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Jewellery Technology

Which jeweller is shining brightest online? The Drum's Mystery Shopper finds out

By James Hammersley, founding partner

April 21, 2017 | 5 min read

Like many other sectors, jewellers have had to come to terms with an increase in the number of consumers choosing to find that perfect gift for a special someone through the online channel.

jewellery

This is a sector where national chains are fighting TV retailers like QVC as well as new online only entrants and giants like Argos and where digital has allowed smaller high street specialists to continue to compete.

So have any of the national chains has taken steps to ensure that they are the owner of a diamond ecommerce execution?

In this week’s infographic, The Drum’s Mystery Shopper compares the performance of five of the country’s top jewellers to analyse just that and draws conclusions as to whose online execution is glistening and whose glitter is paste.

Traffic

Insight: Revenue comes from traffic that converts. Having more traffic than your competitors is a real advantage.

Analysis: H. Samuel and Ernest Jones dominate with twice the amount of traffic of the rest put together. This lead in the race for traffic will give both an advantage over their competitors and will lend itself as a solid base from which a successful e-commerce execution can be built.

Paid Campaign

Insight: If you are confident about your sales execution (ie customers stick on your pages and convert well) then you don’t have to outbid your competitors to gain a top three ad slot, which is where you will attract exponentially more traffic than position four or below.

Analysis: Goldsmiths is driving the largest amount of AdWord traffic in this competitor set. This higher AdWord traffic generated by Goldsmiths is unsurprising given its relatively large investment into keywords: it is buying just under double the amount when compared to H. Samuel and Ernest Jones.

There is scope here however for both H. Samuel and Ernest Jones to scale up their investment. If they were to do this whilst ensuring they kept their high average Ad positions, they could soon find themselves challenging Goldsmiths for the top spot.

F. Hinds is making a miniscule investment when compared to the rest of the competitor set and needs to increase this dramatically if it wants to continue to compete.

Landing pages

Insight: Landing pages are a mark of how well you understand the different customer needs that you are fulfilling. More pages and more thought is being put into the marketing proposition and the following sales execution.

Analysis: Goldsmiths is leading the way when it comes to the number of unique landing pages for its top 100 AdWords with just over 50% having a designated page. By differentiating and segmenting its market, Goldsmiths will be taking their users to where they want to be in fewer steps and will be driving sales as a result.

F. Hinds on the other hand, with only 14 unique landing pages for its top 100 AdWords, will be frustrating its users by sending them around the houses, before they reach their desired destination.

Toolbox

Insight: Listening to your customers is vital, without understanding the needs and wants of a potential buyer it is near impossible to improve conversion.

Analysis: Of this competitor set, only Goldsmiths have a full toolbox. Both H. Samuel and Ernest Jones are missing vital split-testing tools whilst Beaverbrooks and F. Hinds are both utilising only basic analytics. Whilst at the time of writing Goldsmiths are not actively surveying their customers, it is clear that they are set-up to do this. The others are not and they have failed to understand that this insight is vital in devising a successful test and learn programme to drive growth.

What can you tell from this?

The obvious conclusion: As far as scale is concerned, H Samuel and Ernest Jones are battling it out for the number one spot. Neither however are the best e-commerce performer and both are failing to listen to the customer.

The inevitable conclusion: F. Hinds is the poorest performer in this competitor set. If it wants to compete it needs to make a more serious investment in its paid campaign, increase its unique landing page numbers and employ a full set of digital tools to direct a successful split-testing programme.

The surprising conclusion: Goldsmiths is by far the smartest e-commerce performer. On all aspects apart from traffic it sparkles, suggesting that it is confident that customers in the market who land on its site are more likely to convert than those going to bigger rivals.

The insight: This is a very competitive sector online with lots of smaller players advertising on price to draw business away from the chains. The business that listens to customers and uses this to inform its approach to change and development of its e-commerce execution is the business that will do best under these circumstances and is more likely to protect its margins.

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