The Diamond King: From Diamonds to Underfloor Heating with Ben Stinson

 Welcome to Ecom Sessions with your hosts, Sam and Jake. This podcast was created for e commerce marketing leaders, offering monthly insights from industry peers about growing and scaling e commerce marketing teams. With Sam's background in organic growth and Jake's background in paid growth, they'll be providing a well rounded perspective on e commerce marketing.

Thanks for listening and on to the episode.

Okay, Ben, we're gonna jump straight into it with the icebreaker question. If you could instantly master one new skill, what would it be and why?

I'm sure everyone's expected to say something related to Ecom or tech or digital, but mastering the art of learning language would be top of the list for me.

Travel for travel, for, you know, for when you're managing people, when you're working with clients or you're trying to build a relationship, I think it works on every level. I love to travel experience new cultures. So Yeah, if I could master the art of learning any language, it would be pretty good the english language would also be pretty good

What what language do you start with That's a

very yeah, that's I think Spanish because I am desperate to go to Central and South America.

I haven't been. So I think that's probably one that would carry me across and maybe give me the, the impetus to go and maybe learn Italian or French after that. But yeah, I think Spanish would be the one to start off with. Yeah.

Cool. All right. How about you kick off then and tell us about just the, yeah, your backstory and a little bit like, yeah, the recent jobs that you've had.

Yeah. So I've been in the, the con. And digital space, online space for coming up to 15 years. I think now I started in Australia in a, you know, in a, in a, in a content administration role as a kind of an alternative to a job that I didn't want to do. And it's kind of, you know, I've been fortunate enough to have some really good managers who have allowed me to, you know, experience new things and learn new skills and led me to, to move into London in 2012.

You know, starting through the kind of the more, the more e com trading routes and then into, I guess, smaller leadership roles into bigger leadership roles and then the kind of more all encompassing digital roles now.

Do you say you briefly touched on this and you never went into in detail, I mean, but did you do backpacking across Scotland?

That was your first introduction to the UK.

I actually played cricket as a, as a semi. a semi professional kind of cricket player. I say semi, I say semi professional the standard of cricket isn't great in Scotland. But it was a it was a really nice way to be able to kind of come over to the UK and, you know, have a base, have a job, play some cricket on the weekends and then, yeah, and then travel through Europe when I had the time.

And then your most recent jobs, cause I know you from your last three.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I think most recently when we worked together from say 2018 I worked for the NeedJewels group which has Diamonds Factory Austin and Blake, and a, and a smaller group. sustainable brand called Susset in the diamond jewellery space.

And I was there for four years and then moved into a completely different sphere into kind of the general building merchant space working for the Highborne group which used to be a part of Travis Perkins looking after all of their underfloor heating brands. They also own City Plumbing as well, and Plumwell, which is a big online retailer.

And then I recently had the opportunity at the start of the year to move back into the, the diamond jewelry space again. And I'm now at Purely Diamonds which is a, it's, they've been around for a long time. They're, they're kind of a 40 plus year old business started as jewelry makers, or they still are jewelry makers.

And that's at kind of the heart of what they do. But they have been in the digital world for a while as well. So yeah, just join them to, to try and help them grow.

And you start, did you start with diamonds factory as a team of one or did you go in as an e com manager?

So I started as head of e com and I had one in house in the UK, and then I had.

in, in India, actually based out in India. So the background of the company is started by an Indian family who moved over to the UK. And then they had a number of the manufacturing arms out in in India. And so they naturally kind of sourced people to work close to the product. And so, yeah, I had a, a smallish team in India.

And then obviously as the UK business grew, managed to, was able to, lucky enough to grow the team in the UK too.

How did your marketing approach change, like going from something like diamond engagement rings, which is like uber luxury and premium, to something super functional like underfloor heating?

You know what, I kind of looked at it, in some ways they have a lot of similarities, because They're both very considered high intent purchases. You don't just on a whim go and buy underfloor heating for your house and you don't just on a whim. Well, most people don't just on a whim gone by, you know, an engagement ring.

And they're both fairly high average order value as well. So in some ways there was a lot of similarities in, in kind of the average order values where we're obviously high with engagement rings. And then, you know, underfloor heating was still a sizable purchase compared to kind of your everyday everyday product that, you know, you, you might be buying once a month.

So most people invest in it, you know, once in a lifetime or twice in a lifetime. So yeah, both considered purchases, but Slightly different in the way that maybe they're perceived and maybe the supporting content that you need They both people both, you know, people need educating on both fronts as well.

So content, you know is key for both But yeah, just slightly different perception

And did you, so when you left the original Diamonds brand, then you went to Underflow Heating, did you ever think you'd go back into the diamonds industry? Was there like a, did it like draw you back in or was it a case of just like, well, I'm done with that industry.

I need to move on.

No, I don't, I don't think I, I, don't think that I thought I wouldn't, wouldn't go back into it. I'm not sure I thought that the opportunity would come so quickly, which is which was, you know, it was, it was a surprise, but I really enjoyed the diamond jewelry industry. It's, it's a, it's a, it is a really kind of a funny niche industry, I would say in the econ world.

And it's different to kind of maybe some of the big mega retailers like your Beaver Brooks, your Ernest Jones, your H. Summers, the high street jewelers. So this kind of online first pure play digital brands. By having that exposure initially, I thought that there was definitely in future somewhere that I could help other brands that were looking to do the same sort of thing.

So yeah, I'd hoped, hope to go back into the space.

Cause when I was thinking about the industry last night, it's like, it's quite, it's really interesting. Quirky, strange industry, really, but particularly when it's like e commerce. So when, when you're thinking of your target market, like, are you marketing, like thinking of like a traditional relationship are you, are you marketing to the female or the male?

Primarily, well, obviously the buying is primarily done by the male. That's kind of just how it's always been traditionally. Yeah, it's changed. I would definitely say there's changed a lot more in the recent years. But.

If you look back on tradition and what's been bought over the, you know, the last 50 to a hundred years in terms of someone buying a ring, it's traditionally the male buying for female. But you do want to market. a certain extent to obviously to the female because there is a, you know, customer feedback is key for us.

And there isn't always an element of, I was sent this, you know, through a DM on Instagram from my girlfriend, or, you know, I've seen this on a feed, or she showed me a Pinterest board, accidentally shared it with me. You know, the engagement ring she wants and all that sort of stuff. So typically the, you know, it is the male buying and that's where the conversions happen.

But. You've got to really balance the kind of the prospecting with the female demographic because it can get out of hand because you know, female demographic or just any, they like to browse and they like to kind of see what's out there. And it's, it's fun. So, you know, there's always people looking at jewelry, looking at clothes, that sort of stuff.

So you've got to make sure that you balance that prospecting with kind of getting the right core demographic and and, you know, mainly around using profiling is always quite good to use whether it's, you know, through your email list or your Facebook list. But yeah, definitely the balance between the, the prospecting for, for the female demographic, because otherwise, you know, I've seen it before where you do some, some prospecting and it gets out of hand very fast, you know Sunday night can go wild for traffic and you see no conversions at all over the next 90 days.

So. Yeah, it's a, it's a balancing act.

Are you touching it there about the the gender split and how it's starting to change over time? Do you, do you actually have campaigns set up then to like target females proposed to their fiancees? Yeah,

yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Back in the day, you just wouldn't have had those ads at all targeting females at like the conversion stage, or would you always have them on even back, even like eight years ago?

I almost think that, that people coming into the industry knew maybe Don't always think about actually the male is the person doing the purchasing. So actually a lot of people will just dive in and, and, and market straight to kind of female demographic without actually thinking, you know what, if I'm pushing my money, these aren't the people that are, you know, that are converting.

So it's always been there. We've always tried to push to the female demographic. You know, that's the way that you see sharing word of mouth people sharing with friends, all that sort of stuff. So. It's always been there. It's just tape it off a little bit, but I would definitely say it to your point, there has been.

more female led purchasing of engagement rings now, with kind of, I guess, traditions maybe going out the window a little bit, people not feeling like they need to adhere to tradition, then there's a lot more of, of, of it being kind of a female led purchase.

Especially when same sex marriage was legalized in the UK.

I'm sure that changed things a lot as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,

exactly. Yeah, I was just going to say, I think it's a really interesting point around that sort of priming adds to the, to the female. I had this, this sort of this happened to me last year, whereby as the male purchased the ring, but the priming of the advertisements and the emails happened with my wife.

And then that inherently She gives me the nudge. So I think you kind of open up the category and you could position ads to either the actual purchaser or the person who is going to send the message, the WhatsApp, Hey, have you seen this? I was just going to say, is there anything you do around, if you think about balancing like the short and the long term, I imagine because it's quite, it's a high considered purchase.

It's not going to be a quick conversion cycle. Do you have to try and trust? The process that the marketing spend you today is, it might not pay back for two, three, six months.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, we do. You know that. that cookie window is to be as long as possible in terms of tracking. And yeah, as you say, we do have to trust the process and essentially go off what almost the model has been through other people.

So if one channel works and it might be through the, you know, they come, their touch point comes into the showroom or they create, you know, a ticket through the CRM or it's socials or whatever it is, then, you know, We have to kind of go off what we've seen before and people are creatures of habit in it and you know There are some people that break the model, but most, more often than not, people have, you know, fairly similar in, in the time that they're looking.

Most people are looking, you know, maybe six months to a year away. Some people are a lot closer. And it's, you know, you get the anomalies where someone needs something for the following week which is obviously unusual, but you know, we can cater for that as well. But yeah, it is typically quite similar.

I think most people are quite similar in the way they think about the, the research process and then the buying process. So yeah, yeah, definitely it is. We have to trust the process

and other showrooms. They quite imagine they're quite an important pillar of the overall, you know, go to market approach.

I feel like this over the past few years has been a whole resurgence in pure play DTC brands now actually realizing their needs in real life presence.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think the need It's been heightened since the pandemic as well, where people couldn't go somewhere. So people, whilst everyone was forced to go online, and that was great for online retailers and pure play digital businesses that maybe didn't have the physical footprint.

But now, People love coming in and touching and looking and feeling and talking to someone about it. So it was always prevalent and it was always important and part of the process, you know When you're spending in excess of a thousand two thousand pounds on average Most people some people don't even consider buying online They will just automatically come in book an appointment and come and talk to someone without actually doing any research.

That's their research phase but yeah, most people They either like the idea of a physical You You know, something that they can go to if they need to, or to go and speak to someone in person. But it plays a really big and important part. You know, not just, not just for purchasing and people being able to come in, come through the doors and speak to people, but just from a trust perspective, I think, you know, typically if you feel like there is a physical store somewhere that you can go and visit, then, There's more likely to be a little bit more trust.

And I think you mentioned that is quite a key part of your approach now, or like you're trying to encourage the business to get more showrooms. How many have they got right now?

Two showrooms at the moment, two showrooms, London and Manchester.

And then when it was diamonds factory, you had more or less nearly all major cities.

Is that right?

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's, and internationally as well. So there was France and Germany and Australia in the major cities as well. Slight different nuances, obviously, when you go into an international market and how they shop, but definitely in the UK, we, We tried to cover the major cities and the major hubs for people to get to, including, you know, Edinburgh and Glasgow and then all, all the way through all the way through the UK, really.

Did you do any work then around when you open showrooms and just in general, the point around general attribution of if everybody's exposed online and then they purchase in showrooms and like, did you, do you have any data around like when, say you opened a showroom in Bristol, the effectiveness of the ads in that area?

increased because of the showroom? Like, did you see that and you did? We,

we always saw that. We always saw that. And that was one of the main reasons why we could justify opening a store because we knew how much in terms of a geographical, how much we would spend around Bristol. We were quite, we did quite a lot of targeting around postcodes as well, where we thought they were closer to bigger cities or people with, I guess you know, affluent areas as well.

But yeah, we would, we would almost always see as soon as we went into a a city, a larger city or a hub, we would often see less sales. Actually, that's not true. We would often see more, obviously sales going into that and it justifies the next showroom opening. But then you would start to see more online sales from that showroom as well, because people feel, oh, they're, they're local, they're trusted.

You know, we, we appreciate that they've got something. locally for us, so we would, we would always see an increase in both online sales and, and obviously in the showroom.

Will you actively invest in trying to drive traffic and footfall, well, to the showroom and to the e com site, or do you just rely on the showroom just getting residual footfall naturally, or do you push that?

We, we do some, you know, some quite kind of, We do localize targeting in terms of social and we also push out some email campaigns locally as well. So we will try and push people. A, conversion rates are high into the stores and B, the average order value is almost double what people would purchase online.

Obviously we've got a big, you know, a lot of people spending say 300 pounds versus spending 1500. They don't feel like they might not need to visit the showroom, but typically if we can push someone to come into a showroom the likelihood is, you know, high conversion rate and higher, higher AOV. So we would always try and localize some form of social, some form of email dedicated a little bit of budget to going into the city specifically to say, we exist, here's what you can do.

There might be a little incentive as well, potentially. So, yeah, you

actually touched on a question I had later on, but do you see, do you find there's a kind of like a threshold of typical AOV that maxes out online of like, say, people? Somebody won't buy a 5, 000 ring until they go to the showroom, whereas rings sub 1, 000, people have got no problem buying them online.

There are people that buck that trend, you know, there are first time purchasers that will spend 5, without visiting a showroom. It may mean that they have to speak to someone, whether it's on WhatsApp, whether it's on socials or over the phone, but we, it's not uncommon to see a first time purchase to spend considerably more than the average order value.

I wouldn't say that there's a tipping point as such. But we have, it's not uncommon to see, you know, someone completely new come and spend that amount of money without having interacted with the brand, which is, which is nice. And typically those customers end up being really fantastic long term customers.

If you can nail the experience the first time.

Do you find that whole sort of clienteling piece online quite a I can imagine it's quite a good you know, conversion driver. If it's, you know, actually someone picking up the phone and ringing or live chat. You mentioned WhatsApp. I feel like customer services can be such a powerful sales tool, I imagine, for your category, especially you, it's not an area you'd want to pull back on.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I guess it all goes down to how high the intent is, you know, if you're, if you're purchasing someone, if you're purchasing something or you're making contact where, you know, the average order is over a thousand pounds, it's not your typical everyday purchase, you know, you've got to treat it like gold really.

So yeah. Those channels are so important for us. And if, you know, if we don't nail the channel, then we're missing out. Someone else is, is, is getting that sale if you don't nail it. So yeah, we, we've, we try to engage and interact and give the best possible service we can be at WhatsApp, be at live chat Instagram, Facebook, you know, try and keep it as consistent as possible.

Same kind of tone of tone of voice, because we know that if someone has made the effort to make contact about a ring mostly They're quite far down the funnel. You know, you're not, you're not speaking, you're not, you're not inquiring to someone about an engagement ring unless you're serious. So yeah, if any brand is not doing that, yeah, I'd be very, very surprised, but it's so important.

You mentioned that as well around just loyalty. Like how does CRM play into all of this? In terms of, so like typically if somebody buys an engagement ring from you, is there like a 90 percent chance then they'll buy the wedding ring from you as well? And then once that happens, it's pretty high

percentage.

Yeah. I think, I think the last time, the last time I looked you know, we, we, we run, you know, automated campaigns, you know, based off product purchases. Because we know the likelihood of someone, you know, an incentive to come back and purchase wedding rings. If they had a really good experience. You know, they're 50, 60 percent like, you know, we've seen kind of in excess of 50 percent in terms of conversion rates of people coming back to us for wedding rings.

So it's really lucrative. And wedding rings are not cheap either. You know, they can, they can often be, you know, two, you buy two wedding rings sometimes, you know, it's an excessive, you know, it's a, it's a lot of money. So. Yeah, it's it it imposes a really big opportunity kind of that loyalty and serum piece I think where we are now, you know, where we've got so much opportunity to kind of improve from a kind of a data perspective and assistance perspective, but We're making really good strides in terms of trying to whether it be reactivate old purchases You know, they've already they've made a purchase with us, which is a big deal and It shouldn't take a huge amount of nurture to try and get them back to you.

So yeah, it's really important to have kind of those loyalty programs set up and automation set up that it can run. And drive repeat business.

Two questions on that then. Would you, would you ever offer discount codes of say somebody bought an engagement ring from you and hadn't bought the wedding ring yet?

Would you ever offer them a discount code for that?

Short answer, yes. The, Whilst it's such a fantastic opportunity that they've purchased an engagement ring with you, it's such a competitive market out there. I don't think it's ever been so competitive, the actual kind of the diamond and jewelry in the wedding market, engagement market.

of online retails versus when I started this industry in 2018 compared to now, you know, even the pandemic's just changed everything. Everyone has some form of offer, some form of deal where if you don't, Offer something to someone if you don't incentivize someone they will look somewhere else and they will go and ask You know a lot of the industry the diamond industry is very if you're building a personal relationship Or you know you've a lot of people that have got in to speak to someone in stores They're quite happy to kind of you know incentivize someone to come back So it's essentially if you don't someone else will so you've got a nail really that The communication piece to them post purchase, you know, balancing how much what's the right time to go back to them to then get them to, to, to purchase the new, because at the end of the day, the, you know, products are fairly similar across a lot of brands.

You know, if you're buying a wedding ring, which is plain gold There's only so many different designs that you can go through for a plain gold ring, for instance. So you've got to get them whilst you've got them there. That is like, that's absolute gold that they've purchased in the first place. You need to be incentivizing them to come back.

And then do you find that when people then buy the wedding ring, do you get like a huge amount of unsubscribes from the newsletter, the email CRM? Or do you then find that people keep buying your jewelry then, like earrings and necklaces and stuff?

Yeah, there's a kind of a I'm not going to say a typical life cycle, like a product buying life cycle, but you know, there is, there is certainly a there's certainly a kind of a pattern that, you know, a lot of people go through where it's engagement to wedding to Eternity rings to, well eternity rings probably a little bit later down the process, but someone will potentially want to buy, you know, a pair of earrings or, you know, a diamond necklace.

It's not for everyone, but there are, there are specific products that will follow an engagement and a wedding or, Or typically some people like to actually buy like a matching set with, you know, for a wedding, for instance. So when they buy an engagement ring, they actually might buy a matching pair of earrings or a matching pair of, you know, a diamond necklace or something as well.

So, yeah, there's there's a lot more beyond engagement and wedding. You know, we've got a number of customers that have spent six figures with us over a long period of time, which is just outrageous and astronomical. But people feel like they get a really personal relationship with you. And if you're, if, if your customer service and customer engagement is, is as good as it should be, then, you know why would they want to go anywhere else?

Really? It's such a personal thing that they've. Made with you and especially with us where I was saying to Jake about the fact that we make everything in London next to where we work is it's, I would say it's not commonplace with a lot of the big retailers. So when people can come into the showroom and they can actually see that the workshop is right there and we're QC'ing everything one by one, making sure everything is perfect, then.

For them, that's really special.

I can say like one of the quirks of the industry I was finding is like when, when something's so like high end luxury, like brand usually pays such a big part in that, but think of like luxury watches or fashion and all of that, but then with engagement rings, there isn't really a standout.

Brand I can think of in that sense, how, how, how does, how does that work?

I think people have got a clear idea before they even purchase, whether they want to buy an engagement ring from a Tiffany's or a De Beers, which is usually, you know, the markup is astronomical because they are the brands and they're well known.

But I would say, you know, people's first touch point is always just generic engagement ring. It's not, as you say, there's not like a, for a brand that comes to mind. And, and I'm sure that if there is, then people are just going direct to a brand's website. They're not even considering purchasing, you know, across an engagement rings search term, where they go and compare the prices.

I think by that point prices is irrelevant. But for most people, I would say, you know, it's, yeah, it's, it is starting with a very generic search term. And. working your way through the brands, what they offer, social proofing, locations, you know, there's a number of things to consider a number, a lot of research to do.

So yeah, it can be, you know, it can be difficult and you can attract someone that spends 500 pounds on the gauge ring, or you can attract someone that spends 10, 000 pounds.

Okay. That brings me on the final, final question for the industry. What the hell's up with Hatton Gardens? It's such a hub of diamonds in the UK.

But then it's so weird that, I was saying to Jake, the only two times I've ever kind of like haggled pricing in my life is some dodgy market stalls in Spain and then buying my wife's engagement ring. How, how, how can you do that with such a huge product? And how do, like, how do they allow it?

It's a good question.

We're a bit more kind of we stick to the rules and, you know, we, we know exactly where we buy everything from. Yeah, it's, it is a, there is such an in, you know, you can go to all corners of the globe and buy diamonds at different prices. You know, some people will buy in bulk, which gives them, you know, if, if you're a stock run business, so we are primarily a made to order business.

We buy based on, you Purchases demand and what they want and we will go out and source whatever they want for the best price I think if typically if you walk down Hatton Garden, you're looking at people that have pre bought primarily pre bought all their stock and They're either sitting there on something that's worth a couple of thousand or they're selling it.

And to them, that means, you know, the margins are quite, can be quite generous as well, depending on where you play, because, you know, there's smaller, smaller diamonds typically have higher margins because there's a lot more of them compared to kind of rarer, bigger diamonds, where you've got less margin because they are so rare.

So there's so few, so you can't really change the prices too much. So yeah, it's, it's, I think for people in something like Hatton Garden where they've got to, and like a market stall in Spain, they've got stock. They aren't, you know, they need to ensure that there is income coming through the door and there's sales, they need cash flow.

So if they're sitting there on stock and someone's showed some interest, they'd rather lose a bit of margin. And get that cash through the door because I think Hatton Garden is, most people are selling the same thing, right? Like, you know, you can go to any, like a market store, there's probably five people selling the same basket or wallet or whatever it is that, you know, you're looking to buy.

If you, if someone doesn't get you. At the start, someone will get you at the end. So I think typically at Hatton Garden, the idea is if they've walked in, then you've got to do everything in your power to convert them. Otherwise, person next door, who's selling the same designs and the same, same size diamonds, You know, to the average person, you can't tell, really, unless you get your cert certificate.

You can't tell the difference between, you know, a diamond grading, really you know, unless you've got the right, the right kit and the right tools and the right understanding. So, yeah, you're trying to dress it up as best as possible, and you don't want to let that person go. For the sake of, you know, instead of making 500 quid, you know, you can make 400 quid.

And I think that's better than not making anything at all.

Hopefully I only have to buy one engagement ring.

Yeah. Yeah. That is a funny, that is a funny one. We've had a few people buy a few, few engagement rings before. That's for another podcast.

So think, thinking ahead to next year, then, as we record this towards the end of 2024, most marketers in retail and e commerce are either, you know, recovering from this year and probably was one eye on next year.

Where, where would you say your sort of big focus is for next year? Where do you think the biggest headroom for growth is at Purely Diamonds?

I think for us. Because we've had a really positive Q4 for this year and It's going back at this year and looking at what's worked versus previous years, understanding demand.

A lot, a lot, a lot of it is around understanding product and offering. You know, we've recently started offering a lot more carrot weights with a lot more styles. We've changed the way that people interact with product pages so that they don't need to search for a different shape, which is kind of the same style.

ring. And we're allowing people kind of an ease of purchase, really. So I think on site experience, you know, UI and UX is, is always something that needs to keep, you know, it needs to be refined. I think people, you know, they go onto, and I'm sure everyone says this, but you go onto an Amazon or you go onto your favorite brands where the experience is second to none.

And that's what people expect from everyone else. And I think maybe jewelry, Or the diamond jewelry industry, maybe less so kind of just fast fashion jewelry, has sometimes been a little bit slow in, you know, because the intent is so high, people have often been a little bit naive to think, well, I can just put it there and they'll buy it.

It doesn't have to be as, you know, the experience doesn't have to be as slick, and we don't have to kind of worry too much about you know, people through the funnel. But you know, now it's, everyone is compares to, well, it's easy to purchase on Amazon or it's easy to purchase, whatever. So, so yeah, so I think UI UX, you know, the experience on site is, is massive because we spend a lot of money on bringing people to the website as do most other brands, you know, CPCs are not getting any cheaper.

And you've got to make that count. You know, we've got to convert. And if you don't, just like we talked about before, with someone walking down Hatton Garden, it'll be someone else. You know, it's less, there is less of a brand loyalty about the diamond jewelry industry purely before you've made your first purchase.

That is there's less of a brand loyalty. I think in this industry, it's much more of a generic show me what I can get, educate me, that sort of stuff. So if I think the onsite experience and getting the right type of traffic and analyzing. You know, those profiles and, and what's worked is, is what will, you know, allow us to continue to grow

in terms of those product pages you mentioned.

So they're all really customizable. If I remember rightly, you can't have that kind of structure on just a standard Shopify tech stack, right? Like what, what do you want?

No we're actually, we're on a kind of a custom, custom Magento build. Magento too, sorry. It is quite rare for Jewelry. If you're, if you're offering a high level of customization, Shopify has historically not been able to really support that in the way that most people want.

So most of the big retailers will use either a custom front end with a, you know, maybe a more standard backend or it's all custom, like it's not uncommon for a completely You know, ground up build for a CRM or an ERP manufacturing software and the front end. So yeah, everything is really highly customizable.

And I think if you think about a product page for one engagement ring with one stone and a ring. you can choose, you know, at any one time, you've got access to the live diamond market for just about most retailers. There could be 000 stones that could be put into your ring. Then you've got every different color and clarity and the cut.

And then you could, you know, some people offer symmetry and polish, all these things. If you look at all the different permutations of adding different options, then there's, you know, there could be. 10, 000 options for one single skew really. And it's just not historically been supported with Shopify, which I know has, has obviously, you know, they've improved their how, how they handle variants but yeah, it's always typically been a custom build.

And if you, if your resource was completely unlimited, what would be your dream tech stack that you'd want?

If resources are limited, I mean, I If Resources is unlimited, then I would build, I would have everything in house, you know, I think, because then I can build whenever I want to build. And I know that there's apps.

I've used Shopify in the past, Shopify Plus. And there are still limitations around adding apps and things don't work as maybe you want them to, but for something where there's such a high average order value and people expect the best from their experience. I think having the ability to do whatever you want, whenever you need and customize everything to the user's needs, then yeah, in houses, it would be preferred.

Do you just, just coming back onto conversion then, because that's clearly, you know, imperative to any retailer and one of the things to, you know, reduce rising customer acquisition costs. So is there anything, you know, that you'll do with the team? Next year to try and steer or orientate. You know, these are the focuses say Q1, Q2 next year.

Do you have OKRs or, you know, any progress and development within the team to really get everyone focused on doing less better?

Yeah, I think, I think having a. If we have, you know, obviously we want to sell everything, but having, when you're working in a really kind of lean team, it's not possible to try and go after everything in such a short space of time.

So, you know, having. Core products that maybe we want to focus on at certain times pinpointing when we're more likely to convert certain products and tailoring that, you know, using budgets and having really clear goals as to you know, this is our ROAS target and. These are the products that we want to, you know, engagement rings are sold all year round.

Engage earrings, pendants, maybe more around gifting periods for Valentine's and some are the Christmas periods where you can then tailor your budget to that. But yeah, pre, pre planning how you want to tailor your spend to the market is probably the best. You know, from a, marketing ROAS kind of percentage of spend because then you can always work backwards as to you know, we've got We more or less know what our gross margin is.

So we can Use that to see how it all fits really and if we if we have a target If we have a target then you know, that's that's what we can always work towards

do you find? You can be quite flexible at all in that within certain times of the year like there might be certain trading periods where you can be a bit more aggressive and You For growth or the certain times of the year where it's more profit focused or I suppose it's that constant sort of dance and sparring between balancing profit versus growth, managing that back up to the founder, CEO, how, how do you manage that?

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right in terms of balancing that profit and knowing where your profits going to come at what point in the year. So, you know, November and December intent is, is high, is really, really high. And you might typically see October as more of an investment, the back end of October through October.

I know a lot of people will launch their Black Friday sales, but that is, you know, that is where you might typically front end a lot of, Spend or even in September really because people are thinking so far ahead that September maybe you know our budgets are a little bit bigger but that's because we know that we're driving appointments that are going to happen in October and November and we know the intent is high and you need to be visible.

You need to be visible prior to when you're purchasing with us. It's not something where people are just going to make a decision, wake up in the morning and go, I'm going to buy an engagement ring today. I've not even thought about this before. We have to be investing upfront for it to then, you know, actualize in the following month.

So absolutely. You know, when we know that November is high conversion, we know that we've got to invest and it might not actualize in that month. We're aware of that because we know that we're going to be driving profit. In November and December,

another question from me as someone who's also, you know, digital director an e commerce brand. And we know, you know, bureaucracy can take over within an organization, but what are your favorite parts of the job and which are the parts that you wish you could dedicate more time to?

It's a very, I mean, I'm pretty much, I am a team of one for now.

You know, I have some tech, tech resource, so everything. But

every, you know, whenever you work with, with founders and co founders, everything, you know, you want everything done yesterday. And it's always sales, you know, sales, sales, sales, more time to look back. And you know, everyone is always time poor in, in terms of reporting and data. I think I'm sure that there are bigger people, bigger teams, bigger businesses, but where it's me and I'm reporting, I'm doing the job, I'm doing the reporting and I'm doing the analysis.

And then I'm also, you know, trying to lead a UI and UX refresh and all the rest of it. I think. Spending time to sit and analyze and look at the data more is always something that I feel probably a little bit time poor because it's always, you know, you're always looking at what can you do to drive sales today?

You know I think that's always the nature of kind of where people's passion, you know, the people in purely diamonds are so passionate about the product and the business and the success of it, you know, it's always, you're really, it's a, it's. It's a trading environment. So yeah, that's definitely, I think the reporting and the data side is definitely something where I wish I had either a little bit of help or a little bit more help, I should say or just got to spend more time.

That whole, what kind of Jake mentioned there is I've always had the perception that you're pretty good at like managing up. Did you? See a big difference between when you went into underfloor and I believe you, you were, you were reporting to a director at that point rather than a fan.

Yeah, I'm reporting to a managing director who was sat kind of as part of the leadership team of the group.

So, you know, the group did a billion, 2 billion in revenue. And he sat with kind of the group CEO, the group CFO but we used to do our trading meetings with the group CEO, you know, who is in charge of reporting up to private equity and then managing, you know, the profitability of a 1 billion pound business.

So it was very different going from working day to day with a I had a managed business going into that set up and that kind of forum of a trading meeting was very different.

How different in that sense? It was just a case of like structure formality.

Yeah.

I think there was, yeah, structure and formality, obviously you know, I think there is a lot, the people are, well the people in that business were from a kind of more of a financial background and I think you typically see that from a corporate side of things because the finances and the commercials need to be watertight.

But at the same time there's a lot more planning ahead and there's a lot more time to plan and because there's structure. You can build, you know, we would sit there in Q4 and spend two months planning all of our initiatives for growth for the following year. And we would be able to say, well, we're not going to make profit until six months time.

But as long as you get to the end goal after a year's time, then. You know, that's all that matters really. And that's all they're working to. So I think the time is probably one thing where if you're working in a owner managed business and it's, you know, it is the life that, you know, is they live and breathe it.

It's slightly different. It's, you can't kind of take that step away, but when you're working with a group that sits outside of the brand, then. They have that foresight to kind of sit back and be able to understand and see what you're building towards or what your plans contribute in the end to kind of the You know the wider business plan.

So yeah, it was it it was much more of a forum of conversation you know a forum of conversation in terms of they would have their opinions, but they knew that people, you know, worked within their brands, but you'd always really respect that because of what they, you know, what they've doing, what they've done, their experience.

And, you know I think from the outside, it looks a lot more formal than it is, you know, they're most, they're just normal people who are trying to run a successful business. And at the end of the day, they're all really approachable. They were for me really approachable and. We're good listeners, really empathetic, which is, you know, so key to, I feel kind of wanting to work for someone or do well for someone.

So yeah, formality, you know, just have, you know, you have more time. People understand that you have, you need time to do things. And when you're working for a big group that does that amount of money, you can kind of, you can justify bigger projects. You know, you can, yeah, it's obviously going to be different for different businesses, but.

Yeah, it was, it was a good business to work from. They were profitable and you know, cashflow was, was, you didn't even need to think about it. So you could easily plan long term projects. In the end, we're going to actualize at some point, you know. And I think for them, because they were private equity owned as well, there was always a longer term view and as long as you get to that longer term view, then that's all that mattered, really.

You know, it's not people's life and death. You're not, you're not, you know, You're not trying to, it's not your livelihood or someone else's livelihood within a smaller business. It's these guys are like, well, I've got a three year plan. You know, the private equity guys want to go through the cycle and sell again after three or four years.

So we've got to build to that. So there is, it's just a much longer term view. And I think typically you know, You don't always get that when you're working in kind of a lean startup. It's much more kind of month to month.

So if you were to hire somebody in the new year now let's say they're like e com manager level or exec, some kind of assistant, like what advice or tips would you give them for managing up and communicating with the founders?

How, what level are they communing at communicating up to? Is this a startup level or is this in a kind of more of a corporate?

Startup level. Yeah. So kind of basically what you are now, like PewDieDiamonds is like founders

I mean, ask lots of questions. I think that's always a way to kind of, to, to get inside the mind and understand maybe how, what someone values different, you know, they're all different founders, different CEOs, different execs. They're, they're different in what they look at. And try to kind of, to get into the mind and understand what they value and what they see.

Some people like seeing, you know, loads of, of. Of reporting and working out and you know modeling and some people maybe prefer a bit more of a logical simplistic view of how growth's going to look like and the pillars to growth and you know there's more of the storytelling aspect to it but just just you know just try and be a sponge for for what they're saying and ask lots of questions and you know make lots of notes report be hot on your numbers you know there's Founders know everything.

Most founders know everything about the businesses, you know, from payment gateway fees, they see everything coming in and out, you know, they live and breathe it. So always know your numbers and, and, and make as much effort into understanding what makes an impact on the business really. Because at the end of the day, if they want someone, they want someone to live and breathe it like they do.

So if you can show that from your perspective and how that you, you know, you can impact. then yeah, there's not a huge amount more you can, you can do.

I think it's interesting how yeah, I think being hot on your number. So yeah, that part where you mentioned work out what is impactful to the business and, you know, drive efforts and energy behind that, rather than there's a lot of tertiary things I think can often go on in businesses, but.

the things that matter, and that's what the founders care about. So ladder all, all your efforts up into that as much as possible.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I think typically, you know, you, people come with a preconceived idea about what, what might work. In a business or an econ business or I've done this before so it works somewhere else.

It's it's so different You know people give value different things and and what makes one business work doesn't always make the next business work. So always spend time learning, about what makes What makes people tick and what makes a business tick

I got two more questions. One is around your background.

Well the Australian market basically. So I think we've worked with so many different e com brands, but I think the only one that's ever said to us, we're thinking of going to the Australian market was yourself, like why, why is the Australian market just not. Part of that many people's plans when they're like a UK based business.

Well, I mean, obviously logistics is a big, big thing and the cost to, you know, to move goods or store goods or whatever it might be. So the distance just scares people straight away, obviously. Cause well, I say, obviously I'm originally from Australia. And. I guess I've had an insight into the psyche of an Australian purchasing online.

And for me, there is, Aussies don't really have barriers to purchase. Like it is so common from, you know, for 15, 20 years that Aussies have been purchasing from the US, the UK. And you know, you, you can't get things on next day delivery in Australia either. So people's expectations of delivery lead times is much more realistic than say, if you live in London and you know, like, why can't I get something delivered to me by 9am tomorrow?

So I think initially people have that worry about I can't deliver something fast or, you know, the cost to do that. I think specifically for Diamond Factory at that time, we, we had a manufacturing hub in India and we were able to, you know, we, we shipped into Germany, into Ireland, into France, and we still ship things to Australia, just not specifically opening up a, an in market website.

And we knew that, especially with a made to order product where you do have a lead time of 2, 3, 4 weeks, we could, we could still meet the needs. So, obviously, you know, certain products, unless you're there, people are probably not going to buy it if it's on a 5 to 7 day lead time, and, you know, you're selling white t shirts because they might, well, they might be the greatest white t shirts and they might wait.

But, you know what I mean whereas we felt like we had a window where we could genuinely manufacture, And still get the product to someone within the time frame that they want. So that was the first part. I think the Australian market compared to the UK market and probably the US market is, it's much more kind of immature in terms of there's probably one retailer physically in the, in Australia that really is like a multi channel retailer that you see on the high streets and the cities.

So there wasn't really anyone taking up that physical space. And You know, there was definitely room for a new competitor to kind of shake up the market. It was the same kind of, you know, all the products are sitting in glass cases. You walk in, you find something yourself and then you ask someone about it.

It was that tired experience really. And. You know, the Aussies also have this kind of a real, there's a real thing in Australia about more kind of boutique and smaller brands and businesses that don't typically, they're not massive on, you know, spending loads of money online. They work around the community and they work around more localized marketing and that works for them and people like that.

But there was no real, unless you wanted to go and buy in the UK or the U S there wasn't really anyone else that was kind of selling. wide and selling the same quality of products where you could go into a store and have the same experiences you could do as if you were to go to your local boutique. It was either you go to a massive big multi channel retailer where you get the same style experience or you go to kind of your small, smaller localized boutique which has much, much higher prices because they're making everything in house and they're lean and you know, they can't afford to sell at the prices that the big guys do.

So there was, there's something in the middle there really. So, you know, once, once we thought about that and kind of, I gave my view and we, we got the manufacturing piece, right, then it was a no brainer.

Based off of that experience you had, and if Jake was planning on launching in Australia next year, what What advice would you give him, or tips?

Oof cool, that's a very good question. B, I, it sounds like a really silly one, but Australia has really good internet you know, availability and connectivity. And, you know, typically, if you're thinking about Australia, you think rural. You know, probably is a bit behind, but actually the access to data and to fast internet is, is really, really good in Australia.

So don't neglect maybe more of the far flung places that, you know, you might not target. It's a, it's a hard one really, because we really dove into, I think understand your competitors and understand what people expect. And that's the main thing we were, I was lucky enough to have family and friends and to know people.

And before we launched, I interrogated them with so many questions about how they would go and buy jewelry. You know, what were the prices like the price point? I think the price point is one thing really where Australians would typically go overseas because they can get something cheaper, even if they have to pay customs and even if they have to pay for shipping because, you know, It's, it's a high, you know, people have to charge.

If you're, if you're making something in Australia, it's, you've got to pay the higher wages and it's a higher cost of living and all that sort of stuff. So naturally prices are probably, potentially a little bit higher. So price points are key. The people and the buying patterns are really key. That's what we really understood.

You know, we understood the competitors. What were their price points? What do they offer? And we, you know, we identified the, the gap. In terms of that physical experience. So I guess have a, have a point of difference. You always have to have a point of difference. And we knew that demand for engagement rings is always high everywhere.

It's, is very similar in terms of designs and styles in, in terms of the purchasing patterns as well. So, you know, we typically looked at in terms of competitors, we looked at what they sold and could we cater for what they sell So yeah, you know, obviously a little bit different. Climate makes a big difference for you.

And the seasons, the winter versus summer your stock might, might not match up. But apart from that yeah, understand, understand the product and the market is, is, is key.

Yeah, I don't think it's gonna be part of their plans anytime soon. That sounds intense.

No, I don't think so.

All right, last, last question for myself.

So I think this will be quite interesting for you because you've, I think it's your first year at Purely Diamonds, but if you were to score your performance so far out of 10, 10 obviously being everything that you wanted to achieve and then you've ready to like move on. You've got your case study, et cetera.

How would you grade yourself so far?

It's not a nice question, Sam.

It's a good one to end on.

I think when I said, you know, I set out to do a number of things there are always barriers along the way, be it resource, be it technical capability, be it time that get in the way. I think if we were to look at the kind of the end result, I guess, and What's come out of that, purely, without thinking about those things.

You know, we're probably looking at, you know, seven, seven or an eight out of ten, potentially. Because, you know, we had targets for key months that we, that we beat, which is great. But there are always things that pop up, which mean maybe that the end result isn't always kind of what you wanted. But yeah, I think a really, a really solid platform to then propel yourself forward really is, is where we've gone.

And, you know, if you can, if your numbers are good, Because a lot of people can do a lot of great things in their first six months of a role, and it doesn't actualize for, you know, a year, 18 months sometimes, and you need time for things to happen, especially in this industry where people are buying things over such a long time.

You know, when you implement something, someone that's seen what you've implemented is not purchasing for three, four, five months, then, you know, it can take a long time. It can take a long time for you to see that, but I think, you know, we've been happy with some of the numbers, been happy with the numbers and.

We've, we've got a number of kind of core things done on the website that we wanted to do and now it's about just Building on that really and I think having one, a fresh year is always a great thing. Coming in halfway through a year I started in June So it's a bit of a funny one because you're already kind of in summer and you can't really You know often hit the summer people that maybe you wanted to market to back in the back in the spring.

So yeah, it's, it's it's a really good platform to, to move forward with.

Just to conclude on that then, if we were to fast track 12 months on from now, what's one thing you'd have hoped to achieve whether that be personally or professionally? So if we're sitting here in 12 months time,

what do you want to deliver?

I mean, sales and profitability growth is, is obviously top of the tree. Which, which is, you know, it's a non negotiable really when you want to be, if you're putting your head on the line to say that something works, especially, I guess, having had previous experience, you know, there's a, There's always pressure to for people to actually, you know, for people to actually see that you've done it before and does it work for them.

But I think the site will look different. I think, you know, there's always been this theme around content, which everyone's talking about going into, into 2025. And I think from that perspective, we'll see a really big transformation in terms of the content on our website. And I think from a probably a big thing will be around the CRM and loyalty piece, which people probably won't be able to see, which is, you know, driving repeat business and nurturing existing customers that we've previously not done.

So I think, yeah, site will look different. The content supporting the site will be You know in a lot better pace than what it is now nurturing the existing purchases and then obviously that should hopefully lead to a healthier top and bottom line Okay, all the best for it. Thanks very much

Yeah, we'll get you on in 12 months to see how you've performed and if your score is up to 10 out of

10 Let's hope so, that'd be nice

Should we call it there? Should we end it there?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah,

yeah. Awesome. Thanks again. Yeah, yeah. Good talk to you guys. Cheers. All right, speak

soon. Bye.

All right, Jake, so that was Ben. What did you think? What are your thoughts?

Yeah, I think the really interesting part for me was around the showrooms and then the online and how those two are interlinked.

And I think it's really prevalent now for, you know, Retailers, well, e coms of pure play actually now getting back into having a, an in real life presence. I think bricks and mortar is definitely here to stay. There's a reason why, you know, it's, it was tried and tested over a long period of time. So I think, yeah, that relationship of being able to see and feel the product, as he was saying, especially it's such high value.

So it's pretty, pretty imperative, I think, that they have bars as their business, so yeah. And I think the fact that how, how much more people spend in a showroom versus online just goes to show that it's, yeah, it's extremely important and not to be neglected, just to cut costs.

Yeah, I find the the whole concept of the diamonds industry very interesting and how you just market around that.

And then I thought his answers for managing up were really good around particularly like the founders and how emotional they are. And I still didn't quite understand the whole why there isn't more of a brand play thing in the diamonds industry. Such a strange industry, honestly. And we didn't even, I didn't even get a chance to talk about team structure.

That is team of one at the moment, how that, how that's working. If he got a limited budget, what his team would look like, how he'd structure, who he'd hire first, etc. Nothing on AI and we didn't even get a chance to discuss around like Yeah, he mentioned he came into his old job and had that like three year strategy plan Didn't even talk about any of that So I think if we we should get him on again in 12 months time and see see what he's achieved and see and we can grill him a bit more on some of the stuff

Definitely.

You look

good. Alrighty.

This episode is brought to you by Novos. Novos is the first organic growth agency for e commerce brands helping build healthier long term brands through reduced reliance on paid media. They specialize in SEO, CRM and PR services. To learn more, contact Sam at thisisnovos. com