see the video for each diamond is presented in the same format for every one and it is clean and close up! Well done.
We kept scrolling down and we got an extremely visually pleasing Four C's chart with easy-to-read explanations and it didn't end there! We scrolled down even more and found ourselves presented with a few curated alternative diamond options. They were laid out in an easy-to-understand grid format that showed us the gives and takes for each diamond. Things such as giving up size for color or a bump up in clarity, but a smaller diamond. We thought the AI-generated alternatives were very well presented.
Underneath the search field, 4 tabs are shown. All Diamonds, Truly Brilliant. Most Popular and Compare. We first looked at the all diamonds list. There are clear boxes for you to check the compare option, allowing you to add as many items as you want to a list. We chose to compare eight of them. By clicking on the Compare tab, the list condenses and shows you the selection.
There are arrows on the top of each category(i.e. Size, color, price, etc) where you may sort the diamonds for a specific category of your choosing. On the compare page, however, we felt that the level of comparison offered was quite superficial. On one hand, it was visually pleasing, but on the other hand, we wanted to see all the statistics laid out for us in an easy to compare format. Yes...we are nerds like that:)
Therefore you have to do a lot of clicking back and forth. Not a deal breaker, but would like it a bit easier to compare the stats.
OK....now....each time you click on the diamond, you get the high resolution video(if they have it). While it is very clear and zoomed in, it spins itself and there is no optionality for you to move the diamond back and forth like some of the other sites. We would have liked that option, but you still get a very good sense of the diamond with their videos.
To get detail on the diamond, we had to look in the lower right hand of the screen for a tab that says "diamond detail". Once we hit that, a very easy to read and soft on the eyes drop down appears that gave us us all the relative statistics of the diamond. Along each statistic, there is an informational icon that if pressed, will pop up a short explanation of what that statistical category means. From a user standpoint, it's very cool.
As you scroll down even more, the site can bring you to a small blockchain diamond journey area where you can get some pretty cool information on the diamond. It will tell you where in the world the diamond came from, what the original rough weight was and where it was polished. This is only limited to certain diamonds they have, but not for most.
We kept scrolling down and we got an extremely visually pleasing Four C's chart with easy to read explanations and it didn't end there! We scrolled down even more and found ourselves presented with a few curated alternative diamond options. They were laid out in an easy to understand grid format that showed us the gives and takes for each diamond. Things such as giving up size for color or a bump up in clarity, but a smaller diamond. We thought the AI generated alternatives were very well presented.
Live Chat Feature:
Once again, we found ourselves with some very friendly representatives. Not pushy, had good surface answers, friendly and we felt they tried to be as open as possible. We did ask some detailed questions regarding the parameters for their Truly Brilliant and their Super Ideal and received decent answers, but not the detail we were looking for. But again, we are diamond guys, so we were basically trying to box them into specifics. For the average user, it was good enough. Loved the fact that we could minimize the chat and when they answered, the minimized chat area would shake to notify us that there was a response. Overall, a very positive experience with this function.
Back to Shopping:
OK....So we began to compare diamonds as best we could We wished that you could "wishlist" the diamonds from the compare page directly, but unfortunately you can't from what we saw. Regardless, once we went into each diamond, we could then hit the heart icon next to the add to bag function, which would in turn put the diamond in our wishlist. We then moved into our wishlist and finally decided which diamond we wanted to select.
The site gives you an easy-to-use option of adding the diamond to a ring, adding the diamond to a necklace or just adding it to a bag. We chose to add the diamond to a ring.
The site then took us to a page that presented almost 400 engagement ring settings. On the top, there is a very easy-to-understand presentation of the "types" of settings they offer. The icons are a bit small, but nothing terrible in the least. You can start to filter using those icons or just scroll to your heart's content.
Now comes the part we REALLY loved. We decided to look more closely at the secret halo diamond engagement ring. Up came a screen that had some really cool stuff. It had a picture of the ring with the size diamond we were looking at, it had multiple still pictures with the ring on a model's hand in a way that showed how it truly would look. It had multiple stills of different angles of the ring, a video of a model with the ring on her hand, and even a picture of a hand with the ring on it, and a slider functionality that can change the skin tone of the hand to your desired liking. How cool is that?!
The site also offers you some options of recommended bridal sets if you feel like you want to buy the wedding band as well.
We strolled back up to the top, we chose from 4 metal options (18kt white gold, 18kt yellow gold, 14kt rose gold, or platinum). We did like the fact that BE did not seem to be overly promoting 14kt. It goes along with their more upscale feel and we appreciated that. We chose 18kt yellow gold and added it to the bag. We selected the ring size and started our checkout.
We were offered a Paypal option or head straight to the checkout button, which brings you to the typical billing and shipping information screens we are all accustomed to seeing. You do have the option to pick up at a showroom or ship it directly.
We continued to the payment method and you are met with a nice display of different payment options. Affirm, financing, PayPal, credit card, or wire transfer(for a discount). We put the old CC in and waited for our ring......I guess our one-word description of this site would be...Brilliant! Yes? No? Too cheesy?
Unbiased REVIEW
BRILLIANTEARTH.COM
PROS:
- Quite large selection
- Soft and luxurious feel
- Overall easy to navigate
- Most diamonds offer 360 degree video
- Great pictures, videos and functionality for ring options
- Nicely curated alternative options
- Some Blockchain and traceability features
- The most environmentally ethical based site in the market
- Chat experience
- Financing
- Hassle Free Return Policy
- Upgrade Policy
- Free Shipping
- Free ring sizing
CONS:
- Wishlist/Compare functionality not integrated
- The search page takes some time to understand where all the sliders are
- Not all diamonds have videos
- Videos are not as interactive as other sites
Overall grade 4.58/5 diamonds
1st Impressions 4.6
Very clean with an upscale feel as soon as you hit the page. Very clear call to action and takes, but in a nice inviting way.
User-Friendliness 4.5
Very interesting site. We had to pause and understand the screen a bit, but very interesting indeed. Once we got our bearings, the site was pretty easy to use. We had to struggle a bit with the wishlist and the compare functionality, but all in all, it was fine. We LOVED the features of the ring selection process. From videos to images etc. Great, great job.
Inventory Selection 4.4
Very nice selection. Was quite extensive. It's not as large as BlueNile or JamesAllen but it was pretty big. Had a nice focus on Ideals and Super Ideals and even a step to the tippy top with their Truly Brilliant offering(although it was a limited selection)
Live Chat Custom Service 4.7
Another great job here. Very personable, easy to communicate with, and open to giving us some pretty decent details in what we were asking. They wouldn't go as deep as we would have liked, but really no site representatives did. Overall a very pleasant experience and certainly good enough for the consumer. We asked a LOT of questions to the point of most likely annoyance. We got nothing but positive vibes from them.
Price 4.6
Highly competitive pricing in comparison to all the major sites. They obviously have worked very hard to integrate the right suppliers. They have been at this a while now and had to go head to head with some big players for some coveted suppliers. So far, they have seemed to do a great job.
Bells and Whistles 4.7
Nice job with education. Visually pleasing. Not overly complicated. You definitely can get what you need from them. They did a great job laying out how a consumer would want to read. We loved the ring functionality with the video and pictures. This was a well done site overall. That is for sure.
TRULY BRILLIANT DIAMOND
We loved the idea behind this diamond. Each diamond has been tracked through a very specific blockchain technology. You can see what country your diamond is from, what the original rough weight was, where it was cut and polished, and what the final weight is......not to mention, this diamond is insanely brilliant It has to meet some very specific requirements for it to be given the Truly Brilliant designation.
BRILLIANT EARTH
Brilliant Earth prides itself on working with the most sustainable companies in the industry. Of course nothing can be perfect, but they try and get as close as possible. Constantly pushing the needle even further to get the most from their vendors. Started in 2005, the company immediately took the stance of an ethical and holistic approach to the industry. Read More here(About | Brilliant | Earth)