December 16, 2025 • 28 mins
We chart the rebound of jewelry e‑commerce in 2025, why average order value climbed, and how Cyber Monday pulled ahead of Black Friday online. We share two winning models, volume vs high ticket, and a practical plan to hit $50k–$100k next year.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:01):
Welcome to In the Loop.
What is up everybody?
My name is Michael Burpo.
Thanks again for listening to Inthe Loop.
This week it is my final episodeof season six, uh, other than
the wrap-up episode, which willbe next week.
Uh, this episode I wanted totalk about how e-commerce is
(00:22):
doing in the jewelry industry aslike a little update, and also
to talk about Black Friday andCyber Monday.
It's something that we paid alot of attention to, and the
results were really interestingthis year.
In case you didn't know, there'sa huge boom in e-commerce for
the jewelry industry and prettymuch all industries in 2021 and
2020 as a result of thepandemic.
(00:43):
And then things continued beingreally high in 20, you know, 21,
22, and then had a big cool-offin 23.
And I didn't know if it wasgonna come back or not, but 24
it grew compared to 23.
And now 25, it seems like iskind of back to on par with what
we are seeing during thepandemic.
I think that's a reallyencouraging sign, but I wanted
(01:05):
to dive into the analytics alittle bit because Punchmark, we
only do websites for the jewelryindustry, and it allows me to
have a very hyper-focused dataset that I can share with you
all.
So if you want to learn a littlebit about how e-commerce is
doing in the jewelry industryfor 2025, listen on.
Thanks.
SPEAKER_00 (01:30):
This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the
jewelry industry's favoritewebsite platform and digital
growth agency.
Our mission reaches way beyondtechnology.
With decades of experience andlong-lasting industry
relationships, Punchmark enablesjewelry businesses to flourish
in any marketplace.
We consider our clients ourfriends, as many of them have
(01:51):
been friends way before becomingclients.
Punchmark's own success comesfrom the fact that we have a
much deeper need and obligationto help our friends succeed.
Whether you're looking forbetter e-commerce performance,
business growth, or campaignsthat drive traffic and sales,
PunchMark's website andmarketing services were made
just for you.
It's never too late to transformyour business and stitch
(02:13):
together your digital andphysical worlds in a way that
achieves tremendous growth andresults.
Schedule a guided demo today atpunchmark.com slash go.
And now back to the show.
SPEAKER_01 (02:31):
Okay, so I wanted to start this off and talk a little
bit about how e-commerce isdoing as a whole, and I think
that the best way to do that iscomparing 2025 to 24 and 23.
Uh, 25 is having a very strongperformance.
It's just about every singlemonth is performing year over
(02:54):
year stronger uh than 24.
Uh, what I do when I have thislittle kind of chart to kind of
give you an insight on how I getmy data, uh, I get this report
sent to me from our platform,and I get it every month, like
three days after the month ends,and it shows the entire month's
(03:15):
performance.
And I have a whole bunch ofspreadsheets in this um one kind
of system where I import it andI can compare it to historical
data.
And since I've been doing thisfor about four and a half years
now, I have a pretty decent uhkind of standardized, normalized
data set that I can start todraw some inferences from.
I'll share some kind ofextrapolations uh at the end,
(03:38):
but for the long the short of itis that I'm using data that is
pulled from the e-commerceperformance in uh for all
Punchmark clients.
This can be skewed a little bitbecause sometimes if we have a
client that we sign up and theyare just really heavy
e-commerce, well, that client isgoing to obviously pull the
(03:59):
e-commerce performance upsometimes.
But sometimes we have a clientthat is doing really well and
they retire or they move on to adifferent platform, and that
could pull the performance down.
But since we have so many comein and we have some go, we kind
of consider it normalized.
Sometimes Brian says, Oh, weshould uh normalize it for only
(04:19):
clients that consistently are ineach data set, you know, like
the consistent 400 clients thatwe've had over the course of the
last four years.
Um, it's just it's not somethingI have access to.
So I'm just giving you the datathat I have.
Okay, so one thing that's ofnote is like I said, I compare
(04:40):
month to month, year over year.
So for example, I compare May2025 to May 2024 sometimes.
And what I am seeing is thateach month individually has
overperformed 2024 uh by about,man, looks like 25 to 50 in
(05:01):
certain uh circumstances.
This is the only example that isnot true is March 2025, which
was off almost 50% compared to2024.
In looking at that, I can'treally see why that is.
Fewer clients made sales thatmonth, uh, there were fewer
(05:22):
number of sales, and the averageorder value was low.
Um, I sometimes wonder why it isum, you know, why these kind of
things happen.
I can guess, you know, sometimesit has to do with larger um
circumstances.
So, like, you know, maybe therewas something weird with the you
(05:43):
know economy, or they loweredrates, or they increased
mortgage rates, or somethinglike that.
So sometimes that spooks peopleand they don't buy jewelry um or
they buy it in-store, you know,maybe people were having more
in-store moments.
But with that being said, uhother months that really stood
out to me is that our um May2025 overperformed May 2024 by
(06:08):
about 50.
So that's really impressive, butit continued um June
overperformed 20, and then July32% up, August 11% up, September
24% up, and October 39% up, andjust recently, November 25% up.
(06:32):
So this is compared to lastmonth, and like I had been
saying, 23 was a very poor yearfor e-commerce, 24 improved, and
25 is improving on top of that.
But if we were to even compareit uh to those strong years 2021
and 22, you can actually seeit's tracking more along those
(06:52):
lines, and you're seeing it morein those middle months.
Um, I think that May, June, Julyreally um exceeded our
expectations.
What we're seeing, the reasonfor this being is there is a
lower or average monthly numberof sales, and we're seeing a
much higher average order value.
(07:14):
So for example, we call thatAOV.
The AOV uh for this entire yearhas been five hundred and forty
dollars and ninety cents.
But if we look at just since uhJune, so we're looking at the
second half of the year, the AOVis uh six hundred and ten
(07:34):
dollars.
So we'll just say for the secondhalf of the you know, half two
of 2025, we're seeing that theAOV is six hundred and ten
dollars.
Stay with me, I know that thisgets a little bit difficult.
For half two of 2024, it was$445.
(07:56):
So we're seeing a, what is that,like a 30% jump or so?
And right there is kind ofthat's the whole story.
I think that the reason for thisbeing why do we see AOV jumping
up but uh sales kind of stayingthe same, is I think that it has
to do with the cost of of youknow precious metals, especially
(08:16):
gold.
Um, if you know you want a pairof earrings and you know you
like this certain pair ofearrings, instead of it being
$500, this year they're$700.
And that is just that's just theprice.
And as a result, it's reallypulling up the average order
value.
So what am I kind of inferringfrom that is that I think it's
(08:40):
actually better increasingly tojust sell um quantity.
And what uh you know, that'seasy for me to say, hey, just
sell a lot of stuff.
Um, I'm seeing that it well, weused to have a lot of clients,
they would sell fewer items, butwhen they would sell an item, it
would be like a watch or it'd bea you know, a diamond ring or
(09:03):
diamond earrings, and that wasreally kind of ballooning, so
they'd have like 10 sales on theyear, but the average order
value for them was like into twoor three thousand dollars.
So like they do pretty decentwhen it came to like e-commerce,
but it was there's only so manyum sales.
And for that, I find that to bea little bit inconsistent
(09:24):
because the difference betweenmaking nine sales and making 10
sales is so you know drasticallydifferent when it comes to like
your bottom line.
But when you start comparing uhsome of our clients, I'm just
gonna look at this one inparticular.
Uh, we have this one client whois on track to sell, yes.
(09:45):
Um, you know, they're alreadyover 500 sales in just 2025.
Um, is 500 sales like impressiveif it's just your your entire
business?
I don't know.
I I I guess I don't know enoughabout in-store sales to really
kind of know.
And I and I imagine that a lotof stores, you know, maybe do
(10:07):
that in in one month.
But when it comes to your onlinepresence, it's very, I find it
very impressive that they wereable to convert nearly 500 times
and it's only November.
So if this client continues theway that they are at the pace
that they're going, they'regoing to be at close to 600
sales for the year.
But what's really interesting isthat their average order value
(10:28):
is like very low.
I think I think right around200.
And remember, I said that theaverage order value for the
second half of this year was$610.
So they're nearly, you know, atonly 25 or 30% of the average
order value.
But for them, it seems to work.
And when I dive into their salesa little bit more, I'm seeing a
(10:49):
lot of Pandora Charms, a lot ofRembrandt Charms, a lot of um
just kind of lower price pointitems.
So that is one strategy, butright next to them, I'm also
seeing a uh a client that is uhthey do really well, also.
For example, this one client has86 sales for uh just about
(11:14):
200,000.
And what's fascinating is thatmeans that that client is making
fewer sales, but is uh sellingyou know really expensive items.
So two different strategies.
If you're gonna do those moreexpensive ones, I highly
recommend that you have sometype of financing.
And I highly recommend that youuh have some type of fraud
(11:35):
protection.
Again, the impact of one salegoing awry is much more
impactful than the client thatis on track for 600 being able
to, you know, if they lose outon a$200 uh charm, it's less
impactful than a$3,000 ring, forexample.
But the other thing that we'reseeing is more clients are
(11:57):
making just some sales.
So one of the data points Itrack is clients with at least
one sale.
And every year it goes up.
Again, I don't want to kind ofmisinterpret this and sell you
something that's not true ortell you something that's not
true.
Uh, we are adding more clients.
So theoretically, the clientswith at least one sale number
(12:20):
should be increasing, but it isincreasing at a rate that is far
exceeding our adding newclients.
So, what I'm seeing is that moreclients are making some sales in
those middle months.
And I think that the story hereis less about November and
(12:41):
December.
And I this is mean of me to say,but I always joke that you could
just close your eyes as ajewelry store and like sell, you
know, some jewelry uh duringNovember and December because
people will need to buyChristmas presents um or holiday
presents.
And for us, I'm looking more atlike when can people sell?
(13:01):
Like, what do sales in May looklike?
Our May this year was veryimpressive, and I think it's
just because more clients uhwere just getting out there, and
maybe they're buying into SEOand their websites are uh
tracking better or theirproducts are looking better, or
things are more curated.
(13:22):
Um, we're seeing that just morepeople are being uh consistent
in those off months.
Of course, I mean we're about tosee um the two biggest months
coming up.
I mean, November.
We just had a a pretty goodNovember.
It was very strong compared tothe last two years, uh, but
average when you compare it tothose, you know, those big three
(13:45):
years.
So it came in right around themiddle, and that's really
impressive.
But the important part wasSeptember and October were just
absolutely ridiculously good.
Um, October in particular, it onsome instances um outperformed
previous years by almost double.
Uh, December, I'm a little bithesitant.
(14:07):
Uh, the reason why I'm a littlebit hesitant is because I think
more and more sales are shiftingwhen it comes to you know the
holiday season are shifting toin-store.
So I do think that you're goingto see more people coming into
your store to buy maybe theirshopping online and then going
in.
Uh, a big reason for that Ithink is the cost of shipping.
(14:28):
I think if I was to um be tryingto kill it at e-commerce,
something I might consider isdoing more free shipping options
because then it gets people notin your store.
Um, which I don't know, is thata good thing?
Is that a bad thing?
There's less opportunities forupsells, but if you have a
(14:48):
really efficient um likeprocessing system for sales, I
uh for online sales, I do thinkthat kind of going into the free
shipping kind of field mightactually be, you know, a benefit
to you because maybe you'regetting people from out of town.
Or if you know, on uh theSaturday before the holidays or
(15:12):
you know, right now I'mrecording this on December 10th.
Um, right now it's dumping snowin upstate New York.
And I'm not driving to the nexttown over to shop.
But if there's free shipping,you know, maybe I would just buy
it online, just have them shipit to me.
It'll get here next week,anyways.
And like, what's the differencebetween me holding it in my hand
(15:32):
and getting it in the mail?
To me, it's like, well, if Idon't have to drive in the
middle of a snowstorm, um, youknow, we're kind of we're good.
So that's kind of where I wantto at least kind of put a pin in
the discussion about the yearover year sales.
I want to shift into talkingabout Black Friday Cyber Monday
(15:53):
sales because increasingly, ohnot increasingly, but it's a big
deal for us.
We've been paying attention toit, and Brian was kind enough to
uh do a uh data poll for me andgive me this um set of data for
Black Friday transaction count,the number of sales, and the max
(16:15):
transactions, as well as thesame set of data compared to
Cyber Monday.
Um, so again, Black Friday, dayafter Thanksgiving, Cyber
Monday, the Monday afterThanksgiving.
So you probably are thinking,obviously, Cyber Monday is going
to be much more e-commerceheavy.
Uh, you would be right.
(16:35):
That is how it should trend, butin years past, we actually saw
more e-commerce in 2020, 2021,and 2022.
We saw more e-commerce uhtransactions on Black Friday
than we did on Cyber Monday.
Side note, I think that CyberMonday was like kind of a are
(16:56):
there too many days?
Like, are there too many?
Like, there's you know, BlackoutWednesday, and then there's
Thanksgiving, and then there'sBlack Friday, and then there's
Small Business Saturday, andthen there's uh Cyber Monday.
I'm like, okay, do we got toomany of these?
Like, also, what is Sunday?
How come Sunday isn't on there?
I guess it's like Hop and Shop,that's what my town did, but um,
(17:17):
we saw this big boom in 2020,21, and 2022 uh for both Cyber
Monday, Black Friday.
Um, they were really crushing.
We saw the number oftransactions really skyrocket.
It they peaked in 2020 and in uhalmost exactly the same in 2021,
(17:38):
but they fell right off a cliffin 2023.
I sometimes was a little bithesitant to talk about this
because I'm like, ah, like, didwe do something wrong?
Did we break something?
Um, I think that there was justa cool-off and like kind of a
re-romanticization of the thein-store experience in 2023.
(18:00):
I myself, like, I went to a lotof restaurants because I was
like, oh my gosh, like I don'thave the DoorDash food anymore.
And I think that a lot ofshoppers were doing that too.
But what's really interesting isthat since 23 we've seen a
growth in 24 and now in 25.
Um, it's pretty significant.
It's I wouldn't say it'sdoubling, but in some instances
(18:22):
it Cyber Monday um the salesdoubled year over year, uh, two
years in a row.
So we went from yeah, just aboutactually tripled from 23 to 24
and then doubled from 24 to 25.
But at the same time, it's notnecessarily uh doubling like
(18:43):
that in Cyber Monday.
It's kind of a little bit moreum uh conservative, but it's
definitely up and to the rightfor both of those.
I think that in 2026, I'llprobably do this episode again,
and I would love to talk aboutlike what changed, but I really
am seeing that the change in uhshopper dynamic is a little bit
(19:05):
more hmm, like considered.
I don't know if that's the rightterm.
It's like people are approachingthis less as like a must do, but
more of like a I prefer this.
So the shoppers that likeshopping online are shopping
online as opposed to um, youknow, during the pandemic,
everybody was like, I have to dothis kind of thing.
(19:28):
So I think if I was to make aprediction, I think that uh
Cyber Monday is just going toincrease.
And I think that gold prices,man, are just continuing to go
through the roof as inflationcontinues to go crazy and uh the
US dollar is sometimes a littlebit shaky.
(19:48):
Uh, I'm not an economic expert,so don't don't hold that against
me.
I am expecting the price of goldto continue to go up, and if I
was um predicting, man, I wouldprobably.
Predict that the average ordervalue that we're seeing on our
platform to also continue to goup.
Uh, I I think that's a pretty uhsafe estimate.
(20:10):
I wouldn't be surprised if theaverage order value is in the
650s or maybe even a 700 umaverage order value uh next next
year.
That is purely just buoyed tothe fact that um you know gold
if if it's if it doubles again,man, I would hate for that to
happen, but if gold doublesagain, well, suddenly, you know,
(20:34):
whatever they buy, they'reeither gonna have to buy less
gold or it's probably gonna bedouble the price, you know.
Because I if there's one thing Iknow about jewelers, it's like
you're kind of um reliant on theprice of gold to know what you
should be pricing things.
I mean, that's what vendors do,right?
So I think as it starts to trackupwards, I think you're gonna
(20:54):
just see the average ordervalue.
We're seeing it, it's kind ofinteresting.
It sort of like did this um, youknow, upward trajectory for a
couple years.
It really dipped.
As I think, personally, I think2023 the result was because of
um the lab grown diamond ofprices going down so much, and
suddenly there was like a raceto the bottom, and people were
(21:17):
buying.
I'm looking at the monthlynumber of sales, and the monthly
number of sales are pretty muchthe same when it came to 23 and
24, uh, a little bit better in24, but the average order value
is like you know,$100 offcomparatively, and that went
down further um throughout theyear in 23.
(21:40):
And why I think that the resultof that, it's just the lab grown
diamonds got like even more uminexpensive, and it just results
in lower average order value.
So, how can you capitalize onthis?
I think I've said this before,and I think I'm gonna beat this
drum a little bit more.
This is gonna be my mantra.
I genuinely believe that uh theway to get things going on
(22:05):
e-commerce is let's put somecharms on your website and put
some reasonable prices for youruh gold jewelry and make sure
that they're updated regularly,maybe to your point of sale
system.
Um, making sure that you havesome lower price point items.
People love, I think the bestlanding page you can have on
(22:27):
your website is um shop productsless than you know 150 and
having that as a link in yournavigation.
People love that.
Go on there, they shop through,they see what's under$150
because sometimes I open up ajewelry website and it's like
the first you know, 50 productsare like over$3,000.
(22:48):
And I'm like, I can't, I'm justnot in this market.
And maybe this website isn't forme.
But if it allows me to shop forcheaper stuff, well, I'll stick
around.
I'll I'll see if I can find adeal.
I'm seeing that with charms, andlike I mentioned with that one
client, um, they're justconsistently making 70 sales, 80
(23:08):
sales a month, which is, youknow, that's nothing to sniff
at.
Their average order value islike in the 200s, but I would be
surprised if they if that's notreally kind of affecting their
their sales process.
We have a bunch of clients thatare just selling a lot of um
skinny gold chains and just uhcharms and silver earrings and
(23:30):
stuff like that.
Everybody wants to sell anengagement ring online.
Like I get that.
And I just think that there isless opportunity for it.
I think there's a lot of thingsgoing against you to sell the
engagement ring online, withlike, you know, a certain
percentage of people want tohave that in-store experience.
But I think that that statement,a certain number of people want
(23:53):
an in-store experience, is lesstrue when it comes to, you know,
huggy earrings, huggy goldearrings, you know.
So if you have those on thereand they're, you know, 300
bucks, I think that it's morelikely that someone is going to
check out on them.
And having those front andcenter is a decent option.
Okay, what am I expecting?
We're seeing more clients on ourplatform um getting over this uh
(24:18):
100k mark.
I think that if you get over50k, you're doing something
right, 50k in a year.
I think that 50k is a reallyreasonable target.
Uh, I think if you're, or Iguess 48k, that means you're
doing um$2,000 uh a month insales.
I think that is a very withinreach uh goal for every jeweler,
(24:41):
just about.
But then I think that the nextone is 100k, and we're gonna
have more clients than everbefore reach over 100k.
Uh so that's really exciting.
We, you know, used to want tohave, I used to want to have a
client do like, you know,millions online because I
thought that would be so fun.
But I think it's more about howcan we make it so that more
(25:04):
jewelers are selling a verysubstantial amount as opposed to
having like a few jewelersreally crushing it, buoying our
um our sales numbers up.
And I think that if if I wasyou, when you go to start
thinking about your business, Imight consider just setting
yourself an e-commerce goal too,and checking in with yourself
(25:24):
every every quarter.
Um, you gotta remember Q1 isalways a little bit slow when it
comes to e-commerce.
Q2 should improve, then three,then four.
I would probably say if you'venever really made e-commerce a
focus, I might consider makinguh 50k um in in e-commerce sales
(25:44):
for next year your goal.
I think that's a prettyreasonable one.
If it's not 50k, I I mean youknow your business better than I
do.
But I also, if if you've alreadydone 50k, maybe set 100k is your
goal.
You can't get to 100k or 50kwithout having a pretty ironed
out process for dealing withonline orders.
As an online order comes in, youkind of gotta, you know, who's
(26:07):
going to go into the case andpick out the product, who's
gonna put it in your box and getready for shipping and print the
shipping label.
Who's going to do that?
You have to have that figuredout in order to get to that
point because otherwise it'sjust gonna be a nuisance and
you're essentially losing moneyon it.
Okay, so the TLDR 2025, verystrong for e-commerce, the best
(26:28):
one in the last uh two years orthree years.
And I'm predicting 2026 to beeven better.
I'm predicting 2026 to have ahigher average order value than
even 2025.
I think we're gonna start seeingit press towards the 650, maybe
even 700 area, purely based onthe price of gold.
(26:49):
If the price of gold continuesto go up, which it seems like I
don't see any reason for it notto, I guess.
And I think that Black Friday,Cyber Monday, I think Cyber
Monday is going to continue togrow in popularity compared to
Black Friday, and I think we'regoing to see more clients doing
pretty well.
(27:09):
Uh, those are all mypredictions.
I'll check in with you guys inabout one year, and we'll do
this exact same episode and I'llprobably talk about it again.
All right.
Thanks everybody.
Next week is the final wrap-upepisode with the best of the
rest, and uh I hope you enjoy.
I'll talk to y'all in the newyear.
Cheers.
Bye.
(27:35):
Alright, everybody, that's theend of the show.
Thanks so much for listening.
This episode was brought to youby Punchmark and produced and
hosted by me, Michael Burpo.
This episode was edited by PaulSuarez with music by Ross
Cocker.
Don't forget to rate the podcaston Spotify and Apple Podcasts
and leave us feedback onpunchmark.com slash loop.
That's L-O-U-P-E.
(27:56):
Thanks, and we'll be back nextweek with the last episode of
the season.
Best of the rest.
Alright.
Cheers, everybody.
Bye.
Welcome to In the Loop.
What is up everybody?
My name is Michael Burpo.
Thanks again for listening to Inthe Loop.
This week it is my final episodeof season six, uh, other than
the wrap-up episode, which willbe next week.
Uh, this episode I wanted totalk about how e-commerce is
(00:22):
doing in the jewelry industry aslike a little update, and also
to talk about Black Friday andCyber Monday.
It's something that we paid alot of attention to, and the
results were really interestingthis year.
In case you didn't know, there'sa huge boom in e-commerce for
the jewelry industry and prettymuch all industries in 2021 and
2020 as a result of thepandemic.
(00:43):
And then things continued beingreally high in 20, you know, 21,
22, and then had a big cool-offin 23.
And I didn't know if it wasgonna come back or not, but 24
it grew compared to 23.
And now 25, it seems like iskind of back to on par with what
we are seeing during thepandemic.
I think that's a reallyencouraging sign, but I wanted
(01:05):
to dive into the analytics alittle bit because Punchmark, we
only do websites for the jewelryindustry, and it allows me to
have a very hyper-focused dataset that I can share with you
all.
So if you want to learn a littlebit about how e-commerce is
doing in the jewelry industryfor 2025, listen on.
Thanks.
SPEAKER_00 (01:30):
This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the
jewelry industry's favoritewebsite platform and digital
growth agency.
Our mission reaches way beyondtechnology.
With decades of experience andlong-lasting industry
relationships, Punchmark enablesjewelry businesses to flourish
in any marketplace.
We consider our clients ourfriends, as many of them have
(01:51):
been friends way before becomingclients.
Punchmark's own success comesfrom the fact that we have a
much deeper need and obligationto help our friends succeed.
Whether you're looking forbetter e-commerce performance,
business growth, or campaignsthat drive traffic and sales,
PunchMark's website andmarketing services were made
just for you.
It's never too late to transformyour business and stitch
(02:13):
together your digital andphysical worlds in a way that
achieves tremendous growth andresults.
Schedule a guided demo today atpunchmark.com slash go.
And now back to the show.
SPEAKER_01 (02:31):
Okay, so I wanted to start this off and talk a little
bit about how e-commerce isdoing as a whole, and I think
that the best way to do that iscomparing 2025 to 24 and 23.
Uh, 25 is having a very strongperformance.
It's just about every singlemonth is performing year over
(02:54):
year stronger uh than 24.
Uh, what I do when I have thislittle kind of chart to kind of
give you an insight on how I getmy data, uh, I get this report
sent to me from our platform,and I get it every month, like
three days after the month ends,and it shows the entire month's
(03:15):
performance.
And I have a whole bunch ofspreadsheets in this um one kind
of system where I import it andI can compare it to historical
data.
And since I've been doing thisfor about four and a half years
now, I have a pretty decent uhkind of standardized, normalized
data set that I can start todraw some inferences from.
I'll share some kind ofextrapolations uh at the end,
(03:38):
but for the long the short of itis that I'm using data that is
pulled from the e-commerceperformance in uh for all
Punchmark clients.
This can be skewed a little bitbecause sometimes if we have a
client that we sign up and theyare just really heavy
e-commerce, well, that client isgoing to obviously pull the
(03:59):
e-commerce performance upsometimes.
But sometimes we have a clientthat is doing really well and
they retire or they move on to adifferent platform, and that
could pull the performance down.
But since we have so many comein and we have some go, we kind
of consider it normalized.
Sometimes Brian says, Oh, weshould uh normalize it for only
(04:19):
clients that consistently are ineach data set, you know, like
the consistent 400 clients thatwe've had over the course of the
last four years.
Um, it's just it's not somethingI have access to.
So I'm just giving you the datathat I have.
Okay, so one thing that's ofnote is like I said, I compare
(04:40):
month to month, year over year.
So for example, I compare May2025 to May 2024 sometimes.
And what I am seeing is thateach month individually has
overperformed 2024 uh by about,man, looks like 25 to 50 in
(05:01):
certain uh circumstances.
This is the only example that isnot true is March 2025, which
was off almost 50% compared to2024.
In looking at that, I can'treally see why that is.
Fewer clients made sales thatmonth, uh, there were fewer
(05:22):
number of sales, and the averageorder value was low.
Um, I sometimes wonder why it isum, you know, why these kind of
things happen.
I can guess, you know, sometimesit has to do with larger um
circumstances.
So, like, you know, maybe therewas something weird with the you
(05:43):
know economy, or they loweredrates, or they increased
mortgage rates, or somethinglike that.
So sometimes that spooks peopleand they don't buy jewelry um or
they buy it in-store, you know,maybe people were having more
in-store moments.
But with that being said, uhother months that really stood
out to me is that our um May2025 overperformed May 2024 by
(06:08):
about 50.
So that's really impressive, butit continued um June
overperformed 20, and then July32% up, August 11% up, September
24% up, and October 39% up, andjust recently, November 25% up.
(06:32):
So this is compared to lastmonth, and like I had been
saying, 23 was a very poor yearfor e-commerce, 24 improved, and
25 is improving on top of that.
But if we were to even compareit uh to those strong years 2021
and 22, you can actually seeit's tracking more along those
(06:52):
lines, and you're seeing it morein those middle months.
Um, I think that May, June, Julyreally um exceeded our
expectations.
What we're seeing, the reasonfor this being is there is a
lower or average monthly numberof sales, and we're seeing a
much higher average order value.
(07:14):
So for example, we call thatAOV.
The AOV uh for this entire yearhas been five hundred and forty
dollars and ninety cents.
But if we look at just since uhJune, so we're looking at the
second half of the year, the AOVis uh six hundred and ten
(07:34):
dollars.
So we'll just say for the secondhalf of the you know, half two
of 2025, we're seeing that theAOV is six hundred and ten
dollars.
Stay with me, I know that thisgets a little bit difficult.
For half two of 2024, it was$445.
(07:56):
So we're seeing a, what is that,like a 30% jump or so?
And right there is kind ofthat's the whole story.
I think that the reason for thisbeing why do we see AOV jumping
up but uh sales kind of stayingthe same, is I think that it has
to do with the cost of of youknow precious metals, especially
(08:16):
gold.
Um, if you know you want a pairof earrings and you know you
like this certain pair ofearrings, instead of it being
$500, this year they're$700.
And that is just that's just theprice.
And as a result, it's reallypulling up the average order
value.
So what am I kind of inferringfrom that is that I think it's
(08:40):
actually better increasingly tojust sell um quantity.
And what uh you know, that'seasy for me to say, hey, just
sell a lot of stuff.
Um, I'm seeing that it well, weused to have a lot of clients,
they would sell fewer items, butwhen they would sell an item, it
would be like a watch or it'd bea you know, a diamond ring or
(09:03):
diamond earrings, and that wasreally kind of ballooning, so
they'd have like 10 sales on theyear, but the average order
value for them was like into twoor three thousand dollars.
So like they do pretty decentwhen it came to like e-commerce,
but it was there's only so manyum sales.
And for that, I find that to bea little bit inconsistent
(09:24):
because the difference betweenmaking nine sales and making 10
sales is so you know drasticallydifferent when it comes to like
your bottom line.
But when you start comparing uhsome of our clients, I'm just
gonna look at this one inparticular.
Uh, we have this one client whois on track to sell, yes.
(09:45):
Um, you know, they're alreadyover 500 sales in just 2025.
Um, is 500 sales like impressiveif it's just your your entire
business?
I don't know.
I I I guess I don't know enoughabout in-store sales to really
kind of know.
And I and I imagine that a lotof stores, you know, maybe do
(10:07):
that in in one month.
But when it comes to your onlinepresence, it's very, I find it
very impressive that they wereable to convert nearly 500 times
and it's only November.
So if this client continues theway that they are at the pace
that they're going, they'regoing to be at close to 600
sales for the year.
But what's really interesting isthat their average order value
(10:28):
is like very low.
I think I think right around200.
And remember, I said that theaverage order value for the
second half of this year was$610.
So they're nearly, you know, atonly 25 or 30% of the average
order value.
But for them, it seems to work.
And when I dive into their salesa little bit more, I'm seeing a
(10:49):
lot of Pandora Charms, a lot ofRembrandt Charms, a lot of um
just kind of lower price pointitems.
So that is one strategy, butright next to them, I'm also
seeing a uh a client that is uhthey do really well, also.
For example, this one client has86 sales for uh just about
(11:14):
200,000.
And what's fascinating is thatmeans that that client is making
fewer sales, but is uh sellingyou know really expensive items.
So two different strategies.
If you're gonna do those moreexpensive ones, I highly
recommend that you have sometype of financing.
And I highly recommend that youuh have some type of fraud
(11:35):
protection.
Again, the impact of one salegoing awry is much more
impactful than the client thatis on track for 600 being able
to, you know, if they lose outon a$200 uh charm, it's less
impactful than a$3,000 ring, forexample.
But the other thing that we'reseeing is more clients are
(11:57):
making just some sales.
So one of the data points Itrack is clients with at least
one sale.
And every year it goes up.
Again, I don't want to kind ofmisinterpret this and sell you
something that's not true ortell you something that's not
true.
Uh, we are adding more clients.
So theoretically, the clientswith at least one sale number
(12:20):
should be increasing, but it isincreasing at a rate that is far
exceeding our adding newclients.
So, what I'm seeing is that moreclients are making some sales in
those middle months.
And I think that the story hereis less about November and
(12:41):
December.
And I this is mean of me to say,but I always joke that you could
just close your eyes as ajewelry store and like sell, you
know, some jewelry uh duringNovember and December because
people will need to buyChristmas presents um or holiday
presents.
And for us, I'm looking more atlike when can people sell?
(13:01):
Like, what do sales in May looklike?
Our May this year was veryimpressive, and I think it's
just because more clients uhwere just getting out there, and
maybe they're buying into SEOand their websites are uh
tracking better or theirproducts are looking better, or
things are more curated.
(13:22):
Um, we're seeing that just morepeople are being uh consistent
in those off months.
Of course, I mean we're about tosee um the two biggest months
coming up.
I mean, November.
We just had a a pretty goodNovember.
It was very strong compared tothe last two years, uh, but
average when you compare it tothose, you know, those big three
(13:45):
years.
So it came in right around themiddle, and that's really
impressive.
But the important part wasSeptember and October were just
absolutely ridiculously good.
Um, October in particular, it onsome instances um outperformed
previous years by almost double.
Uh, December, I'm a little bithesitant.
(14:07):
Uh, the reason why I'm a littlebit hesitant is because I think
more and more sales are shiftingwhen it comes to you know the
holiday season are shifting toin-store.
So I do think that you're goingto see more people coming into
your store to buy maybe theirshopping online and then going
in.
Uh, a big reason for that Ithink is the cost of shipping.
(14:28):
I think if I was to um be tryingto kill it at e-commerce,
something I might consider isdoing more free shipping options
because then it gets people notin your store.
Um, which I don't know, is thata good thing?
Is that a bad thing?
There's less opportunities forupsells, but if you have a
(14:48):
really efficient um likeprocessing system for sales, I
uh for online sales, I do thinkthat kind of going into the free
shipping kind of field mightactually be, you know, a benefit
to you because maybe you'regetting people from out of town.
Or if you know, on uh theSaturday before the holidays or
(15:12):
you know, right now I'mrecording this on December 10th.
Um, right now it's dumping snowin upstate New York.
And I'm not driving to the nexttown over to shop.
But if there's free shipping,you know, maybe I would just buy
it online, just have them shipit to me.
It'll get here next week,anyways.
And like, what's the differencebetween me holding it in my hand
(15:32):
and getting it in the mail?
To me, it's like, well, if Idon't have to drive in the
middle of a snowstorm, um, youknow, we're kind of we're good.
So that's kind of where I wantto at least kind of put a pin in
the discussion about the yearover year sales.
I want to shift into talkingabout Black Friday Cyber Monday
(15:53):
sales because increasingly, ohnot increasingly, but it's a big
deal for us.
We've been paying attention toit, and Brian was kind enough to
uh do a uh data poll for me andgive me this um set of data for
Black Friday transaction count,the number of sales, and the max
(16:15):
transactions, as well as thesame set of data compared to
Cyber Monday.
Um, so again, Black Friday, dayafter Thanksgiving, Cyber
Monday, the Monday afterThanksgiving.
So you probably are thinking,obviously, Cyber Monday is going
to be much more e-commerceheavy.
Uh, you would be right.
(16:35):
That is how it should trend, butin years past, we actually saw
more e-commerce in 2020, 2021,and 2022.
We saw more e-commerce uhtransactions on Black Friday
than we did on Cyber Monday.
Side note, I think that CyberMonday was like kind of a are
(16:56):
there too many days?
Like, are there too many?
Like, there's you know, BlackoutWednesday, and then there's
Thanksgiving, and then there'sBlack Friday, and then there's
Small Business Saturday, andthen there's uh Cyber Monday.
I'm like, okay, do we got toomany of these?
Like, also, what is Sunday?
How come Sunday isn't on there?
I guess it's like Hop and Shop,that's what my town did, but um,
(17:17):
we saw this big boom in 2020,21, and 2022 uh for both Cyber
Monday, Black Friday.
Um, they were really crushing.
We saw the number oftransactions really skyrocket.
It they peaked in 2020 and in uhalmost exactly the same in 2021,
(17:38):
but they fell right off a cliffin 2023.
I sometimes was a little bithesitant to talk about this
because I'm like, ah, like, didwe do something wrong?
Did we break something?
Um, I think that there was justa cool-off and like kind of a
re-romanticization of the thein-store experience in 2023.
(18:00):
I myself, like, I went to a lotof restaurants because I was
like, oh my gosh, like I don'thave the DoorDash food anymore.
And I think that a lot ofshoppers were doing that too.
But what's really interesting isthat since 23 we've seen a
growth in 24 and now in 25.
Um, it's pretty significant.
It's I wouldn't say it'sdoubling, but in some instances
(18:22):
it Cyber Monday um the salesdoubled year over year, uh, two
years in a row.
So we went from yeah, just aboutactually tripled from 23 to 24
and then doubled from 24 to 25.
But at the same time, it's notnecessarily uh doubling like
(18:43):
that in Cyber Monday.
It's kind of a little bit moreum uh conservative, but it's
definitely up and to the rightfor both of those.
I think that in 2026, I'llprobably do this episode again,
and I would love to talk aboutlike what changed, but I really
am seeing that the change in uhshopper dynamic is a little bit
(19:05):
more hmm, like considered.
I don't know if that's the rightterm.
It's like people are approachingthis less as like a must do, but
more of like a I prefer this.
So the shoppers that likeshopping online are shopping
online as opposed to um, youknow, during the pandemic,
everybody was like, I have to dothis kind of thing.
(19:28):
So I think if I was to make aprediction, I think that uh
Cyber Monday is just going toincrease.
And I think that gold prices,man, are just continuing to go
through the roof as inflationcontinues to go crazy and uh the
US dollar is sometimes a littlebit shaky.
(19:48):
Uh, I'm not an economic expert,so don't don't hold that against
me.
I am expecting the price of goldto continue to go up, and if I
was um predicting, man, I wouldprobably.
Predict that the average ordervalue that we're seeing on our
platform to also continue to goup.
Uh, I I think that's a pretty uhsafe estimate.
(20:10):
I wouldn't be surprised if theaverage order value is in the
650s or maybe even a 700 umaverage order value uh next next
year.
That is purely just buoyed tothe fact that um you know gold
if if it's if it doubles again,man, I would hate for that to
happen, but if gold doublesagain, well, suddenly, you know,
(20:34):
whatever they buy, they'reeither gonna have to buy less
gold or it's probably gonna bedouble the price, you know.
Because I if there's one thing Iknow about jewelers, it's like
you're kind of um reliant on theprice of gold to know what you
should be pricing things.
I mean, that's what vendors do,right?
So I think as it starts to trackupwards, I think you're gonna
(20:54):
just see the average ordervalue.
We're seeing it, it's kind ofinteresting.
It sort of like did this um, youknow, upward trajectory for a
couple years.
It really dipped.
As I think, personally, I think2023 the result was because of
um the lab grown diamond ofprices going down so much, and
suddenly there was like a raceto the bottom, and people were
(21:17):
buying.
I'm looking at the monthlynumber of sales, and the monthly
number of sales are pretty muchthe same when it came to 23 and
24, uh, a little bit better in24, but the average order value
is like you know,$100 offcomparatively, and that went
down further um throughout theyear in 23.
(21:40):
And why I think that the resultof that, it's just the lab grown
diamonds got like even more uminexpensive, and it just results
in lower average order value.
So, how can you capitalize onthis?
I think I've said this before,and I think I'm gonna beat this
drum a little bit more.
This is gonna be my mantra.
I genuinely believe that uh theway to get things going on
(22:05):
e-commerce is let's put somecharms on your website and put
some reasonable prices for youruh gold jewelry and make sure
that they're updated regularly,maybe to your point of sale
system.
Um, making sure that you havesome lower price point items.
People love, I think the bestlanding page you can have on
(22:27):
your website is um shop productsless than you know 150 and
having that as a link in yournavigation.
People love that.
Go on there, they shop through,they see what's under$150
because sometimes I open up ajewelry website and it's like
the first you know, 50 productsare like over$3,000.
(22:48):
And I'm like, I can't, I'm justnot in this market.
And maybe this website isn't forme.
But if it allows me to shop forcheaper stuff, well, I'll stick
around.
I'll I'll see if I can find adeal.
I'm seeing that with charms, andlike I mentioned with that one
client, um, they're justconsistently making 70 sales, 80
(23:08):
sales a month, which is, youknow, that's nothing to sniff
at.
Their average order value islike in the 200s, but I would be
surprised if they if that's notreally kind of affecting their
their sales process.
We have a bunch of clients thatare just selling a lot of um
skinny gold chains and just uhcharms and silver earrings and
(23:30):
stuff like that.
Everybody wants to sell anengagement ring online.
Like I get that.
And I just think that there isless opportunity for it.
I think there's a lot of thingsgoing against you to sell the
engagement ring online, withlike, you know, a certain
percentage of people want tohave that in-store experience.
But I think that that statement,a certain number of people want
(23:53):
an in-store experience, is lesstrue when it comes to, you know,
huggy earrings, huggy goldearrings, you know.
So if you have those on thereand they're, you know, 300
bucks, I think that it's morelikely that someone is going to
check out on them.
And having those front andcenter is a decent option.
Okay, what am I expecting?
We're seeing more clients on ourplatform um getting over this uh
(24:18):
100k mark.
I think that if you get over50k, you're doing something
right, 50k in a year.
I think that 50k is a reallyreasonable target.
Uh, I think if you're, or Iguess 48k, that means you're
doing um$2,000 uh a month insales.
I think that is a very withinreach uh goal for every jeweler,
(24:41):
just about.
But then I think that the nextone is 100k, and we're gonna
have more clients than everbefore reach over 100k.
Uh so that's really exciting.
We, you know, used to want tohave, I used to want to have a
client do like, you know,millions online because I
thought that would be so fun.
But I think it's more about howcan we make it so that more
(25:04):
jewelers are selling a verysubstantial amount as opposed to
having like a few jewelersreally crushing it, buoying our
um our sales numbers up.
And I think that if if I wasyou, when you go to start
thinking about your business, Imight consider just setting
yourself an e-commerce goal too,and checking in with yourself
(25:24):
every every quarter.
Um, you gotta remember Q1 isalways a little bit slow when it
comes to e-commerce.
Q2 should improve, then three,then four.
I would probably say if you'venever really made e-commerce a
focus, I might consider makinguh 50k um in in e-commerce sales
(25:44):
for next year your goal.
I think that's a prettyreasonable one.
If it's not 50k, I I mean youknow your business better than I
do.
But I also, if if you've alreadydone 50k, maybe set 100k is your
goal.
You can't get to 100k or 50kwithout having a pretty ironed
out process for dealing withonline orders.
As an online order comes in, youkind of gotta, you know, who's
(26:07):
going to go into the case andpick out the product, who's
gonna put it in your box and getready for shipping and print the
shipping label.
Who's going to do that?
You have to have that figuredout in order to get to that
point because otherwise it'sjust gonna be a nuisance and
you're essentially losing moneyon it.
Okay, so the TLDR 2025, verystrong for e-commerce, the best
(26:28):
one in the last uh two years orthree years.
And I'm predicting 2026 to beeven better.
I'm predicting 2026 to have ahigher average order value than
even 2025.
I think we're gonna start seeingit press towards the 650, maybe
even 700 area, purely based onthe price of gold.
(26:49):
If the price of gold continuesto go up, which it seems like I
don't see any reason for it notto, I guess.
And I think that Black Friday,Cyber Monday, I think Cyber
Monday is going to continue togrow in popularity compared to
Black Friday, and I think we'regoing to see more clients doing
pretty well.
(27:09):
Uh, those are all mypredictions.
I'll check in with you guys inabout one year, and we'll do
this exact same episode and I'llprobably talk about it again.
All right.
Thanks everybody.
Next week is the final wrap-upepisode with the best of the
rest, and uh I hope you enjoy.
I'll talk to y'all in the newyear.
Cheers.
Bye.
(27:35):
Alright, everybody, that's theend of the show.
Thanks so much for listening.
This episode was brought to youby Punchmark and produced and
hosted by me, Michael Burpo.
This episode was edited by PaulSuarez with music by Ross
Cocker.
Don't forget to rate the podcaston Spotify and Apple Podcasts
and leave us feedback onpunchmark.com slash loop.
That's L-O-U-P-E.
(27:56):
Thanks, and we'll be back nextweek with the last episode of
the season.
Best of the rest.
Alright.
Cheers, everybody.
Bye.
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