Caitlin Graham | Director of Strategy & Performance
For the modern luxury shopper, "online" and "in-store" aren't two different trips. They're two halves of the same one. She scrolls a fine jewelry brand's Instagram over morning coffee, pulls up the site on her lunch break to compare settings, and walks into the store that weekend to see the piece catch the light before she buys. By the time she's at the counter, she's already made up her mind three times over. As we covered in The Myth of Spontaneity, that average purchase window is closer to 18 days vs. within a week, however the behavior remains consistent.
These findings are supported by Loudr & GWI's Inside the Luxury Consumer study, a survey of over 1,000 U.S. luxury shoppers. And it holds a lesson every luxury marketer needs to sit with: the brands winning right now aren't choosing between digital and physical. They're building one continuous experience across both.
The Data Behind the Seamless Journey
The study, which used fine jewelry as a lens into broader luxury behavior, found that today's luxury consumer is intentional, self-driven, and deeply omnichannel. Some highlights:
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73% of jewelry purchasers shop in-store, and 57% also buy online, overlapping groups, not separate audiences.
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82% research jewelry online before buying in a physical store.
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75% purchase in-store after first discovering the item online.
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74% pull out their phone mid-shop to check prices or reviews while standing in a store.
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70% visit a store to see a product in person before completing the purchase online.
Zoom out to luxury more broadly, and the pattern repeats: 69% of shoppers buy premium skincare online and 67% buy it in-store, largely the same people, moving fluidly between the two depending on the moment, the price point, and how much reassurance they need before they commit.
This isn't unique to luxury, either. According to CapitalOne Shopping Research, 86% of shoppers research products online, even if they ultimately buy in-store. Further, Omnichannel shoppers spend roughly 16% more per order than single-channel shoppers and carry a 30% higher lifetime value.
Why Marketers Can't Afford a Gap Between Digital and Physical
If nearly three-quarters (or more) of your customers are researching online before ever stepping through your door, your website, social presence, and paid media aren't a separate channel from your retail floor. They're the front door to it. A search ad, a well-lit product photo, an Instagram post someone shares with their partner or friends, particularly great video content: each of these is doing real work influencing an in-store sale, even though the point-of-sale system will only ever credit the store.
That's the "halo effect" digital marketers have long talked about, and our data gives it real texture. Search engines and brand websites dominate the research phase of the jewelry journey; social, YouTube, and word of mouth drive early discovery; and in-store browsing still does the heavy lifting at the moment of final validation. Cut any one of those touchpoints and you don't just lose a channel. You break the chain that was quietly building someone's confidence to buy.
The practical takeaway for luxury marketers: invest in digital not just for its own conversion rate, but for its role in filling stores with shoppers who've already decided. That means consistent pricing and imagery across your site and your sales floor, store locators and inventory visibility baked into digital campaigns, and sales associates equipped to pick up a conversation a customer already started on their phone.
What Ecommerce-Only Brands Need to Earn a High-Ticket "Yes"
Selling a $60 candle online is easy. Selling a $6,000 engagement ring with no store to walk into is a different problem entirely, and the data spells out exactly where the friction lives. Among online jewelry shoppers, the top barriers to purchase were:
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Trust in the retailer or website (77%)
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Transparent pricing with no hidden fees (76%)
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Detailed product images and video (75%)
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Secure payment (73%)
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Authenticity guarantees or certifications (72%)
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Clear return and refund policies (70%)
Brands that sell high-ticket items purely online have had to engineer trust that a storefront gives away for free. A few patterns worth stealing:
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Make authenticity visible, not implied. Resale platforms like The RealReal and Vestiaire Collective built their entire business on this: The RealReal has physically inspected more than 22 million items since 2011, and Vestiaire runs a 99.9%-accurate authentication process backed by a 600-page reference handbook and four dedicated centers worldwide. For jewelry specifically, certifications, grading reports, and clear sourcing information do the same job.
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Make the return the easy part. Pair free shipping both ways with 14-30 day, no-questions returns and lifetime warranties, removing the "what if it's wrong" anxiety before it can stop a purchase.
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Replace the salesperson with a real person. Blue Nile's virtual gemologist appointments support high-ticket buyers who still want to ask a human a question before they click "buy." They just don't need that human standing behind a counter to do it.
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Let other buyers vouch for you. Specific, sensory reviews, like how a clasp feels or how a stone photographs versus how it looks in daylight, do more to close the confidence gap than star ratings alone.
Thought Starters: Giving Digital-First Brands Something to Touch
Even with airtight trust signals, some purchases still need that IRL experience. That's why so many of the most successful ecommerce-first luxury brands have found their way into physical space, not by opening traditional stores, but by rethinking what "in person" needs to accomplish.
A few worth studying:
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Vrai, a lab-grown diamond jeweler that launched online-only in 2014, opened its first showroom in Los Angeles in 2021 and now operates 14 locations designed to feel "like a gallery, not a traditional jewelry store": glass cases along the walls, private consultation rooms, and a "Cut For You" custom design service available both online and in person. The showroom didn't replace the digital business. It gave it a place to close the sale.
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Mejuri built its first six years entirely online before opening a first store in 2018. By 2024 it had grown to more than 50 locations, proof that a digital-first brand can scale into physical retail deliberately, store by store, once it understands exactly what shoppers still need a room for.
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Moda Operandi started hosting trunk shows in rented hotel suites during fashion week, a temporary, low-commitment way to let clients handle runway pieces before they existed anywhere else. The format performed so well it led to permanent locations in London, with more markets to follow.
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Rebag opened a SoHo pop-up built around a "bag bar" offering instant authentication and quotes on the spot, then translated that same instant-gratification energy into a 4,500-square-foot Miami flagship anchored by its now-famous wall of rare Hermès Birkins, among other permanent locations.
None of these brands abandoned their digital roots to do this. They used physical space surgically, choosing a showroom, a trunk show, or a pop-up bar to deliver the one thing a screen still can't: the chance to hold the thing, ask a question out loud, and feel sure.
The Takeaway
Luxury shoppers were never choosing between a screen and a store. They were always moving between both, at their own pace, gathering confidence from every touchpoint along the way. The brands that grow from here won't be the ones that pick a lane. They'll be the ones that make every lane feel like the same road. Let us know how we can help you find your audience and build an omnichannel plan to reach them.
