Our Prices Explained: How Can We Make Wedding Rings So Much Cheaper Than the High Street?

The phrase "cheap wedding rings" is not a romantic one, but our research has always shown that it is a heavily Googled term. This is completely understandable, as we all know that weddings are expensive. Our most frequently asked question as a business is how we manage to keep our prices so competitive. You only need to take a stroll down the high street to know that wedding ring prices can skyrocket to unbelievable levels, even for the most simple of styles.

A lot of things go into the making of a wedding ring, from the materials, to the workmanship, to the general running costs of a business. The largest cost any consumer would attribute to the production of wedding bands is probably the materials, such as gold or platinum. Of course, precious metals aren't in themselves inexpensive, but when the price of bullion is globally determined twice a day, it can be hard to understand why some jewellers charge so much more per gram than others.

Things like labour costs, too, don't have to be outsourced to other countries in order to be affordable in this industry. The bottom line is that it comes down to a business and their choices as to how much they charge for a wedding band. At WRD, we have taken several measures to keep our prices low and our customers reaping the benefits.

We Make to Order

Unlike businesses with physical store fronts, we do not have a large stock holding of rings waiting to be purchased. This allows us to price rings fairly as opposed to charging a premium to cover unsold stock. We choose to price our rings based on weight, so that our customers are only paying for the precious metal contained in their ring.

By making rings to order, we also ensure that every customer is provided with a bespoke ring which has been made just for them, rather than a stock ring that has been resized to fit their requirements. This means that all of our rings have a guaranteed longevity and high quality.

In-House Manufacturing

Our central jewellery workshop is only two doors down from our offices. We love our set-up, because we are able to work closely with our jewellers and diamond setters to provide a quality service with the shortest manufacturing times possible. Manufacturing in-house means that we avoid paying unnecessary premiums to middle men, and we choose to pass those savings on to our customers.

We own our own engraving equipment, which is an investment we made in order to provide as smooth a service as possible for our clients. This is another way that we have been able to eliminate middle men in our manufacturing process.

A secondary money-saving benefit of manufacturing in-house is that we save on postage costs to and from different workshops. This can really add up over the course of a year, and again, we choose to pass those savings on to you!

Recycled Bullion

We are proud to use recycled gold and silver in the manufacturing of our wedding rings. This means that our rings are as sustainable as possible, because we are avoiding the mining of fresh materials. Recycled metals are equally as pure and robust as newly mined ones, but with a lower cost to the environment. They also come at a slightly lower cost to us which helps keep our prices low.

Low Overheads & Low Margins

As we know, all businesses look out for their bottom line to keep costs down - it's just business sense! But we also do this in order to pass on savings to our customers. We have been able to achieve lower overheads by choosing a premises with lower rent, and minimising our floor space to make optimal use of our resources.

Did you know that some jewellers charge up to a 600% mark up on the materials used to make an item? This is because there are no regulations on what is an appropriate margin on a piece of jewellery. Of course, many items require extremely skilled and detailed workmanship which takes hundreds of hours to complete, which makes higher costs very reasonable. However, between you and us, a plain precious metal band is comparatively not a labour-intensive item of jewellery to make. While of course it requires skill and expertise, and a reasonable amount of time, we are able to pay extremely fair labour costs to our workers without needing to slap on a large margin.

Commitment to Accessibility

We firmly believe that unlike other items of jewellery, wedding rings should not be considered a luxury. They are an important symbol of the commitment of marriage which everyone should have a right to, should they want it. Our commitment to this ethos is why we always strive to provide a range of options from cheap wedding rings, to fairly and low priced precious metal rings, to luxurious diamond set wedding bands for those with larger budgets. Even our higher priced items are priced with low margins, so you won't find anything similar in that price range on the high street.

 

So, while "cheap wedding rings" doesn't have the most romantic ring to it (see what we did there), we make cheap wedding rings because we love our customers and we think that's real romance.