A few years ago, Goldspeed.com CEO Neil Kugelman didn't know the meaning of the colloquialism “bling.” But now Goldspeed has a new sister site that puts the urban-style jewelry associated with that term front and center. TrueBling.com, which launched in April, is one example of the marketing intelligence to be found in a merchant’s own log files and analytic data, Kugelman says.
Three to four years ago, online jeweler Goldspeed started seeing that customers were searching for, but not finding, “bling” on Goldspeed.com. After asking some customers who contacted the company’s call center, Kugelman and his team realized what those searchers were seeking: oversized watches, heavier chains and other jewelry with hip hop style.
“We realized after adding a few items in this category to Goldspeed that this was an underserved market,” Kugelman says. He conducted additional customer research and found that when buying online or offline, the buyers of this non-traditional jewelry were looking for the same reliability offered by an established traditional jeweler, but they weren't finding it, Kugelman says.
Kugelman cites brand segmentation in the automotive market as a model for Goldspeed’s decision to launch a dedicated site rather than just add more items from the category to its main site. “Toyota has the Lexus brand and the Toyota brand. Someone who shops for a Lexus doesn't necessarily want to go into the same dealership that is selling Toyotas. And vice versa. People want to shop in a store that really caters to their style. We did the same thing,” he says.
Kugelman says TrueBling.com is seeing “very good results,” though he did not disclose numbers, and that the product mix on the new site is still being adjusted. If he keeps listening to what customers want—the primary reason the new site was launched in the first place—he figures the new site will prosper.
He adds that other online retailers who dig deeply into their data could find their own new opportunities there. “By studying the products you sell, the customers purchasing those products, and by asking questions and looking at the data in your reports, you are going to see patterns emerging,” he says. “Those patterns and extrapolated data could show that there is an opportunity to open up a different web site and capture a different part of the same market you are already in.”
Goldspeed.com is No. 362 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.
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