Tech has been at the forefront of many industries for years now, with the luxury retail industry being one of the slowest to catch-up.
A reason for this may be placed on the importance of clienteling or relationships that rely on real, in-person communications to be successful.
However, alongside that is the need to stay up-to-date with an industry which is as agile as any other, with those leading it taking pride in their ability to adapt. This is where Michael Razny and Crystal come in.
For over a century, jewelers all over the nation have been following the aforementioned logic. In public, they were the directors of their industry, engineering the advancement of luxury retail.
In private, however, things were not so posh.
“We were using paper and spreadsheets to keep track of everything,” says Daniel Londono of Material Good (MG), the modern jewelry boutique based in New York’s sleek SoHo neighborhood.
With a fast-growing clientele of athletes, celebrities, and high-end shoppers, the traditional system many jewelers use to organize inventory and process sales was too antiquated for MG.
Moreover, this black hole of time was going to cost them money and effort in the long run.
Mr Londono admitted: “It was a pain. We were looking for something to replace it for about a year.”
To understand why no solution presented itself, no matter how many programmers Daniel contacted, the nature of luxury retail must be understood.
In a world where value is placed on what is rare and that worth increases as time passes, the term “archaic” does not exist.
It does not apply to the families who have cared for their business for generations, and it does not apply to the gems and timepieces they offer to the communities who’ve trusted them for decades.
After all, when entering a jeweler’s showroom, we expect a personal, customized experience, not a cold, fast transaction, complete in a blur of iPad screens.
This admirable appreciation for the importance of treasures and relationships made the industry unconsciously anti-tech in almost every way. However, necessity is the mother of invention.
Enter the great-grandson of Chicago’s leading family-owned and operated source for luxury, Razny Jewelers.
In 2020, Michael Razny ushered the industry into the 21st century with the launch of Crystal, a first-of-its-kind cloud-based inventory management and point-of-sale platform for single and multi-location jewelry stores.
On this, he explained: “Throughout my entire career in jewelry, I’ve had to use outdated technology, along with many other jewelers. The jewelry industry has been underserved and overlooked for so long. I knew the problem wouldn’t solve itself because our industry is too niche for big tech.”
Before Crystal, Michael managed retail operations at Razny Jewelers, a thriving business his family has owned for over 70 years.
There, he experienced first-hand the inconveniences independent retailers faced when utilizing inventory management that contributed to negative customer experiences, strained vendor relationships, and decreased profitability.
Seeing the apparent gap between tech and luxury, Michael teamed up with Joel Steinbaugh, the Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Crystal.
Before Crystal, Steinbaugh led design and full-stack development at multiple seed-stage startups in the education, music, and gaming industries. Together, Michael and Joel created Crystal, a jewelry software that finally provides independent jewelers unprecedented inventory management capabilities.
Among its many necessary tools, Crystal offers custom attributes, dynamic reporting, an integrated point-of-sale, and an iOS app that allows retailers access to the platform with any device at any location.
By listening to his clients, including members of his family’s business, Michael leads a team of skilled programmers whose mission is to ensure Crystal remains a dynamically valuable, intuitive resource.
Crowned “The Next Generation of Jewelry Store Management,” Crystal is the software chosen by Official Rolex Jewelers and diamond dealers across the country, including historic names such as Henne Jewelers in Pittsburgh, PA, and Razny Jewelers, the only Patek Philippe jeweler in Illinois.
Material Good approves too. Mr Londono said: “It’s just exceeded our every expectation,” and with the founders’ blessings, Material Good went all-in on Crystal.
Today, the business uses Crystal to manage inventory, commissions, reporting, and sales.
