How a premium Indonesian jeweller started selling its whole network from every counter

How a premium Indonesian jeweller started selling its whole network from every counter
About the brand

A premium Indonesian jewellery house selling through flagship malls in the country's largest cities, by private appointment and through its own website. Its range spans gold, diamond and stone-set pieces, from daily wear through to bridal. Every item is a unique piece rather than a unit of stock, carrying its own weight, purity, stone specification and design code.

Background

Jewellery retail runs on an uncomfortable trade-off. Working capital sits in metal and stones at extraordinary density and turns slowly, so no store can hold the full range. Each location carried a curated selection weighted to local taste and budget, and the same designs were stocked as separate physical pieces across many locations.

The customer had no such limitation. She arrived having already seen the entire catalogue online, and in bridal she arrived with one specific design in mind and a date to buy by. When that piece was not in the tray in front of her, at her weight, with her stone, the associate could offer something else or lose a purchase worth many times an average basket. Transfers between stores were arranged by phone and messaging app, took several days, and were tracked in a notebook. Stores had every incentive to hold on to good stock rather than release it, because a piece sold elsewhere earned the holding store nothing.

Pricing carried its own friction. A central rate was published daily, but the build-up on each piece, metal weight at the relevant purity plus the labour charge plus stone value plus tax, was assembled by hand at the counter. The jeweller partnered with Fynd for POS across its stores and OMS across every channel.

Challenges, solutions and impact

Challenge #1: Every counter could only sell what was in its own tray

An associate could see her own floor stock and nothing else. A customer asking for a design she had seen online, or the same setting in a heavier weight, was told it was unavailable, with no way to check whether it sat in a store two hours away or in the central vault. Because each piece is unique, this was not a matter of ordering more of an item. It was a matter of finding the one that existed, and losing that conversation meant losing an often once-in-a-lifetime purchase to whichever competitor had the right piece on display that afternoon.

Solution. Fynd POS gave every counter live visibility of every piece in the network, tracked individually by weight, purity, stone specification and design code rather than as a SKU with a quantity against it. An associate searches the whole estate and the vault from the counter and places a time-boxed hold on the exact piece, confirmed by the holding store so that a customer already examining it is never promised away. The buyer pays a deposit against that hold and completes the purchase once the piece arrives and has been seen. Movements run as tracked, insured transfers rather than informal arrangements. Sales credit is split between the holding store and the selling store, which is what actually stopped stores hiding stock, because visibility alone had never been the obstacle.

Impact. Within the first year, 31% of store sales came from stock held somewhere other than the store making the sale, concentrated in bridal and made-to-order where the customer arrives with a specific piece in mind. Average transaction value rose 26% on a constant metal price basis, because customers buy the piece they wanted rather than settling for what was in the tray. Inventory per store fell 22%, since the same designs no longer had to sit as separate physical pieces in every location.

Challenge #2: Every quote was assembled by hand

The daily rate was published centrally, but everything after it was not. An associate worked out metal value, added a labour charge that varied with whoever was serving, added stone value, applied tax and then negotiated. Two customers could be quoted differently for comparable pieces on the same afternoon, which is corrosive in a category built on trust. The margin consequence stayed invisible until month end, by which point nobody could reconstruct which discounts had been given or why.

Solution. Fynd POS builds each price automatically: metal weight at the piece's actual purity against the day's published rate, the labour charge carried on the piece from its landed cost, stone value, and the tax treatment applicable to that supply. Discount authority is bounded by role and applied where jewellery discretion actually sits, on the labour charge and the stone rather than on the metal, which is a pass-through. Anything beyond a threshold needs recorded approval, and margin is visible on every line at the point of sale.

Impact. The same piece quotes the same price in every store on the same day. Quotes that took minutes now take seconds, which matters when a customer is being walked through several options. Margin given away through discretionary discounting became visible and therefore manageable.

Challenge #3: Buyback and trade-in as part of the sale

The house takes back its own pieces against a new purchase, valued on gold content at the published rate, with the original invoice and certificate. Diamonds carry no buyback value, which makes the conversation delicate and the arithmetic worth showing. In practice the assessment and the net figure were handled by judgement and written onto the invoice as a single line.

Nothing structurally tied the incoming piece to the outgoing sale, which made the books slow to reconcile. It also cost money invisibly, because gold acquired from a consumer arrives without an acquisition invoice, and its onward sale therefore attracts a higher rate of VAT than stock bought from a supplier with one.

Solution. Trade-in became a structured step inside the POS transaction. The returning piece is matched to its original sale record, assessed weight and purity are captured as data, the published buyback rate and any deductions are applied, and the net value goes against the bill in front of the customer. The incoming metal enters inventory with its provenance attached, so when it is refined and reused the tax position on the eventual sale is known rather than assumed. Buyback rates are set centrally and move with the metal rate rather than being negotiated locally.

Impact. Book reconciliation moved from days to hours, with physical settlement still following the refiner's melt cycle. The provenance record took guesswork out of the VAT position on reworked metal. And associates stopped treating trade-in as a complication to be avoided, which turned it into a way to close sales rather than a reason to lose them.

Challenge #4: Orders scattered across channels, stores and the workshop

Website orders, appointment sales, network transfers raised in one store for fulfilment by another, collection bookings and made-to-order pieces with workshop lead times all ran through separate processes. Nobody could give a customer a reliable date.

Solution. Fynd OMS brings every order into one view regardless of origin. Each routes to the location holding the piece, or to the workshop when it is being made, with milestones visible against the promised date as the workshop updates them. Carriers are assigned by value band against the brand's specialist valuables cover, and collection can happen at any store rather than only where the order was raised.

Impact. Promise dates became reliable, including on made-to-order work where the customer previously had no visibility at all. Failed handovers and repeat visits fell, and the house can serve a customer across any combination of channels without losing the thread.

Way forward

Next on the roadmap: extending appointment-led clienteling so associates can follow up with the customers they served on the floor, using piece-level sell-through to place stock where designs actually sell, and preparing staffing and inventory for the marriage-season peak, which shifts against the Gregorian calendar each year, and for the two-way footfall around Lebaran, when purchases, buyback and trade-in all rise together.

If your challenges resonate with those in this story, it's time to schedule a call with our experts. Whether you're giving store teams visibility of every piece you own, bringing consistency to rate-linked pricing, or running high-value orders across stores, channels and workshop from one view, our solutions are designed to streamline your operations and drive growth.

With over a decade of experience in omnichannel commerce and a proven track record with 2,300+ brands, Fynd is here to turn your challenges into success stories. Let's drive your growth together.

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