Diamond rings don’t have to cost millions of dollars to shine. Mejuri is a jewelry brand that knows this well. Third-generation jeweler Noura Sakkijha founded the company in 2013 to blend time-honored craftsmanship with a contemporary vision. She believed fine jewelry shouldn’t be limited to gifts or gatekept by steep price points.
It’s clear Mejuri’s modern approach is working. Mejuri adornments are accessible to everyday shoppers and are also sported by celebrities such as Bella Hadid, Margot Robbie, and Oprah. And while the company started as an online-only D2C brand, Mejuri has since expanded into 39 brick-and-mortar stores across the US, UK, Canada, and Australia—with more on the way.
Retail stores are a critical part of Mejuri’s mission to redefine luxury. They allow Mejuri to offer highly personalized in-store experiences, such as piercing appointments and styling sessions to help customers find the right fit. Now, by using Shopify Point of Sale (POS) and Shopify for ecommerce, Mejuri unifies its online and offline channels to serve customers everywhere they shop.
Shopify’s Thanoosha Sivakumaran sat down with Mejuri’s Chief Digital Officer Rohit Nathany to discuss why Mejuri migrated to Shopify for both ecommerce and point of sale. In this article, we’ll explore the highlights from that conversation—including how Mejuri partners with Shopify to increase operational efficiency, accelerate innovation, and unlock the power of unified commerce.
Achieving operational efficiency and accelerating innovation
Operational efficiency and speed of innovation are critical for scaling retailers, like Mejuri. The jewelry brand recognized these imperatives and migrated to Shopify's unified commerce platform. Mejuri’s move to Shopify was driven by a clear vision to streamline operations and enhance customer experiences across both digital and physical storefronts.
As the company’s Chief Digital Officer, Rohit sees the transformative impact of this decision: "We are in the business of selling jewelry and not building custom tech. We want to move so fast, and tech was becoming a blocker for us. It actually slowed down the pace of innovation." That’s one big reason why Rohit and Mejuri made the shift from a custom tech stack that hindered agility, to Shopify’s platform that truly unifies ecommerce and point of sale in one system.
For many large-scale retailers, switching both ecommerce and POS platforms comes with a tedious, lengthy transition timeline. Yet Mejuri was able to replatform to Shopify in less than nine months. Rohit calls that timeline “insanely fast,” highlighting the platform's efficiency and ease of integration. This accelerated migration isn’t the norm with other platforms, something Rohit and other technical leaders know all too well.
“I recall attending a Shopify event where I bumped into another CTO from another brand,” Rohit says. “And I think he laughed at me when I said ‘Hey, I'm targeting to start and complete the launch in less than nine months.’ And I immediately went back to my team. I was like, dude, it got personal now.” With Shopify's unified commerce platform, Mejuri avoided the toil and fragmentation that often comes with launching and maintaining multiple solutions.
Mejuri replatformed to Shopify in less than 9 months.
Shopify’s platform handles the heavy lifting for retailers by consolidating commerce tech in one place. This allowed Mejuri to better align its tech with its business strategy—both online and offline. Now Rohit and the Mejuri team can redirect their focus towards strategic growth initiatives, such as market expansion and enhancing customer engagement. This shift from maintaining IT infrastructure to advancing core business objectives is a key benefit of adopting a managed commerce platform like Shopify.
Reducing tech overhead to focus on growth
Mejuri knew that keeping their technology up and running shouldn’t come at the cost of growing their business. So they needed a platform that would free them to drive growth: Shopify. By moving to Shopify, Mejuri cut down the time and effort needed just to keep the company’s old maintenance-heavy custom setup running.
Rohit sheds light on the inefficiencies of their previous technology, stating, “When you start looking under the hood, we were spending most of our time in building and maintaining third-party integrations, which come out of the box with a unified solution like Shopify.”
For Mejuri, moving to Shopify's unified commerce solution means their team can focus less on handling technical debt and more on developing strategies that directly contribute to business growth—a stark difference from the retailer’s previous situation.
When you start looking under the hood, we were spending most of our time in building and maintaining third-party integrations, which come out of the box with a unified solution like Shopify.
This strategic move to Shopify has not only streamlined operations but also positioned Mejuri to better capitalize on emerging opportunities. By reducing the friction typically associated with technology management, Mejuri can now concentrate on what they do best—creating unique jewelry experiences—while relying on Shopify to manage the complexities of the commerce technology ecosystem.
Leveraging modular and extensible commerce capabilities
As Mejuri considered a new commerce platform, Rohit faced a common dilemma: To build? Or to buy? For him, the answer was somewhere between that false dichotomy. With Shopify, he didn’t have to choose—he got both. That’s because Shopify is built with robust native capabilities, while still allowing retailers the extensibility needed to solve for their unique use cases.
If Mejuri was still on its previous platform, the retailer would’ve had to custom develop every time they wanted to add new functionality to their systems. Now with Shopify in place, Rohit sees firsthand the value retailers get from using a platform built for customization at scale. “If you’re a brand in the consumer product space, I feel confident saying 80% to 90% of your use cases will be solved with a unified solution like Shopify,” he says.
Shopify’s platform is flexible and customizable by design. Its modular nature allows businesses to deploy new features and capabilities without impacting interdependent systems. The platform’s flexibility and ease of customization enables retailers to tailor their tech stack to their specific needs—without getting bogged down by the lengthy deployments that typically accompany custom-built solutions. With Shopify, Mejuri gained new, easier ways to extend the functionality of their commerce system, including both code and no-code options:
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Code: Shopify offers retailers UI extensions and developer tools that enable businesses to build bespoke functionality to meet unique business needs. So if retailers want to build their own custom functionality, they can get as creative as they want. Check out some examples of POS UI extensions from top retailers like Tecovas and Tomlinson’s.
- No code: Shopify’s ecosystem of plug-and-play apps enables retailers to quickly extend Shopify’s functionality. This way, businesses can rapidly adapt and refine the shopping experience to meet emerging consumer preferences and changing market dynamics. For example, retailers might choose an app that allows them to send post-purchase customer experience surveys to customers.
If you’re a brand in the consumer product space, I feel confident saying 80% to 90% of your use cases will be solved with a unified solution like Shopify.
With Shopify, Mejuri increased its technological agility and resilience—both critical gains in today’s ever-changing retail environment. The ability to customize and extend Shopify's functionality means that Mejuri can offer even more personalized shopping experiences to attract and nurture customers. Whether they want to refine the checkout process, integrate unique loyalty programs, or deploy targeted marketing strategies, Shopify's platform provides Mejuri the tools they need to implement these features swiftly and securely.
Unlocking international expansion through tech
Shopify's infrastructure is highly scalable, which is essential for Mejuri as it continues to grow and expand into new markets. In fact, Mejuri recently launched a new retail store in Australia. Its new Sydney location not only serves customers in person, but it also becomes a fulfillment center poised to deliver customers across the Asia Pacific region the jewelry they want, faster.
For Mejuri, international expansion and order routing are interconnected. Rohit sees significant opportunity in leveraging retail store inventory to serve both online and offline shoppers. “I look at all our retail stores as fulfillment nodes,” he says. But Mejuri’s previous commerce stack didn’t allow the company to seize this opportunity.
“Imagine a fleet of retail stores with inventory on hand,” Rohit says. “It’s really important for us to scale our order routing capabilities so we can leverage that inventory [to fulfill online orders] and improve our inventory turn. It’s a huge impact to the business both on the top line and bottom line.”
To make Rohit’s vision a reality, Mejuri first needed key technical capabilities, like dynamic order routing and ship from store fulfillment. And Shopify delivers the native functionality Mejuri needs to transform retail stores into fulfillment centers—no custom builds required. “With Shopify, we can fulfill online orders from that store, which will drastically cut down delivery times, costs, and result in happier customers,” Rohit says. “It’s a win-win.”
Shopify’s platform ensures that Mejuri can handle flexible fulfillment options and increased traffic and transactions, without compromising on performance or customer experience. This scalability is supported by Shopify's cloud-based infrastructure, which provides reliability and uptime that are critical for maintaining customer trust and business continuity. In other words, it’s just what Mejuri needs to drive cross-border growth. “Shopify is unlocking rapid international expansion for us,” Rohit says.
Shopify is unlocking rapid international expansion for us. With Shopify, we can fulfill online orders from that store, which will drastically cut down delivery times, costs, and result in happier customers. It’s a win-win.
Make your move towards unified commerce
For retail technology leaders, Mejuri's journey offers crystal clear insight into the benefits of embracing Shopify’s unified commerce platform. As Rohit aptly puts it, “It's really great to actually feel relieved that I'm spending more time thinking about what else I can do on behalf of our customers and how to grow the business, rather than worry about the technical debt.”
