Columnists

The Revenue Hiding Between Your Counter and Your Online Cart

ColumnistsJun 24, 2026

The Revenue Hiding Between Your Counter and Your Online Cart

Jewelers are missing out by not offering this one key add-on at the online point of sale, Emmanuel Raheb writes.

Smart Age CEO and National Jeweler columnist Emmanuel Raheb
Emmanuel Raheb is the CEO of Smart Age Solutions, a digital ad agency and coveted Premier Google Partner. Contact him at eraheb@smartagesolutions.com.
Independent jewelers have spent the last several years investing heavily in e-commerce. Most jewelers spend a lot of time thinking about advertising and traffic to get more people onto their website.

There’s a good reason why.

According to the research firm Technavio, a recent study shows that worldwide, online jewelry sales are experiencing a nearly 19 percent compound annual growth rate, making how you sell online just as important as how you sell in your store. 

Yet, one of the biggest sources of lost revenue isn’t happening before the sale. It’s happening after the customer has already decided to buy. 

In the rush to sell online, many retailers have accidentally left something behind.

Walk into any jewelry store and buy an engagement ring and chances are a sales associate will talk to you about a care plan. They’ve become good at suggesting complementary purchases and services. 

The best salespeople understand how to educate their customers. They know how to make recommendations that feel helpful rather than pushy, ultimately closing the sale.

Online, that conversation never happens and unfortunately, much of that expertise vanishes. 

That exact same customer buys that exact same ring and checks out without ever being offered a care plan. The sale was successful, but you missed the opportunity.

And that’s surprising because service plans represent some of the healthiest margins in the business.

 Related stories will be right here … 

According to a recent Strategic Market Research report, integrating protection and care plans directly at checkout boosts attachment rates by up to 41 percent. 

More importantly, it protects the overall transaction by reducing returns by 18 percent while also increasing the average revenue per user by 9 percent. 

Offering a plan online isn’t just a pushy upsell; it’s a proven strategy you can no longer afford to ignore. 

Rings still need to be resized. Prongs still wear down. Rhodium plating still wears off. Stones still chip. 

Those realities haven’t changed simply because the transaction moved online. What has disappeared isn’t the need; it is the conversation.

“Customers haven’t changed nearly as much as we think. They still appreciate expertise. They still value guidance. And they still expect us to take care of them after the sale.” – Emmanuel Raheb, Smart Age Solutions  

Forward-thinking retailers are beginning to recognize this.

Some are rethinking how service plans are presented on their website, while others are using tools such as Smart Care, a Shopify-native platform designed to bring the care-plan conversation back into the checkout experience online.  

But the bigger lessons extend far beyond care plans.

Too many jewelers assume growth only comes from attracting more customers. Sometimes it comes from better serving the customers you already have.

As our industry becomes increasingly digital with more transactions happening outside of the physical store, we must make sure convenience doesn’t come at the expense of good service.

Customers haven’t changed nearly as much as we think. They still appreciate expertise. They still value guidance. And they still expect us to take care of them after the sale.

The challenge is making sure those conversations happen whether the customer is standing at your counter or clicking “checkout” on your website.

The easiest revenue to lose is the sales you never realized you were missing.

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