Rox Jewellery review
Should you buy your engagement ring or diamonds from Rox?
ROX is a well-established luxury jeweller and offers a range of high quality jewellery, with brands stocked including Chopard, Bvlgari and even Jacob & Co. Founded in 2002, Rox has five shops across Scotland and the north of England.
As a young, growing company, Rox makes sure that their customers are given the red carpet treatment from the moment they set foot in store, with beautiful fit-outs, personalised service and champagne available to make the experience truly special.
In this Rox review, we will primarily examine them from the point of view of buying a diamond engagement ring. However, the findings are equally relevant for any other type of jewellery.
If you’d like to jump straight to the ‘value for money’ section and see how choosing one of my recommended retailers could save £4,710.99 compared to Rox, click here.
Rox engagement ring selection
Rox offers a total of 101 styles of diamond engagement ring to choose from:
The majority of the engagement ring styles that Rox sell are either solitaire or halo settings – two classic styles that have stood the test of time. Solitaire settings are generally less expensive setting than other styles and are great for keeping the focus on the centre stone, while halo setting can make your ring stone look larger and more impressive.
Looking at the precious metals use by Rox in their settings, we can see that the most frequently used is platinum:
Platinum is a great choice for engagement rings that are going to be worn every day because of its durability. The flipside of this is that it is more expensive than white gold, so the fact that the majority of Rox rings use a platinum setting definitely positions them as a premium jeweller.
Rox also offers a wide variety of diamond shapes. Elongated shapes like the oval and emerald cut are particularly popular at the moment, so it’s a definite plus that Rox caters to these. As with most jewellers though, it’s the round brilliant that is the most common shape offered – its classic style is popular for a reason and it is the diamond shape that delivers the most sparkle:
With 101 settings, a variety of diamond shapes and precious metal used, it’s likely that you’ll be able to find a style that fits what you’re looking for.
Rox diamond quality
Engagement rings are all about the diamond, and being able to choose a diamond that will sparkle brilliantly will make the difference between a truly stunning engagement ring and one that looks dull and unimpressive.
In this section, we’ll examine the quality of diamonds Rox offers, as well as how transparent they are about the quality of the diamonds themselves. Once you have chosen your engagement ring style, the next step is to choose the diamond for your ring.
Rox understand the importance of 4C’s, and have added an important fifth to be considered: certification. Certification is something which is overlooked by many jewellers, so the fact that Rox use GIA-graded diamonds is a big plus for me.
On the Rox website, you’re able to choose the diamond carat size and you’re then presented with a range of diamond options with set cut grades:
Carat weight is a huge factor that determines the cost of a ring, so the fact that Rox allows you to choose your carat weight from 0.3 carats to 1 carat means that it’s easy to scale the diamond to your budget.
When it comes to diamond colour, the most common they offer is F, which is a good grade. F colour diamonds look fantastic, with an almost completely colourless appearance that’s ideal for both white and coloured metals alike. An F color diamond offers significantly better value than a D or E diamond.
The majority of the clarity grades offered are VS2, VS2 clarity means that the diamond will look ‘eye clean’ with no inclusions visible – again, a good grade to choose.
Slightly confusingly, if you check the each ring you can see that different rings are available with different colour and clarity. For example, the ring ROX Honour 6 Claw Brilliant Diamond Ring in Platinum, you can see that the only available colours are D, E and F while for clarity is VS1, VS2 and SI1.
However, for ROX Honour Brilliant Cut Diamond Ring in Platinum, colours available are D to I, while for clarity is VS2, SI1 and SI2.
SI1 diamonds means that inclusions may be visible to the naked eye, while SI2 clarity diamonds can look like this with very obvious flaws, like the large inclusion in the centre of this diamond:
I would therefore recommend that you choose a VS2 clarity diamond as your minimum clarity grade to ensure your diamond doesn’t have any obvious flaws.
While the ability to choose your diamond is good, the actual diamond selection is quite limited compared to some other retailers whch allow you to choose from thousands of diamonds.
The most important factor that determines a diamond’s sparkle is the ‘cut’ grade.
Diamond cut is a measure of how well the diamond has been formed and it is essential that a diamond has good proportions to reflect light, otherwise it will be dull, lifeless and unimpressive.
If a diamond is too tall or too shallow, it won’t reflect much light:
Diamond is too shallow:
Light passes through the diamond and is lost, meaning the diamond looks dull and sparkles less than it should.
Diamond is too deep:
Light is bounced off the bottom facets at the wrong angle and is lost out of the side of the diamond, reducing sparkle.
Excellent / Ideal cut:
Light is reflected off the bottom facets and back through the table to your eye, meaning the diamond sparkles beautifully.
Unlike some UK jewellers, Rox doesn’t hide their diamonds cut grade. They understand the very important role of cut in producing a beautiful diamond and allow you to filter by cut grade on their website.
The majority of cut grades that Rox offers are ‘excellent’ and ‘very good’:
However, I would recommend that you only consider an ‘excellent’ cut diamond to ensure that its sparkle is maximised. A ‘very good’ cut diamond can look flat and lifeless in ordinary light, away from the bright lights of a jewellers.
The fifth C that Rox include is ‘certification’ and the majority their diamonds are accompanied by a diamond certificate from GIA – my most-commonly recommended independent laboratory. This is a huge positive as GIA has some of the strictest standards, so you will be sure that you are getting the quality that you are paying for.
As you can see, they don’t allow you to select ‘cut’ using their product filters, but they do seem to use GIA and excellent cut diamonds in their rings settings, which is good.
Rox service
Buying an engagement ring is a special purchase, and you want to have confidence that the retailer will not only treat you well during while buying your ring, but also that they will stand behind their product after the purchase too.
Rox has 5 stores across Scotland and the north of England, so it’s not a big chain. But if there is one in your city, you are assured of a warm welcome and attentive service.
The average score on Google reviews is 4.7 from 92 reviews, which is impressive. Comments are generally very positive regarding the service provided by Rox, especially when the reviewer has visited their boutique physical, with staff members delivering first class service.
If you decide that you would like to return your jewellery, Rox will accept a return within 14 days of purchase. With an engagement ring, this may not give you enough time, so I asked Rox whether it could be extended if I was planning on proposing later and they confirm on livechat that it would be possible:
Other positive points are that if you would like to have your ring resized, Rox will do this within 3-4 days in most stores, or even on the very same day from their Glasgow store.. Impressive!
Overall, Rox offers high quality service and good after-sales support, which is reassuring.
Rox value for money
Buying a diamond ring is a big commitment – both financially and emotionally. So it’s important that you ensure that you are getting good value for money and aren’t spending more than you need to.
After all, if you’re buying an engagement ring, it’s likely that you will have a wedding to pay for soon.
To see how Rox’s value for money compares, we’ll compare it to one of my recommended retailers – Blue Nile. Blue Nile is an American jeweller who has a manufacturing and distributing centre in Ireland, which makes it just like buying from a local online retailer, so it’s a good place to compare.
When comparing, we’ll keep the ring style, diamond clarity, colour, carat as similar as possible. A good way to compare is looking at Solitaire diamond rings as they are simple and timeless, without an ornate setting to make the comparison more complicated.
Looking at Rox, the ‘Honour 6 Claw Brilliant Diamond Ring’ in platinum, with a 1 carat E colour, SI1 Clarity and Round Brilliant shape is priced at £9,995 including all taxes;
If we look at this price compared to my recommended retailer, a Petite Nouveau Six Claw Solitaire Engagement Ring with 1 carat diamond with E colour and SI clarity, the same as Rox, the Cost is just £5,284.01
The Blue Nile ring also has an ‘Ideal’ cut diamond, so we know it will sparkle beautifully. Diamonds from both retailers are graded by the same independent lab – GIA – which has no incentive to bump up the grading score.
If you look at the price with the same specification, we can see that Rox is charging £4,710.99 more than my recommended store.
This is obviously a significant difference in price! With the £4,710.99 you would save by shopping at Blue Nile instead of Rox you could:
- Increase the carat weight of the diamond
- Increase the quality of the diamond
- Spend it on a really special proposal
- Put it towards your wedding cost
Or possibly all of these!
The prices at Blue Nile may be different on the day you look – maybe higher, maybe lower – it’s worth clicking through to see today’s prices for exactly what you’re looking for.
Rox review
Overall
-
Ring Selection
-
Diamond Quality
-
Service Quality
-
Value for Money
Do we recommend Rox?
Rox offers a good selection of ring styles, the ability to choose high quality diamonds and very good service both during and after making a purchase.
However, the excellent service comes at a price and that price is high costs. Where you choose to buy your ring from is your decision, but in my opinion, the benefit of being treated like a VIP inside their stores is not worth the extra expense compared to buying from Blue Nile.
While visiting a store can be a good idea to see some diamonds in person and even to try a ring on to see how it looks on the finger, when it comes to actually making a purchase, it just makes sense to go with Blue Nile where you will pay much less for a ring with a diamond of the exact same quality.
Pros
- Red carpet treatment when visiting their boutique
- Displaying the 5c’s on their website (cut, colour, clarity, carat, certification)
- Diamonds have GIA certification
Cons
- Very expensive
- 14 days return policy
- Rings have specific clarity and colour that you can’t change