Jean Dousset made an unorthodox decision during Cyber 5 this year. Dousset, the designer and founder behind his namesake jewelry retail brand, didn’t run any promotions during the major shopping period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.

That was a mistake—and not one he plans to repeat. 

“I was trained and worked for very big global brands for a very long time. And I think I took a bad habit from working with them: They don’t do promotions,” Dousset says.

Before founding his lab-grown diamond company, Dousset worked for jewelry retailers Chaumet, Boucheron, and Van Cleef & Arpels.

Jean Dousset sells luxury jewelry primarily online, though it just opened a showroom in West Hollywood in September. The retailer has exclusively sold lab-grown diamonds since April 2023.

Dousset learned that just because a retailer sells luxury products, that doesn’t mean promotions and discounts shouldn’t be part of the plan.

“While I consider myself a luxury brand because of the content and the quality [of the products], I’m not a global brand like Chanel, and I should absolutely use promotional levers for the growth of the business,” he says.

Jean Dousset reconsiders promotions

Though Jean Dousset didn’t run any promotions specifically tied to Cyber 5, the retailer did briefly test a promotional strategy at the beginning of November. The jewelry retailer offered new customers 10% off their first order if they shared their email address. The results were “shockingly positive, to the point where I should have done this many moons ago,” Dousset says.

The promotion led to Jean Dousset’s highest sales month since it started selling lab-grown diamonds in 2021. The conversion rate increased by about 200%, he says without revealing the exact rate. Dousset considers the promotion “extremely effective.”

Jean Dousset also offered the same promotion to subscribers, with different results. Customers who were already part of the email subscriber base also got an offer of 10% off their next purchase. However, it was much less successful, he says. 

Still, the success with new customers was enough to convince Dousset that he should engage in the heavy promotional period next year when Cyber 5 rolls around.

“I’m a changed man,” he says. 

“Promotions don’t devalue brands,” Dousset says, contrary to his prior belief. “It’s part of the retail landscape.”

The vast majority of retailers used promotions over Cyber 5

Cyber Monday is one of the biggest shopping days of the year, and retailers traditionally offer large discounts to entice consumers. This year, 92.0% of  Digital Commerce 360’s panel of 100 online retailers from the 2023 edition of the Top 1000 advertised some type of offer on Cyber Monday. That was an increase from 79.5% of retailers offering promotions in the control period two weeks earlier. 

Jewelry retailers aren’t exempt from promotions, either. Three out of four jewelry retailers in the panel held promotions on Cyber Monday. And jewelry retailers saw large sales over the shopping period. Adobe Analytics found that online jewelry sales on Black Friday were up 114% over sales on an average day in October. On Cyber Monday, sales were 99% higher than the average day.

Among retailers offering Cyber Monday promotions, a percentage off the stated price was most popular. 87.0% offered a percentage-off promotion, with discounts ranging from 3% off to 90% off. The median smallest discount was 25%, and the median largest discount was 50% off. Jean Dousset’s promotion, which did not fall during this period, was outside the median at 10%.

Do you rank in our database?

Submit your data with this quick survey and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.