Posted With Christmas just around the corner we’d like to inspire you with beauty and show you best practices from the jewelry and watch industry.
The jewelry industry is expected to reach €250 billion by 2020
According to this article by McKinsey &Company, annual global sales of €148 billion are expected to grow at a healthy clip of 5 to 6 percent each year, totaling €250 billion by 2020. Consumer appetite for jewelry, which was dampened by the global recession, now appears more voracious than ever. The article notices how the current pace and dynamics of the jewelry and watch industry if following that of apparel with key trends around, including:
- Internationalization and consolidation: wow did you know that the Swatch group acquired Harry Winston in 2013?
- Growth in branded jewelry driven by these interesting consumer insights, unveiling the high potential target audiences
- “new money” consumers who wear branded jewelry to show off their newly acquired wealth (in contrast to “old money” consumers, who prefer heirlooms or estate jewelry)
- emerging-market consumers, for whom established brands inspire trust and the sense of an upgraded lifestyle—a purchasing factor quoted by 80 percent of our interviewees
- young consumers who turn to brands as a means of self-expression and self-realization
- Distribution channel shifting towards mono brand stores and online stores vs multi brand stores or department stores. What a perfect transition to now focus on eCommerce.
Online Jewelry and Watch market revenue reached $6Bn in 2015 and has been growing at 13%
The share of jewelry and watches sold online is growing twice as fast as the overall industry and is expected to account for 10% of the overall market by 2020 (from 4-5% today).
Here are some noteworthy events showing where the industry is moving:
- Tiffany&Co and NET A PORTER announced their global collaboration last April, increasing Tiffany’s eCommerce presence from 13 countries to 170 countries!
- Gleem & Co launching to address the $250 billion market of beautiful, high-quality used jewelry that “rests in the gap between the auction worthy and the pawn shop remains” like
- Etsy or most importantly eBay are increasingly successful. In the US alone a watch is purchased every 3 sec on eBay and in Australia a piece of jewelry is purchased every 12 seconds. Checkout eBay’s latest Diamond Buying Guide recently added to reassure customers ( probably helping with SEO by the same token)
- The rise of ” try-at-home” on “view on demand” services allowing the break the biggest barrier that prevents consumers from purchasing jewelry online (see illustration below)
Example of Jewelry and Watch stores on Magento
Myth-buster: a one page checkout is not suitable for stores selling high value items: FALSE!
What also inspired me to cover this industry here, is the misconception that customers don’t want a too efficient and fast checkout process when they purchase high value items. Some might think that online shoppers need time to think, to review things carefully and are scared they might spend a lot of many just on the click of a button. THINK AGAIN.
Our customer showcase includes hundreds of Jewelry and Watches Magento stores who understand the value of simplifying checkout to reduce their cart abandonment and increase their conversion rates and ultimately increase sales.
We have hand picked a couple to show you in greater details below that conversion starts with trust and is nailed with a user friendly checkout. Along the way we’re going to highlight best practices that allows those stores to build that essential trust… let’s go!
WATCHES: Magento store best practices
Citizen Shop UK
TRUST FACTOR: Brand names, Sales and Customer Service Phone Number
Michel Herbelin
TRUST FACTOR: Gigantic product photography close up
TRUST FACTOR: feature their heritage and physical store, guarantees, reviews, secure transactions
Checkout customization: across two columns so the fields are nice and big, catering to older (more vision impaired) demographics
JEWELRY: Magento store best practices
TRUST FACTOR: Established 1888, feature their offline footprint, show reputable brands on their homepage
TRUST FACTOR: trademarked brand, “As featured in” section at the bottom, plenty of quality content about diamonds (beyond the 4C), TV advert
TRUST FACTOR: 30 days worldwide return including delivery cost, “Trusted Shops” badge
TRUST FACTOR: More trust banners on the right hand side column reassuring customers again at checkout
Theo Fennel
TRUST FACTOR: just incredible design. How can you not trust a store like this?
Checkout customization: Personal gift label, Comment box, Voucher code… all at a glance on one page
How to build consumers trust on Magento stores selling high value items?
Trust is essential in this industry category. eCommerce merchants have to earn along the shopper experience or path to purchase. It starts all the way from their brand awareness and traffic generation campaigns through to their online store experience. What best practices did we pick up from the examples above?
- comprehensive and accurate product descriptions
- detailed and high quality product pictures
- trust badges
- customer reviews
- phone number or live chat to contact customer service
- physical store credentials
- refunds policies
- “As featured in [insert reputable media outlets]”
- brand trademark
- TV advert
- high quality content
- superior design using all the codes from luxury brands
- secured transactions
How about you? How do you build trust on your Magento store?
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