In the Loupe
In the Loupe
Why Now is the Best Time to Try E-commerce
Now is the perfect time for jewelers to explore e-commerce as an additional revenue stream, especially during economic uncertainty. Having your products available for online purchase creates "another line in the water" that can catch unexpected sales with minimal effort.
Download our free e-commerce strategy checklist at punchmark.com/checklist to help get started, regardless of which website platform you're using.
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Welcome to In the Loop. I kind of want to get back to the basics and I want to say, if you don't have e-commerce now, now is a great time for you to try out turning it on. And this doesn't have to be an all or nothing sort of thing. It can very easily just be dipping your toe and just seeing what happens. You're not going to lose anything by having it turned on. I really do think that having the option is just another way to have a line in the water, as they say, like just going around in your fishing boat, just trolling a little bit, without really having to try too hard. I'm going to go through a couple reasons as well as give some instructionals at the end and some resources, and we can talk a little bit more about why I recommend now as opposed to any other time. So give it a listen, enjoy.
Speaker 2:This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the jewelry industry's favorite website platform and digital growth agency. Our mission reaches way beyond technology. With decades of experience and long-lasting industry relationships, punchmark enables jewelry businesses to flourish in any marketplace. We consider our clients our friends, as many of them have been friends way before becoming clients. Punchmark's own success comes from the fact that we have a much deeper need and obligation to help our friends succeed. Whether you're looking for better e-commerce performance, business growth or campaigns that drive traffic and sales, punchmark's website and marketing services were made just for you. It's never too late to transform your business and stitch together your digital and physical worlds in a way that achieves tremendous growth and results. Schedule a guided demo today at punchmarkcom. Slash go.
Speaker 1:And now back to the show. All right, everybody. So, like I was talking about, now is a great time for you to try out using e-commerce. If you don't have it on yet, I think that right now makes a great time. Um, I think that right now makes a great time, especially as we go into a stranger and stranger and more uncertain points in the economic kind of flow. And the reason why I think it is a great time is because having an extra line of revenue is something that can always be a benefit, but I do think that e-commerce is something that you get better at.
Speaker 1:You're not going to be perfect right out the gate. Can always be a benefit, but I do think that e-commerce is something that you get better at. You're not going to be perfect right out the gate, and I think that is one of the issues that we at Punchmark have always bumped up against is that jewelers really want to be perfect, and I commend you on that. A plus, but trying is a little bit better than planning or thinking. So if you don't have e-commerce turned on, now is a great time, but if you have it on, maybe you'll learn a little bit about it as I go through. So I'm not talking about replacing your storefront. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about another way to sell, about another way to sell, and if you had the opportunity, in addition to your storefront, to have, for example, a booth at, like, a high impact market or something like that, you know, maybe you would want to try it out, and I think that's kind of what having e-commerce turned on can do, is it just gives the conversation more directions that it can flow into. And what I mean about that is it's not that people are always going to buy on your website, but the ability that they could buy is something that, a lot of the times, is just as impactful as the sales. And we hear all the time jewelers are always having inquiries come in, either on their website, or people go in and they literally screenshot the item and the title from their website and bring it in. They say, hey, I either want this or I want something like this. They're doing it in reverse. They're going to the store, they're looking at stuff and then they go home and then they buy it online. It happens in reverse all the time, and the part of the reason for that is that luxury e-commerce trust is at an all-time high. It continues to go up. I wouldn't be surprised if it goes up for the next five or 10 years even more, because it used to be back in the wild west.
Speaker 1:I still remember the first time I ever bought something online and I remember I think I was buying sneakers, just like regular running shoes, and it was around 2007 or so, and I remember just being like how do we know that they're going to come? And my mom was like, well, they usually come, they're going to come. I remember I was so not believing. They ended up being delivered. And there you go, you get your shoes. But I think that as you go in, you buy more and more stuff. Sometimes I buy stuff that I need the next day because it's easier for me than going to the hardware store across town because, who knows, maybe it's not open around Easter or something like that.
Speaker 1:And it's not just, you know, batteries that we're buying online. People are buying really expensive stuff. I bought, you know, an expensive bed, and I know people who have bought cars online and I know people who have, you know, bought really expensive watches. And luxury extends to all sorts of stuff, and luxury extends to all sorts of stuff I also want to talk about, maybe a little bit about just the perception of confidence also, and what I mean is from, like the retailer's stance. It has to do with what if you ship out something and the check bounces or the card gets declined or the card was stolen or you know all the different ways that there is fraud. And I just want to say Punchmore comes with.
Speaker 1:We have two great fraud protection companies that we work with. We have ClearSale, we have Eye for Fraud. I'm a big fan of both of them, I've had them on the podcast before and I really do think that that kind of stuff is so important. If you have any fear about making a sale and the dollar is not coming through, just know that these companies they insure it up 100% if they approve it. So if you go in and one of the things that we do at Punchmark is when we see an extra large sale come through, for example, at the end of every month I get a report from our platform that tells me every single sale that happened and I go through and I usually like to look just to see if any big items came through, if any really small items were sold. I do think that's very fascinating too, which stores are selling a lot, because there are some stores that are absolutely killing it, and sometimes I see not every month, but some months I see a $7,000 watch or a $12,000 ring, and what I do every single time is I go and I log into their website and I look to see if they had fraud protection and if the fraud protection scan came back positive or confirmed. And if it has, then that was, for all intents and purposes, a successful and real sale. And the reason why is because if ClearSale says, hey, this ring was approved and is a real credit card and the dollars make sense, then, as a result, they will insure it. So, even if the dollars don't transact, but if they said it was good, the dollars will end up in your bank account no matter what, and I do think that that kind of gives you a little bit of peace of mind.
Speaker 1:Okay, we've talked about that a lot. I just wanted to get that in the very front. Is that fraud protection is something that can set things away. Okay, but what about the work? And I think that this is one of them, and every time I go to a jewelry show.
Speaker 1:I hear this more than everything is like oh, our website's just, we're just not set up to ship like that. And it's like okay, but like, but, why not? You know, and a lot of the times they're like, oh, we want them to come in, but it's like okay, what if? Here's an example someone grew up in your hometown. They still have some family back in your hometown, but they themselves have moved away and they still have that loyalty to you. They want to find a way to give you their money. It's like, oh, but they could just call me, but they don't want to call you, they want to check out online. That's a super easy way to make it so that they can do that. Don't turn away their support in dollars if they want to give it to you.
Speaker 1:And the other thing is is just again, it's less work than you think. Don't let perfection stand in the way of your progress. So what I mean by that is just starting simple, starting with maybe one or two lines of your jewelry on your website and making sure that they are enabled for checkout. So maybe you have a line of an in-house line or like just fashion jewelry, so it's lower price point items. I think that allowing that kind of stuff or, you know, providing the checkout ability, is so much better than not. It's just having, like I said, another line in the water.
Speaker 1:If you're fishing and you're boating around, when you go from spot to spot, it's best to have a line in the water because, who knows, if you catch anything, I understand where you're like, oh, but what if it gets caught on a snag? But it's like no, more often than not you're going to be nothing will happen, or maybe you catch a fish. That's a bit of a redneck analogy, but I hope you get my point. And the other thing is is the economy is kind of weird right now. I'm sure you've seen all the news. I had an episode all scheduled and planned to talk about tariffs and I had to cancel that episode because the tariffs were paused for 90 days. The world is, the economy is weird. It's just a strange time. And what that means is that sometimes consumer spending is strange, and I think that I don't need to be the one to explain that to you.
Speaker 1:As a retailer, you're probably seeing it in real time. Most likely, real time most likely. But just a few e-commerce sales a month or every other month is sometimes enough to just kind of ease things up a little bit. And who doesn't want the free money Because that's what a lot of these are is just free cash, just free sales. So let's just say you make one sale a month, that is once every 30 days. That is 12 sales at the end of the year. And what's funny about that is what if I was to say to you okay, you know, store Michael's Jewelry. What if at the end of the year, on December 5th, you could have 12 bonus sales at the end of you know, december 12th? Would you want that or would you not want that? Most likely you'd say, yeah, give me the bonus sales. And that's kind of how I view this is. These are just like little freebies that come and go, takes a little bit of work on your part just to put them in a box, ship them out, but I do think if you put the work in place, it is a kind of a freebie. And maybe I can tell you about an example of this.
Speaker 1:So for my jewelry, for my painting business, the thing that's kind of funny is that paintings, so arts and jewelry, are both classified as luxury goods. They are a want and not a need. And what I think is really funny about it is that when I get a sale I am stoked off my Etsy. I use an Etsy and because they're handmade and it's kind of a smaller market and people go specifically to places for handmade artwork as opposed to kind of established artwork, that's why I use it. But the other day I made a sale, for I'm just I just opened up my Etsy dashboard. I made a sale to this guy out in, I guess, in New York City, essentially on March 11th, and it was for let me even pull it up yeah, $300. And it was funny because I was actively not promoting my Etsy at all. The reason why is I'm getting ready for an exhibition and when you do exhibitions you sort of stockpile a lot of work because then you sell it all together and there's kind of like a compounding or networking effect between the art pieces where if you have a lot of them, you can sort of bump up the prices on all of them at the same time, as opposed to selling them one at a time. So for me I'm not promoting anything and I had a couple of pieces on my Etsy for this one in particular I had had up there for two and a half years.
Speaker 1:It was a painting I had made kind of early on back in what is that? Probably 2022. It's a style that I don't really use anymore, like it's about a subject that I don't even paint anymore. I usually paint these nature scenes and this is a scene from a game, and what's funny is I probably would have taken it down at some point just to kind of clean up the inventory, but because I was stockpiling my pieces, I didn't really need to do that yet. So I figured, like I just been talking about, why not just keep it in, keep the line in the water as I boat from place to place? And here comes $300 out of the sky and they ordered it, I remember, at like three in the morning and this guy, it turns out, was buying like a gift, and what's kind of funny is when you go you can view what other pages they had viewed.
Speaker 1:So I saw that he was looking for stuff similar to this painting. So he wasn't even looking for my paintings. He was looking for a painting that was in this style or this kind of genre. And I popped up and I was, you know, $320 richer for it. I would not have had that money pop into my account and I probably would never have sold that painting. If I had not had things turned on, the guy would have had to, you know, inquire if you will. And is that guy going to try to inquire at three in the morning? The answer is likely not, and I probably would not have made the sale. This guy would have perused on and gone to someone else and I would just not have had the money.
Speaker 1:That's kind of how I feel about jewelry, too is like I said it's a want and not really a need, and, as a result, you're probably seeing these people making these purchases that are not always, as you know, maybe not as informed, especially when it's the lower price point items. That's what I'm always encouraging people is look honestly. I can get why you might not want to sell an engagement ring online. Those can be like a big deal and maybe you want to clientele around it and maybe you want to build it up and make it like a special thing. But I will also say isn't the money good? Like the money is just spent exactly the same, and I think, at the same time, having some of your jewelry available for sale, whether it's the fashion jewelry or the fine jewelry might make it so that that becomes another option, and I think that that is something that more jewelers should consider Maybe not punchmark clients clients, because we've been banging the drum for a while, but if you're out there and you're not a punch mark client yet, I hope that you at least consider turning it on, okay, the other thing I want to talk about is just the average order value.
Speaker 1:So I pulled some statistics around the punch mark platform. So I get this report, like I said, around the Punchmark platform. So I get this report, like I said, every month I come in, I break it down, I report on it to my bosses, and one of the reports that I pull has to do with the number of clients that make sales and the average transaction size, and the one thing that is really encouraging is that the number of clients who are making one sale is the highest it's ever been. Punchmark also has the most clients we've ever had, so maybe that number is skewed. But the other thing is the number of clients with two or more sales is also the highest it's ever been. With two or more sales is also the highest it's ever been and what that means.
Speaker 1:Two sales in a month to me means that you've got it figured out. I don't think you accidentally make two sales in a month very, very easily. I think that maybe you make one sale, maybe someone just kind of stumbles onto it and they're like in a pinch, but I do think two sales. That kind of shows you got it figured out. And the other part is the average transaction size. So this number is very interesting because it does not always go up. A lot of these numbers, as we get more clients and as e-commerce grows, we're seeing things you know usually go up into the right for our clients. However, the one that is not always up into the right is the average transaction size.
Speaker 1:So I've spoken about this in the past, but, for example, there was a peak. Let me see right around yeah, 2022 and 2023, I would probably say is the peak for average transaction size, also some late 21. And that's because that's when lab-grown diamonds were really popular. People were buying just fine jewelry with lab-growns, and lab-growns were a lot more pricier and people were buying, yeah, lab-grown diamonds, earrings, necklaces and all sorts of stuff. So the average price, we'll just say, was $150 higher. So the average price was pretty much $150 more than it was, as the price has now, you know, retreated to what it is today. Today.
Speaker 1:So the average price in March of 2025 on our platform, the average order value, or AOV, was $406. So that means there's this many transactions and this many total dollars transacted. So when you divide those numbers, the AOV becomes $406. However, I do think that is a little bit misleading, and the reason why is in March we also saw a couple of items sold for a lot of money. There was one person who sold a very expensive chain for in the $5,000s. There was one person who sold an expensive bangle for in the 4,000s. Let's see I'm just scrolling through yes, a hearts on fire mini hoop earring for in the close to 5,000s. So all I'm saying is those numbers then skew.
Speaker 1:So what we could do is maybe we could control for outliers, but where's the fun in that? But what I will say is that if I look at the majority of sales by clients who had, you know, less than five sales in a month, so that basically means we are controlling for clients who are not making e-commerce a mega focus I'm seeing, on average, average jewelers are doing, you know, between zero and five sales. I guess if that's what we're controlling for zero and five sales and they're all doing between $44 and $1,300 is kind of the range. So then if you control inside of that, we're looking at about $250 for like these average run of the mill sort of purchases. So what kind of jewelry do you have? That's in the $200 range, $250 to $350 range, and those should be kind of the starting point if you don't have e-commerce on yet. So what if you look through your boxes and you're like, oh, I've got so many pieces of jewelry I couldn't possibly put everything online? I would start there, and I do think that those give you the highest chance for checkout, purely because there's more shoppers that are falling into that range of shopping.
Speaker 1:Shopability I don't know if that's a word, so something to kind of chew on. If you need a starting point is just knowing that. That is the kind of sweet spot when it comes to dollars. And the last thing I well, not the last thing One of the things I'll say is it's like oh, but we have inquire or we have call for price or we have a gallery of items.
Speaker 1:I have to be honest, I hate call for price. I would sooner die. I would sooner go somewhere else than call you for the price. I would literally never do that and I think that there are a lot more people than you expect that would sooner do that. So, basically, to me it's like a picture book. It's like it doesn't get me anything. If I read about something and then I don't know what the price is, I would sooner you just not even show it to me and the whole like oh, it's called for price, but it's like I am just going to assume that, that you know bangle, even though it is probably $300, I'm just going to assume it is $7,000 because I don't know anything about jewelry. This is coming from a layman. I would highly recommend that you put real prices on your products. I feel like that goes without saying, but you'd be surprised by how many people have that.
Speaker 1:One thing I will also say is I'm not even going to spend too much time talking about it, because In the Loop used to be all about e-commerce and marketing and stuff like that, and sometimes we were always talking about, like website design and it's kind of funny, the average website design these days this is in 2025, these days is just excellent. These days is just excellent. Even websites that are not punchmark websites, I'll say that are actually really quality website designs. I'm going to say that it's easier than ever to have a website that looks and feels great on either a mobile design or a desktop design. I think that I mean, everything is just so well built these days that I would not say you know.
Speaker 1:That is basically a common hurdle. If you can't do that, let's talk, because you should be able to do that. But what that comes down to is then it's your work that goes into it and, like I said, it should be, don't let perfection stand in the way of progress. And the other one is knowing where the sweet spot is and also just kind of understanding a process behind your orders. If you, for each platform it's going to be different, you know, getting this thing turned on. There's usually a process behind like making sure that you have an e-commerce gateway, making sure that you have an e-commerce gateway, and you have like a process behind making sure that your website is, you know, connected to a bank account, for example. So that is going to be different. For Punchmark clients, all you'd have to do is just open a ticket in Site Manager for your account manager and they'll get things set up for you very, very, very easily. So some of the other things that you got to set up your default availability for your products, your shipping options.
Speaker 1:So some jewelers like to ship everything first class or in priority, some like to ship it as ground, for whatever reason. I recommend having a coupon code that you can provide people at the store as a hook to get them to buy online when they leave. Just to keep it, just set a coupon code that never expires. That's what I have for my store. Is, if someone walks up to my painting booth at like, for example, an art walk or a farmer's market or something like that, and they're really interested, but let's just say they don't have time or they have to run or they don't have the dollars right now, and I kind of want to give them the option. I have a business card and what I do is I just take a pen and I write down the same code and it is friend of Mike, and I just give them that I write coupon code, friend of Mike, and what that does is it offers them 10% off when they get home and I mark everything up online at least 10%. So there is an incentive to buy now, because we've always talked about that buy now reasoning.
Speaker 1:But I recommend you set up some type of thing so that you can hook people. Free shipping is another good one, because shipping can be expensive for luxury goods. Just another thing to think about. Another one again fraud protection, important Return policies. Punchmark platform already kind of gives you a default one, but you might want to customize it a little bit. Yeah, merchant gateways and just knowing that you have your navigation set up for success.
Speaker 1:Punchmark kind of keeps an eye on these sort of things. We try to make sure that you don't completely shoot yourself in the foot when it comes to your flow of your website and your navigation. We've had to have some calls with some clients be like, hey, you know that this is not really smart to do. And sometimes clients tell us, yeah, that's how we want it. And it's like okay, you do what you're smart to do. And sometimes clients tell us, yeah, that's how we want it, and it's like okay, you do what you're going to do, but for most intensive purposes.
Speaker 1:The e-commerce landscape is pretty established out there and the best practices have kind of been ironed out for the last 10 or 15 years. So we kind of have an idea and most likely, you have an idea too. So if you're trying to activate e-commerce, if you're interested in starting this, this doesn't cost any money. If you're a Punchmark client, it doesn't cost any money. For me, we have actually an e-commerce strategy checklist available and I'll have this link in the show notes below. But what it does is it basically going to be a form and we'll send you most of the things that you're going to need and what that is. It's going to be punchmarkcom slash checklist and what you can do is it'll download this nice old PDF and it'll help you, regardless of what website platform you're on, and I think one of the things I'm trying to do for in the loop right now is, again, I don't want you to feel left out. If you're not one of our clients, we get it. Maybe we're not in your budget or you're switching, or you're not ready to switch. Whatever, I do want these episodes to still help you, but I do think, no matter which website platform you're with, having e-commerce turned on and showing your prices is some of the best things you can do, given all of the outside factors Weird economy, price of gold higher than ever, all these different things, lab-grown diamond prices you know doing what they're gonna do. Having it on is just one of those things.
Speaker 1:When you make your first sale at two in the morning and you wake up and you see that you made a sale and you go into your store and you pack away the studs you sold or the random gold earrings, I think you're going to feel good about it. For some reason. They say that what money won is better than money earned and honestly, sometimes I kind of feel like e-commerce is money won. It sort of feels like, oh, I didn't even deserve this and the money just kind of fell out of the sky, as opposed to like talking to a client and really working through something and then getting the sale and then you put the dollars away. The money won, man, I just didn't have to work for it. It's pretty exciting and I hope that you get a chance to feel that as well.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of all ears as to why you might not want it on. If you don't have it on, shoot me an email. I would love to hear your perspective and maybe I'd interview you. My email is michael at punchmarkcom and shoot me an email. Oh, I hate e-commerce. Because of this reason It'd be illuminating. And again, one more plug for that e-commerce strategy checklist. It's going to be punchmarkcom slash checklist Everybody. I think I'll probably leave it right there. I've been talking for a bit.
Speaker 1:The main point of this episode is the economy, and the current events of the global economy kind of have me I don't know scratching my head. I don't really know a ton of stuff about global economies. I went to school for design, but I can say that having more options is usually better than less options and I hope that you consider that as well. And good luck. Let me know when you make your first sale. That'd be pretty exciting. Thanks everybody for listening. That's the end of the show. Cheers everybody, bye. This episode was brought to you by Punchmark and produced and hosted by me, michael Burpo. This episode was edited by Paul Suarez with music by Ross Cockrum. Don't forget to rate the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave us feedback on punchmarkcom slash loop. That's L-O-U-P-E. Thanks. We'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode. Cheers, bye.
