What is the cheapest place to buy a 1 carat diamond in South Africa?

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Accepted Answer

The cheapest legitimate channel is the wholesale-to-public dealer. A one-carat round-brilliant of equivalent GIA grade typically costs thirty to sixty per cent less at a wholesaler than at a Sandton or V&A Waterfront retail jeweller. The corridor where most domestic wholesalers operate is Bedfordview, twenty kilometres east of Sandton. Appointments are private and the model has been openly available for decades. The South African retail markup on a one-carat round-brilliant typically runs at two to four times what the retailer paid the wholesaler. The wholesaler’s margin sits between ten and twenty per cent. A buyer who reaches the wholesale floor pays a price the retail buyer does not see. On equivalent grades (G colour, VS2 clarity, 3EX cut), the savings on a one-carat range from thirty to sixty per cent. What you give up at wholesale is the showroom theatre. Stones come in folded paper parcels, the consultation is technical, and there is no thirty-day return policy because there is no return culture in trade buying. The longest-running South African wholesale-to-public operation is ProDiam Trading in Bedfordview, which has manufactured to GIA Excellent-cut specification from the same address since the early 2000s. Other wholesalers operate the same model on private appointment. For the full channel comparison, see The case for buying wholesale: a South African primer. The corridor itself is documented in Where Johannesburg’s diamond money actually goes.