unigem is a marketplace and select shop for jewelry and accessories that brings together bold, distinctive up-and-coming brands. Operating both a physical store in Daikanyama, Tokyo, and an online store, it's a shop drawing a lot of attention right now.
We spoke with Saori Ogaya, founder and CEO of simplify Inc., which runs unigem, about building and operating a marketplace-style site on Shopify.
In Part 1, we ask in detail about OMO marketing across the online store and physical store operations. <Part 1>
Entering the Jewelry and Accessory Business from a Different Industry
—— Thank you for joining us today. To start, could you tell us about your career leading up to founding the company?
Saori Ogaya (hereafter, Ogaya-san) I actually started my career at an IT consulting firm. It had nothing to do with accessories at all — I specialized in business process reform and systems implementation for clients in the finance and consumer goods industries, along with CRM-related data analysis and MMM (marketing mix modeling).
At the same time, as a consumer, I loved accessories and jewelry, and simply buying them started to feel a bit boring, so as a hobby alongside my career, I started attending a jewelry-making school. I learned the whole process of making things, starting with 3D CAD. Making things was fun in itself, but I also discovered how many talented young brands were making wonderful pieces, and I wanted to create a shop focused on showcasing them — that's how it all started.
My current company grew out of incorporating what had originally been my freelance consulting work. I still love consulting work, but I never intended to turn my own company into a consulting firm, so I figured it was about time to invest — well, not exactly invest, but do something I actually love — and that's how this got started.
—— As a business owner, I imagine you handle a wide range of responsibilities. What areas of the work do you personally do hands-on right now?
Ogaya-san I leave in-store operations and social media management to my staff, and I handle everything else, especially the parts that involve systems or data. I also work together with staff on discovering new brands and buying.
Eventually, I'd like to hand off the work I'm currently doing to staff as well. Rather than wanting an "EC person," what I really want is someone who properly understands the structure of systems and data and can work with them.
unigem, a marketplace and select shop for jewelry and accessories
Realizing the Need for a Physical Store Amid an Online-First Vision
—— Did the physical store come first, or the online store? What was the actual business concept versus how things played out in reality?
Ogaya-san Originally I was thinking online-first, and from the very beginning of the business I had an image in mind of eventually creating a jewelry marketplace. When we started, I tried to set things up with WooCommerce on WordPress, put together a rough mockup, and brought it to a few brands I had my eye on. But the reaction was often something like "online alone is a bit..." — I really felt that without a physical store, it just wasn't going to work.
Opening a store meant a fairly significant amount of upfront cost, so I was wondering what to do, and right around that time, a storefront space happened to open up on Fire Street in Shibuya, near our office at the time. I took it as fate, signed the lease right away, and just built the store. So conceptually, online came first, but in practice, the physical store ended up coming first.
—— That's an amazing amount of decisiveness and follow-through! You mentioned that without a physical store, working with brands was difficult — does that mean there wasn't much trust in selling accessories online in the first place?
Ogaya-san I think a big part of it was simply that a company with no track record in accessories suddenly saying it wanted to run a marketplace just wasn't trusted (laughs). I was even turned down once with, "We can handle an online site ourselves." Also, this was back in 2019, before COVID, so compared to now, there was a much stronger sense that jewelry was something you buy in person rather than online.
Rings are the clearest example — sizing is an extremely tricky thing with this kind of product. Even the same size 13 ring can feel smaller depending on the design, and weight or how it feels to wear just doesn't come across online. A lot of customers feel uneasy about that, and I think brands genuinely feel the same way — that they'd rather have customers see the actual piece and judge for themselves.
Store Traffic Driven by Online as the Entry Point
—— Do you notice a difference between what customers actually want online versus in the physical store?
Ogaya-san I don't feel the difference in needs is all that large, but customers who come to the store tend to be people who want to judge things by seeing them in person, people purchasing higher-priced items, or people who want to shop while chatting with our in-store staff and enjoy the space. In other words, people who want to resolve the uncertainty of buying online, or who are looking for an experience beyond what online can offer.
In terms of numbers, online accounts for roughly 70%, but when we talk to people who visit the store, in most cases something online — Instagram, our website, our LINE broadcasts — was the trigger that brought them in.
—— Do you have any original initiatives you run for OMO?
Ogaya-san We're not doing anything especially original — mostly standard stuff. For example, having customers sign up for membership in-store and giving them points that can be used both online and in-store.
Even for customers who only ever shop in-store, we try to collect as much data as possible and link it with our online data — what we talked about, what they considered, what they bought, what styles they tend to like — we keep detailed records of that kind of service history too.
Another thing I feel is really effective is our LINE broadcasts and Instagram. As I mentioned, people who come to the store are often triggered by something online, and Instagram is the most common one. When a popular brand has people waiting for restocks, LINE broadcasts work especially well. Some customers even show us a screenshot and say, "I came to see this — I saw it on Instagram."
The physical store in Daikanyama, Tokyo
40% of In-Store Visitors Are Men — A Customer Profile Only Visible Through the Physical Store
—— Do you feel there's a difference between your online and in-store customers?
Ogaya-san Online, naturally, we get a wide range of customers — the geographic spread covers all of Japan from north to south, and the age range and gender are both broad. In-store customers feel a bit more narrowed down, by comparison.
In-store, we get a lot of stylish, fashion-conscious people. And, surprisingly, quite a few men. Right now it's roughly 40%, and rather than buying gifts for women, most of them are buying for themselves.
—— That's a genuinely fresh surprise. It's true that, while the site doesn't explicitly say "unisex," it doesn't feel overly feminine either.
Ogaya-san That's by my own choice — we basically don't use the terms "ladies," "men's," or "unisex." Some pieces are clearly feminine in design, or made in women's sizing, but everyone has their own criteria for choosing what they wear, so if something matches your own sense of values, that's the right answer for you. I think the customers who come to our store tend to share that same mindset.
—— Was the branding originally designed with men in mind as well?
Ogaya-san Yes and no. Our policy was not to distinguish between men and women, so it wasn't so much that we had men in mind — it's more that when we opened things up, it turned out 40% of our customers were men.
Running the Register with Both Shopify POS and Square
—— You've adopted Shopify POS in your physical store — why did you choose Shopify POS?
Ogaya-san Because I wanted inventory data synced in real time between the store and online. It's also much easier to analyze sales and customer data when it's all consolidated in one place.
That said, Shopify POS alone isn't quite enough for us right now — we actually run our operations using both Shopify POS and Square together. It's not the most elegant setup, but it works as a kind of dual operation: we ring up sales on Shopify POS to handle inventory adjustments and link customer information, while using Square only for the payment portion. Right now, Shopify POS doesn't have anything like a card reader payment terminal. You technically could type in a credit card number by hand, but that's just not realistic.
—— How do you find using Shopify POS in practice?
Ogaya-san It's extremely easy to use, and our in-store staff use it without any real confusion. For any business running both a physical store and an online store, I'd say it's worth using Shopify POS as long as it fits your operations without too much strain. Bringing your data together in one place and being able to view online and in-person seamlessly makes a real difference.
Thank you so much for this valuable conversation, from your OMO initiatives to the reality of using Shopify POS! In Part 2, we'll dig into the marketplace-style site you built on Shopify in more detail.
