Create your own online store.
(Press Release) SAN DIMAS, CA – ShopIndē.com, a cloud-based e-commerce platform designed exclusively for the retail jewelry industry, went live on March 20.
The site invites retail jewelers to create their own store site and do business with a variety of established vendors
with the click of a mouse.
To date, participating vendors currently online for business include Belle Étoile, Conni Mainne, Galatea: Jewelry by Artist, Imperial Pearl, Mia Katrin, Somos Creations, Color Merchants and VEER. Ancora, Carla Collection, Chatham, Dallas Prince Designs, Dizeo, Ed Levin Designs, Frederic Duclos, NancyB, Nina Nguyen Designs, Parlé and Yael Designs have
committed and will be online soon.
Developed by Chi Huynh, owner of Galatea: Jewelry by Artist, ShopIndē is designed to take back online sales for both suppliers and retailers.
ShopIndē offers a free, customizable web store; retailers select product from a community of wholesalers by a simple request. A wholesaler is free to select its own regulations for what constitutes an authorized retailer, such as requiring a certain amount of instore product. But as soon as the wholesaler hits “accept,” the retailer’s selected inventory immediately populates the store. Retailers are protected by zip code (one store per), and all consumer sales are commissionable for the area. A key social media component also allows consumers to reap a commission from posting products, incentivizing the promotion process and creating avid jewelry fans in the process.
“Jewelers are in dire need of a solution,” said Huynh, who has spent the last year creating the platform with a Philadelphia, PA-based site development team. “Things are changing in our industry more quickly than anyone expected, which is why I believe ShopIndē is the solution for today’s jewelers who want to have an online presence but either don’t know how to go about doing it, or can’t spend the money needed to create a store from scratch.”
Advertisement
The retailer’s customizable page can be promoted as its own URL, by a badge on the jeweler’s home page, or through the
ShopIndē site. Jewelers can track orders, answer questions and check on customer deliveries, which are either shipped directly by ShopIndē to the customer or delivered to the store for personal pick-up.
There are four ways for consumers to enter into the ShopIndē system: Through the retailer’s store; through the wholesaler or supplier’s store; through the ShopIndē website; through an individual’s social media site. Payments are split between the jewelry manufacturer, retailer and ShopIndē. Full wholesale value of the jewelry is paid to the supplier. A 20 percent commission is paid to Paid2Post. The remaining profit goes to the retailer. If a jeweler is not assigned to customer’s zip code, suppliers may assign a retailer to access the commission or may keep the commission for themselves.
ShopIndē manages all orders and online payments. Returns are accepted within 30 days of shipment receipt.
One of ShopIndē’s most unique features actually allows consumers to reap a commission should their online image post result in a sale. Special embedded product images, available for download from the ShopIndē website, can be shared and tracked on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr. This unique photo-sharing system gives an incentive to anyone who wants to earn extra money from the sale of a piece of jewelry. Commissions to individuals will be 10 percent of the selling price.
ShopIndē is designed to raise online and offline visibility for retailers, since so much of the true value of a bricks-and-mortar store is in its service and relationships with its customers.
“The world is changing and the jewelry industry must change along with it,” Huynh said. “We can’t sit by and see sales slip away, hoping that it will stop. It won’t. Consumers are buying online now more than ever. This is a way for the industry to join together to have a piece of the online ‘pie’ for ourselves.”
Advertisement
Whether you’re a retailer who wants a ShopIndē store, a manufacturer or designer who wants to offer their products via ShopIndē, or a jewelry organization interested in alerting your members, contact Chi Huynh directly at (951) 202-1227.
