Every business raises many challenges - from marketing strategy, managing sales to answering customer feedback, to production issues. These are all areas that can impact the success of a business.
One of the most important challenges faced by a jewelry e-commerce business such as yours is that of keeping stock. Stock management has a direct impact on your value proposition across the entire customer journey.
§1. Shopper expectations: fast delivery and product diversity
§1.1 Lightning-fast delivery
The main issue is that shoppers usually expect products to be delivered fast, preferably during the next business day or in a maximum of 2-3 days.
This expectation has also been raised by big retailers such as Amazon. These big businesses have made some strong commitments when it comes to deliveries: items may be delivered on the next day or within a few hours.
Matching such delivery expectations is difficult, as this would require a substantial upfront investment, constantly keeping a large inventory, and a complex logistics network that allows you to be close to the customer.
§1.2 Product diversity
Additionally, shoppers might expect your product catalog to have enough diversity to satisfy their needs for new exciting products. Matching such expectations requires an upfront investment in stock.
The straightforward solution to ensure fast delivery and product diversity is to keep a large enough stock. You need to increase the size, volume, and investment in your inventory, so that you will have a high amount of SKUs ready, just in case you get an order.
Regrettably, this translates to higher investments in warehouse capacity, more (or bigger) locations, and a higher working capital invested in buying and managing a higher number of SKUs.
§2. A smarter way to manage inventory
Acquiring a lot of inventory represents an expensive upfront investment. This will keep a lot of your cash blocked as working capital.
In addition to having your money “trapped” in stock, oftentimes, you won’t be able to sell everything at your full regular price.
You might end up in the position in which you will have to sell some of your stock at a discounted price, only to make room and cash for ordering a new batch of goods. In the long term, this impacts your overall profit margins and the ROI on your investment.
While keeping stock of your products may seem like a good approach, acquiring, managing, and replacing inventory is a constant challenge. This requires both upfront and ongoing investments.
§3. How personalized jewelry can help your shop overcome inventory challenges
Inventory challenges can be overcome with the help of technology, digitalization, and the right business model. When it comes to the challenges faced by online jewelry retailers, personalized jewelry is the right answer.
1. Save money instead of trapping it in stock items
With the help of the right personalized jewelry producer, there is no need for your shop to make any upfront investments in inventory. Your shop’s cash doesn’t need to be trapped as working capital. There is no need for an inventory in the case of personalized jewelry, as each item must be produced individually for each specific order.
2. Make the delivery process more efficient
In the case of personalized jewelry, it is the producer’s responsibility to create, personalize and deliver each piece of jewelry according to the shopper’s order. Once this is done, the producer simply ships the order. This can be done either to your warehouse or directly to the shopper’s address. In this scenario, the entire production and delivery process happens quickly enough so that the shopper's expectations are matched.
3. Exceed traditional shopping expectations
With personalized jewelry, the uniqueness of the shopping experiences comes from the personalization process itself. During the personalization process, the shopper will get attached to the purchase, as personalized jewelry will be representative of the shopper’s style, status, and feelings. The shopper therefore no longer feels the need to have a large shopping catalog: the shopper can simply personalize the ones already available to his preferences.
Would you like to find out more about how personalized jewelry can help your online shop?