New E-Commerce Site Strives To Make Fine Jewelry Affordable

by Verena von Pfetten | 9:16 am, December 21st, 2011

We don’t write about fine jewelry much on Styleite, mainly because we can’t afford it. And while we love window shopping as much as the next person, there’s something about fancy-jewelry-we-can’t-afford that just kinda makes us sad. Enter Plukka.

We were introduced to Plukka over breakfast (guacamole and eggs, yum!) a few weeks ago and here’s the deal: it’s a fine jewelry e-tailer, with a twist. As someone who spent a few years working in the designer and fine jewelry business, trust me when I say that it’s an extremely profitable business. Most of it gets to the consumer (us!) at a hefty markup and a pretty good rule of thumb is: the bigger and more popular the brand, the more absolutely insane the markup. We won’t name names, but that sterling silver bracelet you’ve been eyeing? Only worth about one tenth of the price, max.

The brains behind Plukka, Joanne Ooi and Jai Waney, have access to all the same manufacturers as the big brands, but instead of going through cost, wholesale, and retail markups — not to mention inventory costs — they’re offering their designs up at a single markup from the manufacturing price. And there’s more. In their own words:

First, no product gets made unless enough customers want to buy it. Second, the more customers buy a product, the less it costs. For any product currently on offer on the site, a visitor can visit that event page to see the current price of the item, as well as the total number of purchases, at any time before the close of the event. Importantly, all purchasers of an item get the same final, low price, based on the total number of purchases at the close of the event.

Plukka launched officially on Monday, which means we haven’t had a chance to fully test it out, but so far we’re huge fans of the concept. The only catch: because they don’t stock items, you do have to wait for individual pieces to be produced — but when you’re saving up to (according to their press release) 70-90% off a single item, we’d say the wait is worth it.

Take a look at a few of their launch designs below and check out more at Plukka.com. What do you think? Up your alley, or still out of reach? (For what it’s worth, we’re really digging that rose gold Sydney Opera House ring. You?)

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