Joyaux

Joyaux Genève runs a full engagement-ring shop on its own site rather than a portfolio page that sends you to a phone number. You browse the collection, filter by availability or price, add a ring to a cart and check out, all in Swiss francs, all without leaving the browser. For a Zurich-based buyer that's the point of listing it here: it's a genuine Swiss retailer you can order from the way you'd order anything else online, rather than a maison that expects a showroom visit before it will discuss a price.

Geography matters for how you'll actually use this one. Joyaux's atelier and store are in Geneva, on the French-speaking side of the country, not in Zurich or anywhere near it. There's no Zurich outpost, no pop-up, nothing to walk into locally. That puts Joyaux in a different category from the Bahnhofstrasse houses: this is a listing for someone happy to choose a ring on screen, order it, and have it shipped, not for someone who wants to try rings on before deciding. The site itself switches cleanly between German, English and French, which matters more here than at a counter, since your entire relationship with Joyaux (browsing, ordering, aftercare) happens through the website rather than a bilingual sales assistant.

What you get

The engagement-ring collection lists 35 rings, 34 of them in stock and ready to ship, one currently sold out. Every single one carries a published CHF price on the page itself, no "price on request" anywhere in the range. At the low end sits a plain single-stone diamond ring at CHF 1,380. From there the range fills in steadily: a split-shank solitaire and an oval-cut diamond ring with baguette side stones both at CHF 4,630, a round-cut solitaire at CHF 4,760, a one-carat halo ring at CHF 4,650, a three-stone round brilliant-cut ring at CHF 3,875. Move up and you reach a double-halo ring at CHF 9,800, an 18-karat white gold halo ring at CHF 10,500, a 1.5-carat princess-cut solitaire at CHF 11,690, and a 1.5-carat halo ring at CHF 7,300. Toward the top there's a rose gold emerald-cut halo ring at CHF 15,350, a pear-cut halo ring at CHF 18,150, a fancy yellow radiant and baguette ring at CHF 18,670, a two-carat halo oval ring at CHF 21,500, a rose gold emerald-cut solitaire at CHF 23,470, and, at the top of the list, a princess-cut diamond solitaire at CHF 26,080. That's a genuinely wide, priced-up-front range, which is rarer than it should be at this end of the jewelry trade.

Diamonds are sourced from Botswana, South Africa and Namibia, and Joyaux says every stone's path from mine to cut gem is tracked to support that ethical-sourcing claim. Every diamond the site sells is certified by the GIA, the Gemological Institute of America, and for its higher-value rare stones Joyaux adds a second certificate from one of three Swiss gemological labs it names directly: SSEF, GRS GemResearch Swisslab, or the Gübelin Gemological Laboratory. Having both a GIA paper and a Swiss lab's own sign-off is a stronger paper trail than most online sellers offer, and it's the kind of detail worth checking against the certificate you're actually sent rather than taking on trust.

Beyond the ready-to-ship pieces, Joyaux runs a genuine custom design service. You work through the 4Cs (cut, color, clarity and carat weight) with Geneva-based jewelers, who the site says guide you through choosing the stone, the metal and the setting, and produce sketches and digital models before anything is made. That's a real design process, not a marketing phrase for picking from three templates. What the site does not publish is a turnaround time in days or weeks for a custom commission, so if you're planning a proposal date, get a written lead time from Joyaux directly before you order rather than assuming the process moves at any particular speed.

Shipping and duty for a Zurich buyer

Joyaux advertises free international diamond shipping, describing "secure delivery services in over 100 countries," with accelerated overnight or 48-hour shipping offered for select diamonds and destinations. Every shipment, the site states, is fully insured from the moment it leaves Joyaux's premises until it arrives at the address you gave. That's a solid baseline regardless of where you live.

The clause that actually matters for this category is the one about duties. Joyaux's shipping policy states plainly that customers are responsible for all import duties, VAT or other local taxes charged by their own country. Read the other way round, that's good news for a Zurich order: a ring shipped from Geneva to a Swiss address isn't crossing a border, so that clause simply doesn't apply to it. It only bites if you're ordering to, or later moving to, a country outside Switzerland, at which point that country's own import rules take over and you'd want to check them before you order rather than after the parcel is stuck at a border post.

Joyaux also publishes a separate explainer on Switzerland's diamond-import tax rules, aimed at someone bringing loose stones into the country from abroad rather than at someone receiving a finished ring from a domestic Swiss seller. It notes that Switzerland scrapped tariffs on most industrial goods from 1 January 2024, and that the VAT rate applying to loose diamond imports rose to 8.1% on the same date, charged on the total imported value including shipping and handling. Useful background if you're the one importing stones yourself; it says nothing about, and doesn't need to say anything about, a ring ordered and delivered inside Switzerland.

Returns, certificates and the money-back guarantee

Joyaux offers what it calls a 30-day money-back guarantee, "without questions being asked," and goods must be returned or exchanged within 30 days of receipt in their original, unworn and undamaged condition, with all original documents including the certificate of authenticity. Miss that window and there's still a path back: Joyaux says it can approve a later return at its discretion, but takes a 10% deduction from the total to cover the associated costs. If the original certificate isn't included with a return, a processing fee applies, starting at CHF 150. Return shipping within Switzerland is free on request; outside Switzerland, the customer covers the shipping cost. Custom or special-order pieces are excluded from the guarantee entirely, and purchases made through the extended payment plan don't carry the 30-day return right either.

Worth flagging for anyone thinking ahead to resizing: the return terms specifically list resizing among the changes that disqualify a ring from being returned or exchanged, alongside general wear and other modifications, with special orders excepted from that clause. So the practical read is that once you've had a ring resized, you've used up your return window on it, not that resizing itself carries a separate fee. On durability, Joyaux's natural diamond warranty covers manufacturing defects in the piece, but explicitly excludes excessive wear, physical or accidental damage, and loss or theft, and the page doesn't publish a warranty duration in years, so treat that as open rather than assume a specific term.

Paying for it

For anyone who'd rather not put the full price on one card, Joyaux offers financing through Splitit: up to three interest-free installments, no credit check or paperwork required, on purchases up to CHF 35,000, well above even the top of the engagement-ring range listed here. It accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover Diners Club International and UnionPay, though debit and prepaid cards are not accepted for it. For an expat a year or two into a Swiss credit history, that no-credit-check structure is a genuinely practical option that a Bahnhofstrasse maison's "ask in store" financing usually isn't.

Who it suits, and the verdict

Joyaux won't work for someone who wants to see three rings side by side before deciding; there's no Zurich showroom, and the Geneva atelier is a trip in its own right. But for a buyer comfortable ordering online, it delivers what that comfort should buy: every price published, a wide and genuinely varied range from CHF 1,380 to CHF 26,080, GIA certification on every stone with Swiss lab backing on the rarer ones, a straightforward 30-day return window with its exceptions clearly stated rather than buried, and a financing option that doesn't lean on a Swiss credit file. The shipping and duty terms work cleanly in a Zurich buyer's favor precisely because nothing about a Geneva-to-Zurich delivery counts as an import. Read the resizing exclusion and the missing custom lead time before you order, and this is a legitimate, well-documented way to buy a ring without ever leaving Zurich.