Julien d’Orcel: building an omnichannel strategy in a cooperative context

Since 2020, the cooperative group Synalia and its independent jewellery and watch brands, Julien d’Orcel, Guilde des Orfèvres and Montres & Co, have made it their mission to modernise the jewellery sector online. To achieve this, all of their independent retailers have joined the digital and omnichannel transformation project launched by the group.

Here, we take a look back at how Julien d’Orcel implemented an omnichannel strategy in a cooperative context to launch Click & Collect and Click & Collect Express with OneStock OMS.

Phygitalia: the omnichannel project within a cooperative context

Long perceived as a competitor to physical stores, the pandemic brought a new perspective to online and convinced all the Synalia brands to develop a digital strategy (CRM, website renovation, etc.) and to solidify it by implementing an omnichannel strategy with the help of OneStock OMS. This is how the Phygitalia project (a contraction of physical, digital and Synalia) came about.

With unified commerce, Synalia’s challenge was to offer all of the cooperative’s members a common commercial policy through a common tool, but without denying the identity of the independent shops. The shops were to play a full role, not just alongside the website but directly at the heart of the customer’s shopping experience. Thus, after numerous discussions with the network’s stakeholders, Synalia was able to create the unified trade charter, which recalls the commitments to customer service and the commission rates for the remuneration of associates in the context of this unified trade.

In addition to a common commercial policy based on unified commerce, which was supported by all of the company’s directors and partners, it was essential to unite this network of independent retailers around a fair omnichannel remuneration plan. A financial incentive for the shops based on the margin generated has been set up on unified commerce sales. Thus, whether via Click and Collect or Click and Collect Express, the shop involved in the sale of the product receives between 20% and 80% of the product’s turnover excluding tax. This also enables it to enrich its customer base. This redistribution of a part of the margin to the members is directly linked to the values of the cooperative, which pools resources for the benefit of all in an equitable manner. The website then fully plays its role as a business contributor to the shop thanks to unified stock.

Stéphane Ponge

President

Julien d’Orcel 

Julien d’Orcel stores are at the heart of the cooperative’s omnichannel strategy

With a view to enhancing its shops through digital technology, Julien d’Orcel has begun its omnichannel transformation with OneStock OMS by launching Standard Click and Collect and 2-Hour Express Click and Collect (dependent on a shop’s stock) in more than half of the network’s 165 shops since December 2021. This makes it possible to meet customers’ expectations: a wider and more available product offer, a price offer and a local service offer.

We sell life markers, souvenir gifts that will always be with us. Our ambition is not to be the first pure player in the jewellery sector, but to create an experience and to be as close as possible to our customers. The fact that we have designed our digital renovation with unified commerce positions us as a player at the service of our customers.

Aude Hélias

Executive Director

Synalia cooperative

Even before the implementation of a unified commerce strategy, Julien d’Orcel already had a very coherent and homogenous offer across the entire network and throughout the country, thanks to a product strategy that was very well developed. Unified commerce was therefore an obvious choice.

Those products with a common price point and stock availability across all stores formed the main range that was loaded onto the website as a priority to begin the omnichannel project. Then, the best collections from the most widely-stocked brands were included, along with products that were considered “must-haves” in the jewellery sector. The website is therefore not intended to be a repository of all stock across all physical points of sale, but an extension of the stores. A prerequisite to launch was to synchronise product characteristics in the repository, in convergence with a sector EDI. While OneStock allows the publication of all stock, work on the commerciality of the latter was carried out in order to guarantee the legibility and coherence of the offer. This had to be representative of all 160 shops – it would not have been relevant to display a product on the website that would no longer be available after the first order.

The speed of implementation, the quality of the tool, the ease of use by the sales teams and the expertise of the OneStock team were key criteria in the choice of OneStock OMS. The implementation of 2-hour Click and Collect Express has been a real asset for the company to improve the profitability of the shops by taking full advantage of all stock, but also to optimise the customer experience and satisfaction, while always putting the shops at the heart of the purchasing process. We now want to continue implementing our omnichannel strategy by rolling out 2-hour Click and Collect Express in our 165 shops in France to take advantage of our territorial coverage. We also intend to test other unified commerce scenarios such as Reserve & Collect, Order in Store and Ship from Store to increase product rotation at the point of sale and the margin collected directly in shop.

Stéphane Ponge

Chairman

Julien d’Orcel