Latest / Best of Business / Liam Whittaker: Heirest founder on what the new online jewellery retailer can offer consumers

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Liam Whittaker: Heirest founder on what the new online jewellery retailer can offer consumers · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks Be follow
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  Speaker 2: As I was telling you earlier, former Zuru executive has
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  Speaker 2: launched a new business to shake up the jewelry industry.
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  Speaker 2: Air Rest is an online store where you can design
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  Speaker 2: and you can customize your jewelry before you buy it.
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  Speaker 2: And because the jewels are synthetic, you will save yourself
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  Speaker 2: a fair chunk of change as well. Liam Whitkett is
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  Speaker 2: the founder and the CEO of airst and with us Now.
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  Speaker 3: Hi, Lim, Hey here there are you going very well?
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  Speaker 3: Thank you?
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  Speaker 2: Now why the move from kids toys to jewelry?
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  Speaker 3: Ah, I actually took about a year off.
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  Speaker 4: I had some personal health issues that I was dealing with,
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  Speaker 4: and I was in Bali and came across this category
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  Speaker 4: and thought that no one's really given it a good
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  Speaker 4: shake up, and thought I could take a lot of
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  Speaker 4: my operational learnings from a business like Zoro and really
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  Speaker 4: try and challenge the category.
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  Speaker 2: Quote and what is it that you were challenging? Is
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  Speaker 2: it what people were buying these stones? Form what they
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  Speaker 2: were selling them for a.
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  Speaker 3: Bit of a combination.
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  Speaker 4: I see the category as divided into the two different
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  Speaker 4: main competitive sets. You've got the legacy brands that obviously
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  Speaker 4: have unlimited resources and the infrastructure to kind of build
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  Speaker 4: anything they want on a global scale. But I'd argue
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  Speaker 4: that they don't really obsess over the customer in a
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  Speaker 4: way that the modern day jeweler does. Who's more of
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  Speaker 4: an independent and they're using things like these lab grown
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  Speaker 4: diamond technologies and doing innovative designs at a far more
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  Speaker 4: affordable price. But they can't really impact scale and change
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  Speaker 4: because they are independent and they don't really have the
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  Speaker 4: sophistication to kind of build a global business. And so
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  Speaker 4: I think from my sort of experience and background, I've
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  Speaker 4: kind of been been brought up in a business where
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  Speaker 4: you have to think large, and we've kind of had
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  Speaker 4: a global ambition from day one.
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  Speaker 3: So if you basically take the idea.
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  Speaker 4: Of leaning into a digital experience, putting customers at the
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  Speaker 4: heart of everything, we've got a two hundred and fifty
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  Speaker 4: thousand different designs that people can do on day one.
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  Speaker 4: Every decision you make is completely financialized, so you know
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  Speaker 4: the cost of every single decision you're making. And I
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  Speaker 4: guess because we don't have physical retail stores. On a
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  Speaker 4: day to day basis, we can drop about forty percent
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  Speaker 4: out of our P and L and we're investing in
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  Speaker 4: a large portion of that back into price points for
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  Speaker 4: customers to make it more accessible, as well as just
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  Speaker 4: really obsessing on a best in class digital experience.
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  Speaker 2: Difficult to be online only at the moment the way.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think consumer sentiments probably at an all time low.
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  Speaker 4: I mean that's probably a little bit hyperbolic, but certainly
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  Speaker 4: not far off. And so I think that's why you
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  Speaker 4: see us leaning into things like pop up experiences. So
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  Speaker 4: during fashion a week, we're down in Britamart and so
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  Speaker 4: for a week we're taking over a space people can
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  Speaker 4: come and try products on, see things.
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  Speaker 3: Word of mouth's being massive for us.
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  Speaker 4: So over the past twelve months, just through my own
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  Speaker 4: personal Instagram and I'm by no means of celebrity, we've
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  Speaker 4: done about six hundred thousand dollars in sales, clearly from
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  Speaker 4: friends and family buying product and then telling their friends
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  Speaker 4: and family. So I think the network effects really important,
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  Speaker 4: but I think showing up in physical presence is going
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  Speaker 4: to be really important throughout the calendar year for us.
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  Speaker 3: It's just not a staple to our business.
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  Speaker 2: Well, good on you. Somebody was saying that part of
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  Speaker 2: the problem with being online only at the moment is
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  Speaker 2: there's a real lack of trust in what you're seeing
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  Speaker 2: online because AI has kind of confused people. Are you
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  Speaker 2: experiencing that?
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  Speaker 4: Probably not to the level I've certainly seen it, And
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  Speaker 4: that's something we've been incredibly diligent on. I think everything
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  Speaker 4: that we're doing is still centered around emotion and human
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  Speaker 4: and so you look at the quality of the content
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  Speaker 4: that we're posting, it's very premium and very well executed.
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  Speaker 4: And certainly we're not leveraging AI content creation at all.
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  Speaker 4: We're leveraging AI in parts at our operational business model
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  Speaker 4: to make us more efficient. But I think at a
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  Speaker 4: creation level, we've got to keep things pretty authentic.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, now talk to me about the synthetic stones, right,
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  Speaker 2: because what is the point of a synthetic stone. Is
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  Speaker 2: it going to hold its value? Is it going to
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  Speaker 2: be an airloom.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really interesting question.
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  Speaker 4: And I guess like our brand, being called Airist, is
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  Speaker 4: all around creating future airlims, and I see natural diamonds
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  Speaker 4: versus synthetic diamonds or lab gron diamonds is a really
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  Speaker 4: interesting conversation. If you look at America, for example, in
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  Speaker 4: twenty ten, zero point three percent of engagement things were made.
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  Speaker 3: With lab grond diamonds. Last year it was sixty one percent. Wow,
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  Speaker 3: So option rate is huge.
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  Speaker 4: And these diamonds, like calling them synthetic versus lab or
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  Speaker 4: natural or whatever, it's that they're structurally, chemically and optically
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  Speaker 4: identical to their mind counterparts. The only difference is the
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  Speaker 4: process in which they were created. So what you're finding
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  Speaker 4: is an IGI or a GIA certification. If you're finding
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  Speaker 4: a diamond of one spec versus a lab or natural,
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  Speaker 4: it is the exact same product, but you're probably paying
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  Speaker 4: it a twentieth of the price, but tend to ten
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  Speaker 4: to twenty percent of.
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  Speaker 3: The value of a natural stone.
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  Speaker 4: I think that to your exact point, though the maid
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  Speaker 4: there is an emotional argument behind natural stones versus lab
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  Speaker 4: for sure, and that's why we're not leading with engagement
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  Speaker 4: rings within our business because I think that's a harder
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  Speaker 4: job to be done versus like you know, airrings, bracelets, necklaces.
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  Speaker 4: But the argument around, I guess economic erosions becoming less
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  Speaker 4: and less credible. I'd argue because If you look at
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  Speaker 4: the price of lab diamonds, they're now a tenth to
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  Speaker 4: the price of what they were ten years ago. You
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  Speaker 4: could pay two thousand dollars for an equivalent natural stone
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  Speaker 4: of ten thousand dollars, and if you lose one hundred
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  Speaker 4: percent of that value, which you wouldn't, you've lost two grand.
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  Speaker 4: You walk out of a store with a natural diamond
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  Speaker 4: the exact same spec, you've probably lost forty percent, So
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  Speaker 4: your net loss is now greater. So thinks like an
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  Speaker 4: interesting perspective with how the market's now shifted.
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  Speaker 2: Make good luck with it. I hope you go global
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  Speaker 2: and do all the things you wanted. It sounds like
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  Speaker 2: a really great idea. That's Liam Whitaker, arest founder.
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