An Innovative Ecommerce Approach to Jewelry: The Story of At Present

Customer Introduction

In the dynamic world of online retail, innovation usually originates from dissatisfaction with the status quo. This is precisely the story behind At Present, a groundbreaking jewelry brand founded by Marc Bridge. During our conversation with Onport, Marc, along with Megan Cannella, shared insights into the journey, vision, and technological backbone of At Present.

Company Representatives

Marc Bridge (MB) - Founder & CEO

Megan Cannella (MC) - Chief of Staff

What was the idea behind At Present?

MB - "I founded At Present to address the many limitations I saw in the traditional jewelry business throughout my lifelong career. Having spent the first 35 years of my life working in a five-generation legacy family retail business, I observed that the industry primarily focused on selling diamond pieces for significant life events.

While these occasions, like engagements and anniversaries, are important, I felt that this narrow focus restricted the industry's appeal and potential customer base. I believe that jewelry should celebrate not just those major life moments but also the everyday, meaningful moments in our lives. I wanted to flip the traditional concept on its head, emphasizing that today is what truly matters, and the best way to celebrate today is with a fabulous piece of jewelry from talented, independent artists.

The marketplace model we created serves as a matchmaker between these extraordinary designers and stylish men and women seeking unique pieces for self-expression, steering away from the conservative, middle-of-the-road inventory typical of traditional retail.”

What was the Role of Onport to launch At Present?

MB - I have spent my entire life in the jewelry business and, though I'm a lawyer and an economist by training, I had absolutely no startup experience or knowledge of technology. Surprisingly, this lack of experience was beneficial because, if I had known the challenges ahead, I might have hesitated to start the business.

As we began putting all the pieces together, we had to address three fundamental questions to validate the viability of our business: could we integrate all the necessary systems, would artists be interested in collaborating, and would customers care about what we were offering? Onport played a crucial role in answering the first question by providing the technological infrastructure we needed, which I initially thought would be the hardest part.

Their support allowed us to focus on what we needed to excel at: merchandising and marketing. Despite some challenges along the way, Onport has enabled us to manage complex processes like ingesting product data, handling orders, and coordinating shipping, which would have been far more difficult and expensive if we had attempted to build or manage these systems ourselves.”

How did Shippo integration with Onport allow At Present to operate at a global scale?

MB - "The best thing about Shippo is that once we made the choice to use it, Shippo has continued to work seamlessly ever since and that is the best possible sign of its reliability as a shipping software. All the labels generated in the US for our business are done so using Shippo.

It's a bit like this: the less I hear the words “Shippo” and “Onport” in our weekly status meetings, the better you guys are doing and the integration working. When we're discussing exciting things like an influencer event, a new partnership, or launching a new email flow, that's when I start feeling really good about the money we're paying to both companies each month for allowing us to grow our business and better serve our customers.”

Which features bring the most value to the collaboration with Onport?

MC - "When I think about Onport, some key features come to mind. Firstly, having the ability to surface information about when an item is ready to ship is crucial because a significant conversion blocker for us is the made-to-order nature of much of our jewelry. The ability to gain insights into our vendors' inventory positions, which we can showcase to customers, eases this friction and improves their experience on product landing pages.

Having full visibility into inventory positions is invaluable from an information systems standpoint. Additionally, this advantage extends to the supply side, where our partners have often dealt with more complicated systems in their dropship relationships, and Onport has simplified this process for us.

Being able to publish and have access to a vendor's entire catalog in an integrated way that allows us to pull products through with information imagery is a big win for us. The smooth onboarding process with Onport has been a game-changer for us. I've experienced other systems where the process was overly complicated and didn't drive any business value.

From our operations team's standpoint, the ease of use is a huge benefit. We consistently receive positive feedback from our partners about how straightforward our integration process is. They appreciate not having to learn something new or constantly manage things manually. Once they provide us with an API key, we’re all set and can quickly move forward from there."

What are the plans for At Present looking ahead?

MC - "We're definitely in scaling mode. So we're looking to expand into a lot of different markets and really open that acquisition model to get as many customers into our ecosystem as humanly possible. We're trying to super serve our customers by becoming the online destination for unique jewelry.

A space that hasn't necessarily been covered from an ecommerce standpoint to date. As At Present continues to grow, we aim to solidify our position as a household name in the jewelry industry.

Our focus remains on super-serving our customers by offering an unparalleled selection of unique and artistically crafted pieces. By leveraging technology and maintaining a customer-centric approach, we are well on our way to revolutionizing how jewelry is perceived and purchased.”