How to Secure the Same Day Yes ft. Caratwise

Michael talks with David Berdugo, CEO of Caratwise, about why custom jewelry sales break down when momentum stalls and how better UX helps independent jewelers give confident answers fast. We dig into transparency, real-time design, and the ring builder choices that turn “imagine it” into “see it now.” 

https://www.caratwise.com/

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Setup

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome back everybody to In the Loop. What is up everybody? My name is Michael Burpo. Thanks again for listening to In the Loop. This week I'm joined by David Verdugo. He's the CEO of Carrotwise. And Carrotwise is this new company that does these incredible experiences for custom engagement rings, and they hope to expand to other custom jewelry types. We are working on an integration with CarrotWise at Punchmark, and I've gotten to know David and his pretty impressive background throughout the last couple of months. And I invited him on to In the Loop to share his experience of being COO of some pretty impressive companies, as well as how he takes that experience and brings it to CarrotWise to have the best experience possible for shoppers. It's a really cool conversation. I think that David understands user experience better than almost anybody I've spoken to on In the Loop. And it's kind of very interesting to hear his experiences throughout the years and how he kind of harnesses that. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

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 punchmark.com slash go. And now back to the show.

Removing Friction In Custom Jewelry

SPEAKER_02 2:17

How are you, Michael? How's it how's everything? So well. I'm so excited to get a chance to speak with you. We've been working together on this uh ring builder project for a little while that we're gonna get into in a in a little bit. Um when I learned about your background, I was I was very uh I was caught off guard. It's uh it's a very impressive uh resume that you've built for yourself. Can you kind of share with the audience your background with the jewelry industry?

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Sure. Uh thank you for starting off with a compliment. Always makes me comfortable. Uh so I'm David, I'm the CEO of Carrotwise. Uh and for almost a decade, I was the chief operating officer of Blue Nell and JamesTalon.com, right? And uh really my entire career has been about removing friction, removing friction from purchasing custom jewelry for customers and removing friction from delivering that jewelry eventually to those customers making it easy to deliver. It's all about the details. And this is really the experience that I grew up um uh with, and this is what CaratWise does every day now.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

That's really interesting. Talking about removing friction, that's one of those uh hidden aspects. I'm the director of user experience at Punchmark, and all that is just a fancy way of saying like we want to make it as easy as possible for certain tools to be used. And I always think like when you do it right, I always think it's like uh it's like swimming. If you've ever used like a really good experience where you're not thinking about the tools, it just feels very natural. When it comes to working in like a big company like like the ones you just listed, those are many, many people. Uh, what is it that you take with you uh from like leading a large group like that to leading maybe uh more of a startup?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Honestly, it's not that different because really my job is about details. I I like to dive into the transparency of the processes. I like to really go into the details, dig into them, try to understand what's happening. And the truth is, custom jewelry is really hard to make. It's really hard to make because you make a promise in advance, and then you now you need to find a way to deliver. Yes, it is difficult at scale, but at scale you have more means. But the truth that the the challenge is similar between an independent jewelry and those large retailers such as Blue Nell and James Allen. And what we did at the time, really what we pioneered was this transparency that we brought to the to the customer, you know, the ability to design freely, there was you know, no pressure around you when you're browsing on your website, alone, at home at 2 a.m. and on your cell phone, that that transparency that we brought and the you know, the ability to understand clear pricing, visualization, the timelines were super clear. All of this gave confidence to customers to make decisions. And when you add all of this, right, the price transparency, the product, the timeline clarity as well, all of this is what converts at the end. And and this is really what Blue Nell and James Allen uh drove and and brought to our industry.

Honesty And Online Expectations

SPEAKER_02 5:03

It's quite fascinating when you discuss like transparency at at the at the heart of the matter, because one thing I've I've talked about a lot on on this podcast is um like the the hidden cost and the like the the ability to make your your your juice. And uh that's why I hate buying cars, is because it's one of the last industries where you're allowed to like mark things up and then like battle and like you don't know if you got a good deal or not. Maybe they won, maybe you won. Uh with jewelry, it seems like that is going very far away. And there's a lot of uh businesses that are making it their their model to be as transparent as possible, even to where they source their diamonds from, the markup that they make on the diamonds, like how they can cut down the markup as much as possible. Is that something that you're trying to is the transparency part of the sales pitch? Uh like coming forward and saying, like, hey, here is everything that we have in our in our drawer, and then um kind of letting them make the decision themselves?

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Uh I wouldn't call it transparency, I would call it honesty. I think what customers really are looking for is for an honest conversation, and they're looking for uh uh they they want to be taken care of, right? And and uh that this is really where where this sits is that all of this back and forth that you find jewelers put themselves in sketches and emails and cat designs and price revisions and back and forth with suppliers to be able to eventually provide an answer to their customers on custom jewelry, that's feels too challenging. It feels once again, going back to this word of friction, that friction is really what drives um the maybe the maybe leaders that come that come that comes from those customers. And and this is what we're really trying to solve. It's we're trying to make the customer, the retailers super confident. And and therefore, when they are confident and this is what they display to the customers, then they will receive that same confidence back from the read from the from the jeweler with the same day yes. And and really that's the motto of character wise is being able to grab that same day yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Same day yes, I like that term. And when you're working with like uh you know a really large business such as you know, Blue Nile, James Allen, so you're discussing this is uh you know direct to consumer, these companies are so large. Now you're kind of fighting on the side of uh of the retailer of like an independent store. Um do you find that it complicates things or is it more, I don't know, straightforward for you to kind of have less strings attached and less uh kind of infrastructure, maybe more direct? Is that uh an accurate kind of like comparison?

SPEAKER_00 7:40

I don't know that I don't know that I would have used the word uh fighting necessarily. I think I think I'm still working as to me. I'm still very much doing the same job. I'm doing it just for more people. I used to do it for Blue Nell and James Ellen now. I I do the exact same job, but for a lot more independent jewelers, and there's something quite exciting about it. I think uh, you know, independent jewelers are incredible people, multi-generational, most of the cases, really genuine. Uh, they have an amazing amount of trust in their community, and this is a huge asset to work with, and that's amazing. This is new to me in that sense. Because really Bindell and James Allen, you know, they had two voices. One was a little bit more premium, the other one was more approachable and playful. But at the end of the day, what they really create is that they raised expectations across the entire industry by delivering those experiences online with visualization and try seeing, as we as we explained, as we explained before, they raised expectations. And not only on large regional or major retailers out there, but also on the independent jewelers. Those independent jewelers, their website is sitting one click away from Blue Nile and James Sally, which means that whether or not the customers do it consciously, they're not they're not giving you a discount because you're an independent jeweler. They expect the same, if not better. Uh, and that's what really happened with Blue Nile and James Salin, driving up those expectations. But I think today the opportunity is amazing for independent jewelers because those technologies are right there and available. And now you have the adventures of you have the trust that you've always had, but on top of that, now you have those tools that are, in my opinion, through CarrotWise, even better uh than what you could find with Blue Now, James Salin, and the others. Um, I think this is a pretty strong combo.

Caratwise And The Same Day Yes

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Yeah. Maybe let's dive into CarrotWise. I think it's such a really cool um business model. And the builder that you guys have been working on is very uh, I guess, immersive and feels very natural. Uh, I can only imagine how much time you guys have spent on it. Can you first of all just set up, you know, who Carrotwise is and then uh talk about this new product that you have coming out?

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Yeah, so so CarrotWise allows and helps independent jewelers to design freely, price instantly, and deliver confidently. Right. So it's real-time design. It's you can do it next to your customer alongside them in your store. They can do it completely on their own on your website. Uh the pricing updates instantly. And that pricing is your pricing as an independent jeweler. This is we work with you during your onboarding, we work on your margins, we work on making sure your markups are all covered, and then everything is happening on its own. So when your customer is playing on the website, when the customer is playing in your store, and really I use the word playing because design should be playful. Yeah. Right. And that's what we try to, that's what we try to deliver with carrot-wise, the gold pricing is taken care of, the diamonds are done, the the visualizations are amazing, and we'll discuss the builder in a second. There's no guessing, there's no waiting for quotes, there's no when is it gonna arrive? Am I gonna get am I gonna get it before my cruise leaves? Uh etc. And we all love obviously those customers telling you, I'm leaving on a cruise in 10 days, can you make it? Yeah, we all love that, right? And everyone goes on a cruise apparently. So, but the whole point is to try to drive that maybe later. Uh, that a lot of I mean, us as jewelers, we say to customers, let me get back to you. So, how can we expect an answer that is different than maybe later? If we are able to turn our answers into yes immediately, you'll get it before your cruise, then they will also answer back to us same day, yes, right? Yes, okay, you can give me a yes, I can give you back a yes in return. We're trying to shift that, right? Really, we're not looking at the answers that customers are giving us, is that let's improve the answers we are providing to customers, and they will improve their answers towards us.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Wow, what a that's such a great mindset. And I I've noticed uh through the opportunity of speaking with lots of um, you know, uh business leaders such as yourself uh throughout the years, that mindset is kind of the kernel that it all seems to start with. And you can build great tools, you can build, uh, you can hire great people, but I think mindset is very unifying. And I really it makes me think when it comes to the having a definitive answer, it really does take out a lot of that friction. Um, even just in the the sales process behind the sales process, which is uh very meta to think about. Uh is that something that you you have at your core that you've been like kind of baking in at every meeting? Like, how do you kind of follow through with that mindset uh and and make sure that everyone kind of is on board?

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Well, I mean, a hundred percent. In in a sense, it it also takes away from the actual answer. I would say a fast and definitive answer is much better than the let me get back to you. And then when you get back to them, the answer is better. You actually lost momentum. When you are able to be confident and you say, So for care it was, you know, we manufacture in two to three weeks, uh, depending on design. Maybe there's a customer that would have loved to hear 10 days from you. But when you give him the confidence three weeks, it may not be the best answer. Yes, but you are much more likely to get the right, the right same day yes that you're looking for, as opposed to being able to get back to him two days later and tell him, yes, I can do what you asked me to do. That's that's not that's that's killing the momentum a little bit. And having that confidence to be able to give those, and you know, you may you don't have to be the best priced out there. You know, not everyone is gonna is gonna be looking for the last$50, the last$25. As long as you're confident in your answers, it also means that your answers don't have to be the best of the best of the best because it doesn't it it's not required.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

You know, you you're using all these these words that are the kind of the X factor a lot of times in in user experience, especially. Uh, so we talk about friction, and now we're talking about momentum. And these are these I find it very hard to define uh types of concepts. Obviously, momentum is like a force in motion, stays in motion, and it's like it continues. But sometimes I find myself trying to explain to my parents uh things related to user experience and how like, oh yeah, momentum. Have you ever like started a sale or like even you build it all the way down to the bottom? You ever go to like a you know a flea market and you're buying something and you're like bartering and you can feel the momentum moving towards something. If you were to throw the brakes on and and there's a fire drill, and then everybody leaves, and then you were to come back, something is lost there. And I think that what you're talking about is having the answers ready is part of the momentum. And then we talk about friction and having it as easy as possible. Those are these two kind of tangentially related concepts. I I really appreciate that you kind of have those as a focus.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

And the truth is that it's not is the jeweler that they don't have the answers to be able to remain in momentum, right? It's so fragmented today. You you buy your lead from someone, you buy the diamond from someone else, you get the semi-mail from someone else, then your jeweler may be on stuff, maybe your jeweler is external to you, then this cat revisions. Oh, this is thicker than what I expected. All of this is creating so much friction. How can you have momentum? It's impossible for a jeweler in custom in custom bridal today or in custom jewelry in general to even gain that momentum. Everything requires back and forth and back and forth and revisions and gold prices. I mean, just imagine you had a meeting two weeks ago, now prices of gold just went up by 10% in the meantime. How can you afford momentum? It's impossible to achieve. And really, this is really what we defined as as carrot wise as the number one problem of custom. The number one problem of custom is not the price or the delivery or even the timeline. The number one problem of custom is momentum. And really, what we are trying to do, and we'll talk about the builder. The builder is a huge pillar for us on how we are hoping we are removing friction and enabling momentum.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Yeah, so let's dive into it. Let's talk about this uh this ring builder. I uh have got a chance to see it um actually as it's been developed. It's been very cool. Uh Punchmark is working on uh on an integration for our clients so that it's very natural feeling as well. And it's very obvious that it has spent a lot of time in the polishing stage and making sure that it feels very uh very natural. Can you maybe describe the experience and and what your goals were with it?

SPEAKER_00 15:52

And I think that's the you know, the number more shortcoming of a podcast is that I'm gonna try to describe in the next two minutes something visual. Yeah, so but but I'm gonna do my best. Um, it's like watching a cooking show, and then you know you can see uh Gordon Ramsney tell you it's tasty. Great, you know, really helps me a lot here, Gordon. Thank you so much. So please don't blame me. This is a format, blame Michael. Uh but if you want to see, if you want to see a little bit of what our uh builder looks like, go to carrotwise.com. There's a there's a trimmed down version of it because we don't want to show everything on carrotwise.com. And if you book a demo and we'll discuss how you can do that, but if you book a demo, we'll show you everything. But really, the builder is incredible because what we've noticed is a huge um uh uh place for friction and and and lack of momentum, as we've discussed before, is when jewelers find themselves telling to customers, whether it's by picking something in the case or by showing something on their website, the same amount on their websites, like imagine this. Imagine this in yellow gold, imagine this with a bigger diamond, imagine this with an old diamond or with a halo around it. Every single time we find ourselves telling the customer, imagine, imagine, imagine, we actually just created a gap. We created a gap between vision and imagination. And that gap is a gap that jewelers typically are able to bridge, but customers are not, because they don't live in our industry. They don't live with a product category. Hopefully, they get engaged only once in their life. And we just lost that customer. We lost that customer to confusion, to uncertainty, and really to discomfort. So, what we did with our builder is that every single time you click on something, something updates. You're gonna move to yellow gold, it's gonna change to yellow gold. You're gonna change the head to platinum, the head is gonna change. And you're gonna move from an oval one carat to an oval three carat, the oval's gonna get bigger. You're gonna move to a pair shape, it's gonna move as well. And every single image that we're showing you, where there's a 360 render, the photo reel renders with a white background on model, and my CTO is gonna kill me for my next sentence. But we're even working on video, but please don't pressure us for it, it's coming here. Uh, he's gonna kill me for mentioning it. But in any case, um what we did with the builder is that every single click is reflective, and therefore you're you will never find yourself telling your customer imagine with what we built at carrot-wise, and that's huge. Uh, that's huge for confidence, it's huge for momentum. Uh, even when they engrave, the engraving appears right here and there. There's three different fonts that you can choose. So eventually, once you stop designing the ring and you look at it one last time before you go and choose a center stone for it, the the design button in front of you. You can see it on model, you can see it on your own skin tone, which I forgot to mention. Uh the builder is incredible. Go to carry twice.com, see a small version of it, a trimmed down version of it. And then if you want to see more, book a demo and and we'll show it to you as well.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

And we'll have that in the show notes. Uh, so if you want to go and check it out, definitely do that. Uh I wanted to I have to think about the business uh initially first. So if you're um, let's just say you're a jeweler and you want to add some custom aspect to your to your business. Uh I always wonder I'm sure that there's a push and pull when you're a uh you know a business owner, you probably you want them to be happy first and foremost, absolutely, the the customer. But you also probably want to maybe upsell them as well. What is like the the ability for this thing to maybe push the envelope just a little bit more and and make this a a larger project? Because I'm sure everybody like do you really need uh uh a ring builder for just a a standard bog standard uh like solitaire? I'm sure it you know probably just leans right in when you start adding these additional effects to it.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Yeah, I mean so 100%. And those are numbers that I know are true or effects, and I can't discuss exactly what those numbers are, but my experience for the last decade tells me exactly this, right? Is that when you even a custom simple solitaire as you called it, you can make it feel like it's yours and it's mine, it's my engraving, and also the feel the fact that now you're able to showcase the size of a diamond on a finger, and as you increase, people understand suddenly, oh, one and a half is really not the same size as one carat, right? So this is an upsell. And you know, it's part of the design session. I don't, it doesn't feel like an upsell, and that those are the best types of them, right? But also every matching band on carrot wise is made for that specific engagement ring. So once you make the matching band appear uh on the builder next to the ring, it's it's flush, it's made for it, it's amazingly, you know, uh matching the shape and the sizes of the diamonds or the thickness of the band, it's all right there. So now you have a much, much higher ability to convert the matching band on the spot. And even if you don't match it on, even if you're not able to sell it on the spot, which is a challenge in and of itself, you know, selling matching bands with the engagement at the same time. Now they know when I need my matching band in six months from now, that Michaels jewelers at you know at the corner of my street, uh, who sold me the engagement has the perfect matching band for it. And I saw it with my own eyes. This is much stronger than telling you I have a matching band, right? Seeing it right there. So those are some of the things you can do with with a with a great builder and with a great um visualization tool.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Yeah, I it's been a common one. I'm sure that the people listening to me, uh, they're all retail jewelers, they are probably rolling their eyes. I always think it is such a fumble to not go in on the wedding band, or at least not start selling the wedding band um during the engagement ring. Uh my brother just got engaged uh a few uh few months ago. Hey Joe. And what's his name? Uh my brother's is Joseph. Yeah. And he Joseph, congrats. Yes. And what's funny is when he was buying his uh his engagement ring, he was like, you know, I I connected him with a jeweler and he builds this custom thing. I was like, Oh, so what'd you do for your um your wedding band? And he's like, Oh, you know, we haven't we haven't started on that. And I'm just like, huh, I would have started on that. I feel like that's like the the next thing because you're probably gonna get married relatively soon. But I guess I wanted to ask about uh you you mentioned the the instant answers. You can control that as much as possible. What about if someone is in this builder and then they need they just need a little bit of time to think about it? Is there a way for them to take um, you know, either a render or something with with them and then walk away and maybe look at it a little bit longer? What's that kind of leave behind like?

Upsells Follow-Up And Store Play

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah. So first of all, they have the ability to do that whether they are online in your store completely on their own, um, at home at 2 a.m., as I said before, or next to you, they can tell you I need more time and they can save the design for later. And what will happen is that um they'll you'll you as a retailer will receive a beautifully branded asset with the image, the summary of the design so far, the diamond, the design, every single aspect of it is all saved with the beautiful pictures and assets that we are able to generate, including a recap of the pricing. And you'll be able to take that. It's branded with your own logo as an independent jeweler. And by the way, this is true of everything CaratWise that CaratWise is not a customer-facing brand. We are your supply chain partner, we are your design technology partner, but we're sitting behind your brand, where we've got to match your UI, your UX, your colors, your fonts, your logos, even the shape of your buttons is something that we will adjust to. But eventually, uh, what will happen is that you will be able to take that save design and text it to your customer, WhatsApp it to them, email it to them, say, Michael, thank you for coming earlier today. This is where we left off. Go and show it to this, to do to your future sister-in-law if this is what he told you. And then you can pick up from there. So you're able to, and we're even able to do that from the online. So that customer can be online, save the design for later. We'll capture the lead, their cell phone number, uh, we'll provide it to you um for free completely, and you'll be able to clientele that customer and call them and say, Michael, you were all on my website yesterday night, and you designed this beautiful pear-shaped halo uh engagering in yellow gold. Do you want to come in and finish this in store?

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Wow. So, from all of our discussions about user experience, I know you just went to several uh jewelry shows and you have even more coming up with uh JCK just around the bend. Uh, what has the reaction been? Because I know that user testing and user interviews are important. Granted, this is a this is a strange one because you are kind of designing it for a different B2C. You have like two different users. You have you know the retailer and then you have the shopper. What are you seeing as far as like usage? Anything surprise you when it comes to like how people are using it? What stood out?

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Yeah, no, I mean the reaction has been honestly uh overwhelmingly good. Uh and and when we when we're working on that, because our and my personal background is in retail, I really am building a tool that I know consumers will care about. Yes. So everything visually speaking, UI UX-wise, we build it, we we build it for consumers, but then every feature, and I don't like to use that word because it sounds so techy, and I know Michael, you're a techie, but for the sake of discussion, every feature is built for the jeweler. So the visualization and the UI is made for conversion, is made for consumers, which means also it's super friendly and easy to train your staff on it. Because if it's supposed to be friendly for a consumer, it's definitely friendly for a salesperson, right? But every feature is built towards targeting that friction that I've we've discussed throughout the entire podcast at this point to enable the independent jewelers to feel to feel that momentum.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

You know, I'm really starting to see that the one of the assets that I feel like isn't talked about enough in in a jewelry uh store you kind of slept on is like the need for an iPad um or just like a tablet of some sort. Is that where you when you were designing this, is it for a collaborative like desktop experience? Do you think it's is ideal or is it intended to like you know have on a tablet and be able to kind of like walk through and have them clicking the buttons and have it discussed like that? Where did you like start from in the conceptual stage?

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah, 100%. That's the exact so at its strongest, it's on an iPad in between you and your customers, right? And you guys are playing together and it's super intuitive and they can click and play and turn around and take the ring in every direction and look at it from the top and the bottom and play with it. Uh, the only thing we're asking jewelers is even though it's working on mobile, like don't do it on mobile with your customer. I mean, your customer is going to do it on mobile. Your customer is gonna do it on mobile when they're home, and that's fine, and it's working great. But when they're in a store, be on a desktop computer, be on an iPad, an iPad is great because you can give it to them, right? That's what's amazing about the iPad that you can hand it over to them and they can start playing on their own. And the more they touch and play on their own, the much the more they get emotionally attached to that design. And once they get emotionally attached, they love the design, they love you, obviously, because they they walked in. You are their local jewelry. They already love you, they already want to work with you. Now that's it. Uh, there's no reason for them to consider any other places to buy their engagement from.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Yeah, it's very uh cool to be able to see so many uh jewelry stores and collaborate with jewelers. I have a local jewelry store down here. Um, their previous owners were very close to me. Uh, the previous owner actually um sold me a house, which is pretty cool. And but very much uh more of like a relic of like um a slightly older age where it was all about just the number of display cases and um you know just having the jewelry kind of in front of you. It was less about like this collaborative experience. Now I'm starting to see a lot more stores that have a designated like consultation location where it's you know, like a coffee table, two or three chairs, maybe nicely lit, just very casual, maybe coffee nearby. Uh, I'm starting to see is that in user experience, we discuss um environment a lot. It do you guys take into account or think about um the feeling and like what that that consultation will look like uh as well, uh as well as the builder?

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Yeah, yeah, 100%. So we have a as I said, the visualization is made for intuition, but every feature is designed for that conversation. It is designed for that coffee table you just described. I'm a firm believer in that location within the retail store. I think it's extremely important. It creates a lot of things. Yes, it takes away from cases, but like how many cases do you really need? Yeah. And what's really nice, what's really nice about that the coffee table is that everyone walking around the store, when you have other customers, can see that something's going on at this coffee table. Something's exciting there, something is you know really cool and correct. And and the best consultation rooms I've seen is when there's also a TV that you know mirrors what's on the iPad and what's on the desktop. And the entire store now can see what's happening with the design session, that creates uh an incredible experience in the store because it's just like a dynamic. And we all know when we see a store that is empty, we don't want to walk in. But when we see a store, there's like something's going on, there's a little bit of uh some action happening. So I believe I'm a firm believer in that in that design uh location within within stores, which allows me to say that if you come to JCK and visit us, um you will likely see other verticals of jewelry besides engagement and wedding bands, right? No promises yet, but um it's not only about custom is not only about bridal. It is obviously about bridal, but custom is about a little bit more than that as well.

SPEAKER_02 29:27

Yeah, I was gonna I was gonna ask, and I don't want you to have to get too deep into it and have your uh your CTO mad at you because I totally mad at me. This is gone. I was gonna say is um I find that I find that a lot of custom is focused around engagement rings. And as someone that is is not shopping for engagement rings right now, uh I sometimes wonder if these custom jewelers are kind of and I don't want to say pigeonholing because obviously it is the you know the the main focus, like the real chase. Uh is there anywhere that you hope to expand to next when it comes to to custom design? I like just off the top of my head, I I find that uh things related to bracelets is is really interesting because there's a lot of options and like how you can do it. Uh where would you want to go next?

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Yeah, so I'm gonna give a uh uh you know a shameful, shameless uh plug to my own LinkedIn profile. Go and read my LinkedIn profile, guys and uh and ladies. I just wrote about it. Yes, I believe custom is much more than engagement. Um, I think you know, I'll take the example of tennis bracelets, which you gave. What lab ground created is a new dynamic, right? So round was the shape for almost everything in the world of natural. It would be the shape for engagement, but it would be the shape for studs and tennis bracelets, etc. What lab ground did is actually round went down, but it's not as if another shape went up specifically. It's all the other shapes that went up, which means inventory is now impossible to cover. You cannot cover with inventory all the metals, all the metals, the gold, the color of the metals, the shapes, the marquees, the total carrot weights. And then in the world of tennis bracelets, uh what it is seven inches, six and a half inches, five inches, five and a half inches. It's impossible to cover this. Impossible. So what I would say is caratise is not is not supposed to replace all of your cases, right? It's a your cases should be full of your best-selling designs that you know you'll be able to turn and you'll be able to utilize that that that um financial commitment you are you have towards that inventory. I mean, when you don't have it in the case, having a tool such as carrot wise for bridal and eventually for more than bridal would allow you to always know you're covered, right? Two to three weeks later, I can get you almost anything you're asking of me. And that's really, really interesting.

SPEAKER_02 31:39

Yeah, I I find that the discussion is increasingly about boiling down your um your inventory and your case displays to fewer brands and more options. So a lot of the times it's it's uh at least from the the discussions I've had, is l uh fewer people are having these um buy right out of the case when it comes to I mean, granted they are, but um right out of the case, a lot of the times it's like, oh, I want to have this, but I want uh you know a tweak on it. And as a result, that it gives it that um you know that luxury experience. And I'm finding that the brands that are able to cater to that, it it's like having you know 15 or 20 more display cases if you have that custom experience. And not only that, it it buys, it's truly theirs. It's not just some, you know, the stock uh product. It now it's tailored to them, even if it's something as simple as just you know changing the metal or or adding a different type of uh stone to it. I totally agree.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

Now, David, if people are interested, give it one more plug. And um, are you gonna be you're going to be at JCK and uh giving demos?

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Yeah, we'll get we're gonna be at JCK, we're gonna be at AGS as well in September. We're gonna be at the most important in-person event of the year, which is the punchmark work workshop.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

I mean, crazy.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Uh listen, I think we're 95% there, Michael. So I think I can say it in the podcast that we're 95% uh going to the punchmark workshop. So if you guys don't know what the punchmark workshop, uh Michael will tell you all about it, but uh we'll be there as well. We'll be at other buying groups. Uh we we went to CBG in Miami, we'll likely be at CBG in Las Vegas, and there's plenty more. If you go to the events page on our website on carrotwise.com, you'll be able to see all the events we're going to. Once we are confirmed a few weeks before, we will open up uh demo slots specifically for each event. They they tend to get filled up quite quickly. So I would recommend you go and you book them. And in general, you want to see it before uh you see us in person, go to carrotwise.com, right? Request a demo right here and there. The website is full of information about what we do. There's also all the visualization that I've discussed before, even though it's a trimmed-down version of it. Um, you can start understanding what we're all about and what we do. You can preview the renders. Uh yeah, carrotwise.com. As easy as that. Request a demo.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

That's awesome. And if you're a punchmark client, we have uh a uh native integration that's rolling out right now. And uh if you end up getting a demo, maybe let them know in the loop senior. It makes this look good. Um, anything else, David, before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_00 34:17

No, thank you, Michael, so much for the for the opportunity. I really appreciate it. Uh it's uh it's a great opportunity to work with Punchmark in general, to work with you. And um, we're very lucky to have partners such as yourself.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, everybody, for listening. We'll be back next week, Tuesday, with another episode. Cheers. Bye. All right, everybody. That's the end of the show. Thanks so much for listening. This week, my guest was David Verdugo with Carrowise. Make sure you check them out in the show notes below. This episode was brought to you by Punchmark and produced and hosted by me, Michael Burpa. This episode was edited by Paul Suarez with music by Ross Cochran. Don't forget to rate the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave us feedback on punchmark.com slash loop. That's L O U P E. Thanks, and we'll be back next week Tuesday with another episode. Cheers. Bye.