Commentary: The Business

How Tech Builds Trust for Online Shoppers

The pandemic sped up e-commerce innovations.

Published

11 months ago

July 6, 2022

Vered Levy-Ron Instore July 2022 Issue

WHEN THE PANDEMIC hit, jewelers had no choice but to get on board with an online-first strategy and hope shoppers would, too.

For the jewelry sector, truly breaking into the e-commerce world wasn’t just about creating online shops or figuring out logistics. Jewelry brands and retailers had to invent a unique shopping experience that could meet the specific needs of their customers and gain their trust.

But how could jewelry brands translate the reliability and personalization of in-person shopping to an engaging online experience?

Sharper Product Imagery

Jewelry brands were quick to adopt image-viewing tools that went far beyond traditional “zoom in” capability. Tools like “superzoom,” 360-degree viewing, and even enabling customers to upload user-generated content of previously purchased jewelry offered more varied and better inspection capabilities, leading to increased purchase confidence.

Visual AI-Powered Product Discovery

Online, there’s no sales associate to ask about shoppers’ needs and pull the most relevant options, so effective online product discovery became crucial. That meant finding a solution to these common obstacles:

Most shoppers aren’t familiar with the vocabulary for fine jewelry, so they struggle to find what they want.
It can be difficult to differentiate between two similar-looking pieces unless you understand how to assess their quality.
Budget sensitivity is inextricable from jewelry shopping. Shoppers don’t want recommendations for products well above or below their budgets.
Shoppers in-store often browse through glass display cases until they find the piece, the one that makes them stop in their tracks. How can you emulate that powerful feeling online?

Product discovery enabled by visual artificial intelligence emerged as the answer. With tools like visual search, shoppers who have an image of what they want can quickly identify the right products without struggling with a search query. Visual AI has also been used by jewelry brands to help shoppers discover similar items to anything that catches their eye, so they can shop by an item’s style rather than just the category.

Online Concierge Services

No one can deny the value of speaking directly with a (human) expert. That’s why many jewelry brands began offering concierge services. These services allow brands and retailers to offer face-to-face, tailored consultations by trained sales associates, similar to the high-touch experience shoppers are used to in stores.

The inability to welcome shoppers in stores at first seemed like a catastrophe for jewelry companies. But now, it’s clear jewelry will never go back to its pre-pandemic offline days. In fact, jewelry brands and retailers now operate some of the most customer-friendly and conversion-oriented e-commerce sites in the retail industry

It Was Time to Make a Decision. It Was Time to Call Wilkerson.

Except for a few years when he worked as an accountant, Jim Schwartz has always been a jeweler. He grew up in the business and after “counting beans” for a few years, he and his wife, Robin, opened Robin James Jewelers in Cincinnati, Ohio. “We were coming to a stage in our life where we knew we have to make a decision,” says Jim Schwartz. He and Robin wanted to do it right, so they called Wilkerson. The best surprise (besides surpassing sales goals)? “The workers and associations really care about helping us move out own inventory out of the store first. It was very important to us.”