Mejuri Leverages Real-Time Profitability Data to Inform Decision-Making

Mejuri Leverages Real-Time Profitability Data to Inform Decision-Making

Like many brands dealing with COVID-19, DTC jewelry brand Mejuri was forced to focus intently on its online operations this year. The company decided to invest in technology that would help it harness the power of data to improve its customer insights and the shopper experience.

“At Mejuri, we view data as a strategic asset, especially when it helps us create more compelling customer experiences,” said Majed Masad, COO at Mejuri in an interview with Retail TouchPoints.

The brand deployed a SaaS module from SoundCommerce, dubbed SoundProfit 360, that provides real-time order tracking and shopper-level profitability insights. The ability to track “on the fly” has helped Mejuri reduce the time and effort required to execute operational and financial decisions that benefit its customers.

“With COVID and recent market dynamics, tracking variable costs in real time becomes even more important. We’ve seen swings in our cost of goods sold along with our digital media customer acquisition costs,” said Masad in a statement. “Shopper behavior is also less predictable today, requiring more creative experimentation in merchandising and marketing. SoundCommerce allows us to track the exact impact of these variables on our profitability as we make real-time decisions regarding assortment, promotions, inventory, marketing and fulfillment.”

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Like many retailers, Mejuri acquires and engages its customers from a diverse set of marketing channels, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Google. Mejuri sells through multiple channels, including ecommerce, call center and physical store locations, processing orders for fulfillment across multiple locations and a variety of shipping methods.

“SoundCommerce tracks variable marketing costs, order- and item-specific cost of goods sold (COGS), and variable fulfillment and shipping costs to provide cross-departmental decision makers at Mejuri with real-time insights into gross margin and contribution profit as the business operates,” said Eric Best, Founder and CEO of SoundCommerce in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “One additional output of the SoundProfit 360 module is lifetime contribution profit for each individual shopper that Mejuri engages — updated as new campaigns run, new orders convert and new shipments flow over time. This customer-level profit insight can inform every business decision, from where to acquire the highest value customers to how best to serve them in a retail store and at the residential doorstep.”

SoundProfit 360 offers granular variable revenue and cost accounting of:

Discounts and markdowns;

Cancellations, returns and refunds;

Product and category cost of goods sold, including customization and personalization costs;

Digital marketing campaign costs of acquisition and retention;

Tax;

User credits, gift cards and other stored credit; and

Shipping revenue and cost for each unique order and customer — processed as customers shop and orders flow.

The technology groups variable cost and profitability data by customer in order to track shopper-specific contribution margins to customer lifetime value (CLV). The computations incorporate the net costs of discounts, returns, landed COGS, acquisition and retention marketing spend, and fulfillment and delivery.

“SoundProfit 360 collects and processes revenue and cost data in real time from every system across the enterprise,” explained Best. “It builds a unique profitability waterfall (an accurate profit and loss statement) for every distinct product, order, shipment and customer. It stages this unique data for flexible application against any use case or downstream system where profit can be used as a decisioning input.”

This data then helps brands and retailers like Mejuri to:

Analyze real-time product, order and customer contribution margin and profits;

Act on real-time awareness of COGS and gross profit by product SKU variation, including promotions and markdowns;

Track and allocate digital marketing spend by source, medium and campaign to exact order and customer IDs — with support for flexible and custom attribution modeling; and

Reconcile actual fulfillment and shipping costs to unique orders, shipments and customers.

Mejuri uses the real-time tracking to swiftly, and fluidly, pivot strategies. “A key capability is profit margin impact reporting that takes us beyond revenue analysis [to look at] specific item mix, marketing campaigns and shipping methods at the order level,” said Masad. This granular data also makes it easier for the retailer to analyze its business by channel and international geography.

Retailer Plans to Use Solution Across Multiple Channels

While COVID-19 made Mejuri focus heavily on ecommerce and customer fundamentals this year, its new and existing retail stores are coming back strong, said Masad. “We expect to expand our analysis into areas like cross-channel merchandising promotions performance and inventory (allocation) by channel and location as we move into 2021.”

Mejuri Soars Past 1.4 Million Pieces Sold as It Introduces Higher Price Point

Mejuri’s customer is growing up and looking to brighter days ahead. The direct-to-consumer jeweler noticed an increasing interest for higher-priced pieces in its collection, and has set out to make more luxurious jewelry.

This week, the company launched its most expensive piece of jewelry yet: a diamond rivière tennis necklace set with 1.25 carats that is priced at $4,800, which is double the brand’s previously highest price point. This follows a bracelet of similar design, launched in September, that’s set with 0.5 carats of diamonds and is priced at up to $2,350.

“We have been in business since 2015 and one key thing we’ve been able to establish is a very committed community with around 40 percent repeat customers. Over time we’ve seen customers grow in age and purchasing power and they are ready for us to introduce new price points and products. Last year we decided to expand to higher price points because we saw an appetite for it,” said cofounder and chief executive officer Noura Sakkijha.

She added that this, coupled with cultural changes brought on by the pandemic, have led Mejuri to think deeper into these categories. “I think there is an appetite for customers to buy less things of higher value. This is opening up an opportunity for us to expand more and more. The key difference, for us, is when we introduce these products it’s not to wear it for a special occasion, it’s everyday jewelry to be layered.” Even in its first day on the market, Sakkijha said the necklace was selling better than expected and had already surpassed its weekly sales goal.

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The piece and its success represents a wider opportunity for Mejuri to expand its aesthetic boundaries. “We launched men’s last year and are now going higher in price point so we will have a wider aesthetic to go into. But we will do design under the same ethos: it’s not minimalist, it’s simplistic for everyday. Yellow gold is a primary metal for us, but we do have sterling silver and white gold and will continue to grow that,” said Sakkijha.

Over the pandemic, Mejuri reached a milestone of more than 1.4 million pieces of jewelry sold since its founding. In 2020, the brand surpassed its target revenue by 102 percent and increased revenue by 63 percent. The company’s success points to the larger jewelry category’s popularity during this time, when many women buying themselves fine jewelry pieces throughout the pandemic, with the extra peace of mind that jewelry is a lasting investment.

Mejuri has been at the forefront of the direct-to-consumer jewelry trend. Investor confidence in the company also helped it scale, with Mejuri taking on a $5 million series A in 2018 and a $23 million series B in 2019. This money was used to increase brand awareness through major advertising initiatives (like a television ad that ran at prime time throughout the 2020 holiday season) and to open more brand boutiques across North America.

While e-commerce counts for about 80 percent of company sales, the remaining 20 percent come through in-store. Mejuri has six stores across the U.S. and Canada. During the pandemic, Sakkijha said stores remained profitable even with reduced capacity. “I’m a big fan of stores,” she said. “I love the idea of contextualizing a brand in a physical environment. It does two things for us: helps with awareness for those who don’t know us, but also reconfirming the brand in that market. We see positive signs that retail is looking forward and will continue to invest in that going forward.”

The Stars’ Favourite Everyday Fine Jewellery Brand Is Popping Up In London

Former British Vogue cover girl Billie Eilish wearing a selection of Mejuri rings.

She finds clients are as much interested in learning how to style their jewellery as they are in what to buy. Mejuri is well known for its fine jewellery basics, whether it be gold vermeil ribbed hoops or micro-pavé diamond signet rings. Now Sakkijha is seeing a shift towards women wanting to add in larger, statement pieces alongside their delicate layering pieces. A large pearl hoop is one such top seller, another is an heirloom ring that centres on a juicy red garnet.

Mejuri’s Heirloom ring in 14k gold and garnet is designed to make a statement and fit seamlessly in with the brand’s more delicate layering pieces, £500, mejuri.com.

Mejuri’s core self-purchasing customer is also now going beyond treating herself. In the past year, the brand has seen a 66 per cent increase in customers buying pieces for friends and loved ones, jewellery being the ideal sentimental gift that the recipient can wear everyday and for years to come. “It’s been a way to celebrate a friend’s birthday or anniversary, even if you can’t see each other,” she says.

The Duchess of Cambridge wore Mejuri’s organic pearl stacked hoops in a special Commonwealth broadcast on 7 March 2021

And after years of men coming to Mejuri and buying pieces from the main collection, they have now been rewarded with their own collection of bracelets, necklaces and rings. It’s been a huge success, something that Sakkijha credits to men and women becoming more focused on expressing themselves through accessories and body adornment. “People are making their look personal through piercing, tattoos, and jewellery,” she says.

With all this growth and the opening of the pop-up, which will be on South Molton Street until Sunday, Vogue predicts it won’t be long before Mejuri returns to London in a more permanent form. Watch this space.