As an independent brick-and-mortar retailer, you probably:
- Rely heavily on memo or appro to satisfy customer preferences
- Source mainly from a few domestic suppliers (rarely international)
- Buy and keep stock (your bread-and-butter items) in most situations
Whether you’ve been in operation for months or decades, customers come to you because they trust you’ll provide them with the best guidance and selection in the diamond industry. We’re building Nivoda specifically for brick-and-mortar retailers like you. Below, we unpack the major challenges facing retailers today – and how our solution can help address these hurdles.
The 4 Major Challenges Facing Brick-and-Mortar Retailers
1. Online Competition
This is easily the biggest change for our traditional industry. Over 30% of engagement ring purchases now happen online (growing 10+% YoY), and typical brick-and-mortar retailers don’t get to participate.
2. Shrinking Margins
Digital-first retailers can beat out brick-and-mortar retailers on price and margin by operating low- or zero-inventory business models and providing national and global reach to buyers.
3. Driving Customers In-Store
A majority of brick-and-mortar retailers are struggling to establish an impressive digital business and run a connected journey (i.e., gaining more in-store footfall through their online presence).
4. Converting Store Visitors
Brick-and-mortar retailers still run on memo because they don’t have the money to hold a huge local inventory. Unfortunately, this drags down in-store conversions.
Customers simply leave if you don’t have what they want available. Even if you can acquire it for them, there’s usually a lag between sales and having the stock ready to go.
Use Cases: How Nivoda Solves These Problems
Countless brick-and-mortar retailers want to evolve alongside the industry and offer their services to eCom customers worldwide. They’re just struggling to find the right tools. That’s where Nivoda comes in: to help you bring your business online, drive both on-site and in-store sales, and grow your margins to invest in even more digital marketing.
Nivoda makes it happen through industry-leading products and services, including:
- The Nivoda marketplace — Start cherry-picking the best-priced stones worldwide.
- Credit terms — Pick from 30- and 60-day terms for max payment flexibility.
- KYC DFY — Nivoda even handles due diligence and customer verification.
- Customer Facing Mode — With CFM, you’ll easily guide in-store customers through picking their perfect diamond from Nivoda’s global stock.
- End-to-end logistics — We consolidate and handle the invoicing, payments, quality control (QC), delivery, and even returns required to get international diamonds to your customer’s doorstep.
Action Items: Key Benefits of Nivoda for Brick-and-Mortar Retailers
Nivoda helps brick-and-mortar retailers compete with the online jewellery giants in two big ways.
1. Access the Best Prices Worldwide
Nivoda provides one easy-to-navigate marketplace for your whole team to cherry-pick the best-priced stones from international suppliers. You don’t even have to worry about the typical headache of QC, long shipping times, international wires, banking fees, or the convoluted returns process. Nivoda will truly handle every step of the logistics workflow for you.
This won’t just enable you to compete with digital-first retailers. You’ll also outpace other brick-and-mortar retailers — by sourcing at the best available prices worldwide.
2. Convert Every Customer in Your Store
With Nivoda’s Customer Facing Mode, you’ll essentially never have to send a customer out of your store empty-handed again. Instead of limiting yourself to nearby inventory, you and your customer can browse Nivoda’s selection of 1.6 million stones (and counting) until they find that perfect purchase.
In other words, you’ll always have exactly what your customers are looking for, every single time. More quotes lead to higher conversion rates. Having the world’s best priced diamonds leads to increased margins and a more competitive offering.
