Customer stories

Mejuri: making luxury accessible with seamless in-person payments

From innovative in-person payments to data optimization, discover how a strong partnership leads to shining success with insights from Mejuri Product Manager, Kari Beiswanger.

August 22, 2023

· 6 minutes

Topics

Customer stories Optimize payments In-person payments Retail

Founded in 2015, Mejuri, a Canadian ecommerce direct-to-customer (DTC) fine jewelry brand, set out on a mission to redefine luxury. High-end jewelry is often seen as exclusive and only necessary for special occasions. Mejuri wanted to change this. Thus, their mantra "fine jewelry for my damn self" was born.

Mejuri believes that fine jewelry should be accessible, fun, and part of everyday life. To break down the barriers between store and customer, their products are available to see up close and style freely. This way shoppers can try on, mix and match pieces, and feel empowered to invest in themselves.

This approach is resonating with consumers online and offline. Since 2019, Mejuri has opened 24 stores across North America and the United Kingdom with in-person transactions making up 30% of revenue. The brand has an impressive 1.2 million following on Instagram and is worn by celebrities such as Lizzo, Ariana Grande, and Billie Eilish to name a few.

From freeing products from glass cases to empowering people to “buy that damn diamond,” learn how streamlining in-person payments help Mejuri on their mission to redefine luxury from Mejuri Product Manager of Retail & Order Management, Kari Beiswanger.

At the beginning of their brick-and-mortar journey, Mejuri built their point-of-sale (POS) in-house to process in-person transactions. They were able to iterate, run tests, and they knew it inside-out. As their retail business expanded, new challenges surfaced with their checkout experience.

Efficiency was strained as card transactions were manually processed through iPads. And with many payment methods entering the market, Mejuri wanted to keep up with the way customers wanted to pay. A sophisticated solution was needed to meet their ambitions. Mejuri found the perfect fit in NewStore, a mobile-first and modular omnichannel platform, and Adyen, an expert in the retail payments space.

There were two key challenges to address: introduce a new POS solution without disruptions to their daily operations, and reduce transaction time while serving customers. Both were accomplished with Adyen’s e285 mobile terminal and the NewStore platform Associate App.

With its self-boarding capabilities, little setup is needed with the e285 and it is ready to process payments as soon as it’s connected to the NewStore Associate App on iPhone . The e285 mobile terminal secures to the back of the iPhone, enabling sales associates to service customers anywhere in the store– ideal for reducing checkout lines during peak hours. And it’s equipped with out-of-the-box features that customers recognize like contactless payments for frictionless transactions.

Since deploying Adyen’s e285 mobile terminal in their stores, Mejuri reduced checkout times by 50%.

“We're always making our decisions with [our store associates] in mind. And being able to arm them with this technology was huge for us, because it gives them back more time to personalize the experience,” added Kari. “It also helped them to cut time to serve when you're not having to manually type in any payment information.”

Partnering with Adyen, Mejuri is closer to making fine jewelry accessible with more in-person payment options. Among them is Adyen’s Pay by Link.

Pay by Link allows customers to buy items from a Mejuri store through personalized interactions over the phone with a store associate. The store associate generates a payment link through the NewStore Associate App then sends the payment link to the customer via email. The customer remotely completes the payment through a secured Adyen site with their desired payment method, after which items are picked up in-store.

While Mejuri leverages Pay by Link across all geographies, the United Kingdom sees the biggest use. There, customers use Pay by Link to avoid lines and cut service time as they’re on their way to the store. It’s a trending payment option. Pay by Link accounts for 4% of in-person transaction volume compared to 2% in North America– double the adoption rate.

With every transaction, Adyen collects data that deepens Mejuri’s understanding of their customers. For example, insights on foreign shopper activity can inform what new payment methods they should introduce.

In a quarterly business review, Adyen revealed their UK location saw a large volume of shoppers from Australia and China. This prompted a reassessment of the payment options offered at that location.

“It's been really interesting to understand the ways that our customers are paying. Like, ‘Have they been paying with an e-wallet? Have they been paying with a card? Tap? What kind of cards are they paying with?’” said Kari. “That was a lightbulb moment for me, we can understand so much more about our customers and their shopping behavior through their payment data than we can through our other retail platforms.”

Mejuri enabled 10 unique payment options globally since integration. With Adyen, Mejuri identifies new shopping trends, makes informed business decisions, and creates additional seamless payment experiences all in one place.

While Mejuri has successfully created seamless in-person payment experiences, Kari acknowledges there will be challenges as the retail space continues to evolve. She considers Adyen an asset to inform them on when to pivot and chase after innovation.

“Adyen knows that we have an appetite for innovation. They come to us with the latest technology even before it’s been released into all of our markets. This gives us the chance to understand if it's right for our business and our customers, and I think that that is going to move the needle for us within store experiences.”

Guided by their mission, Mejuri takes every challenge head on and embraces change. With Adyen by their side, their ambition to make luxury accessible can only get better.