Bijouteria

Bijouteria has been selling jewellery and piercings online since 2003, which by its own account makes it one of the very first businesses of its kind in Switzerland. For anyone new to Zürich comparing sellers, the appeal here is straightforward Swiss simplicity: the shop is a genuine Swiss company, everything ships from Switzerland, and domestic orders are billed in Swiss francs rather than a foreign currency that leaves you guessing about the exchange rate.

The company's own history page traces the start to Raphael, a trained computer scientist who began selling at weekly, flea and night markets while building a webshop on the side. What started, in the company's own description, as a "garage business" run out of an attic grew into proper office space in Zürich's Kreis 4 district by 2005, then moved again in 2009 once the team had outgrown that location. The legal entity behind the shop today, Bijouteria GmbH, was formally registered in 2005, one year after that attic-and-market-stall start, so the "since 2003" the shop advertises refers to trading history rather than the incorporation date. Both are true, just of different things, and worth keeping separate. Older marketing copy on the site's own homepage still describes it as "Bijouteria GmbH, ehemals Huber Bijouteria", suggesting a rebrand somewhere along the way, though the site doesn't date it.

What's in the catalogue

Bijouteria is not a specialist diamond jeweller. It's a general jewellery and piercing shop with, by its own description, an assortment of "over 5000" pieces spanning finger rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, foot jewellery, children's jewellery and a long list of piercing types (nose, belly, tongue, industrial and more). Engagement and wedding rings sit inside the general rings category rather than as a separate collection: the site's own category text describes a range running "from friendship rings and partner rings through to engagement and wedding rings", made in stainless steel, sterling silver, 14-karat gold, tungsten and wood, with rings available in up to 15 sizes including men's sizes.

Prices are on the accessible end. A silver solitaire-style ring set with cubic zirconia and a gold-plated band runs CHF 90 to CHF 99 depending on band width, and a more elaborate halo-style silver ring with a cluster of stones goes up to about CHF 152. The ring category's own price filter tops out at a CHF 300 bracket, which gives a sense of where the whole assortment sits: this is a source for an affordable, fashion-forward ring rather than a five-figure certified diamond, and a handful of 14-karat gold pieces with small lab-grown stones sit at the upper end for buyers who want something more substantial than silver or steel.

Shipping, returns and warranty

The terms and conditions state that delivery is "worldwide, free of shipping charges" and that everything shown in stock is "dispatched within 24 hours". Within Switzerland, parcels go by A-Post letter post and typically arrive the next day, even on a Saturday if you order on the Friday. Outside Switzerland, the same page gives a range of 2 days to 3 weeks depending on destination. Free shipping applies regardless of where the order is going.

Returns run on a 30-day window. Return shipping is free within Switzerland; from abroad, the customer covers the return postage. Rather than a straight refund to your card, the value of a returned item is credited to your Bijouteria account and applied automatically to your next order, though customers outside Switzerland who prepaid can ask to have it paid out to a bank account or PayPal instead. All items carry a 2-year warranty, which the terms explicitly exclude for damage from force or ordinary wear, giving broken chains and scratches as examples.

Payment and buying from abroad

How you pay depends on where you're ordering from. Within Switzerland, Bijouteria ships on invoice with no prepayment required (an Einzahlungsschein, the standard Swiss payment slip), though it runs a credit check on new customers first; PayPal also works domestically. Orders from abroad must be prepaid by PayPal, credit card or bank transfer, since there's no invoice option outside Switzerland. Orders to Swiss addresses are billed in Swiss francs; orders to addresses abroad are billed in euros.

For anyone shipping into the EU from this Swiss seller, the terms are direct about customs: shipments from Switzerland into the EU can attract customs duty, which is sometimes actually charged and has to be paid on arrival, but Bijouteria reimburses that cost afterwards as account credit once you email a photo of the customs receipt. None of that applies to a Zürich-based buyer taking delivery locally, which is really the point of a Swiss-domiciled seller for someone newly resident here: no customs office, no surprise charge at the door, and returns go back to a Swiss address rather than overseas.

Customer service, per the terms, runs by email only, "in German, French and English", with no telephone support and no other languages offered. That English-language support, confirmed on both the German and English versions of the terms page, matters more here than almost anywhere else on this list for someone who hasn't picked up German yet: you can read the site, order, and get help entirely in English. The site itself runs in six languages including English and Dutch, beyond the core German, French, Italian and Spanish.

The Zürich side of it

Unlike a purely online operation, Bijouteria has a real, current Zürich address you can find in its own legal notice: Bijouteria GmbH, Löwenstrasse 66, 8001 Zürich. Recent Instagram and Facebook posts from the shop confirm that address now also functions as a walk-in store, open Monday to Saturday from 10:00 to 19:00, right by Zürich's main station. For someone who's just landed in the city and would rather see a ring before it arrives in the post, that's a genuine option, not just a registered office with nobody behind the counter: the shop's own team listing names three staff specifically assigned to the Zürich store.

The company also makes a point of its environmental record: it says it became the first fully climate-neutral online shop in Switzerland in 2015, runs on solar power it generates itself (enough, it says, to power over 100 households when counting installations placed on partner factories), and has donated roughly CHF 1 million over the years to organisations including WWF, the Red Cross and Unicef. None of that is unique to buying a ring here, but it's a consistent thread through everything the company publishes about itself.

Who it suits, and the verdict

Independent reviews back up the picture of a shop that delivers on its stated terms: Trustpilot lists 39 reviews averaging 4.2 out of 5, and Trusted Shops shows 1,705 verified reviews with an overall score of 4.82, both current at time of writing. That's a meaningfully larger review base than most single-item sellers on this list, which counts for something when you're trusting a company you've never dealt with before to get a ring right.

Bijouteria suits a newcomer to Zürich who wants a straightforward, reasonably priced engagement or promise ring, quick worldwide shipping with nothing due at a Swiss door, and the reassurance of English-language support and a real shop to visit if things don't work out by post. It's a weaker fit if you've set your heart on a large certified diamond or a bespoke commission piece, since the catalogue leans towards silver, steel and modestly set stones rather than fine jewellery at that scale. For everything in between, and especially for the ring you want to buy this week rather than commission over months, it's a genuinely useful, well-established option with the paperwork and the local presence to match.