Designing a Scalable Luxury Marketplace

PRODUCT DESIGN, ECOMMERCE, UX

As part of De Beers’ digital transformation, we explored direct-to-consumer (D2C) and business-to-consumer (B2C) opportunities. The goal was not only to unlock new revenue streams but to gather actionable consumer insights to inform upstream mining and manufacturing.

Challenge

De Beers had no modern ecommerce platform. Off-the-shelf tools lacked the flexibility to reflect luxury branding or had scalability issues under pressure. We needed to design a custom marketplace that could flex across jewellery and other luxury products, and capture rich user behaviour data.

Approach

User research in New York and Chicago with high-value self-purchasing women shaped early product and UX direction.
Created modular, data-driven templates, allowing the same core platform to deliver multiple experiences (e.g., fine jewellery, spice subscriptions).
Conducted UX research using Baymard Institute guidelines, testing prototypes with real users in shopping arcades.
Built a new checkout flow supporting Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and Klarna.
Onboarded independent designers, capturing their needs as personas and offering a “free forever” storefront in exchange for product listings.
Produced in-house photography and social content, converting office space into a studio to address visual content gaps.

Outcomes

Launched Rockin, a robust e-commerce platform to power both De Beers’ B2C and B2B digital sales experiences.
Used Tyga, a spice subscription brand, to test UX and capture high-volume consumer data - providing insight into preferences and behaviour.
Developed real-time consumer trend analytics that inform both jewellery designers and De Beers’ stone sourcing and manufacturing.
Enhanced De Beers’ B2B diamond platform with consumer-grade UX based on data from the ecommerce instances.
Platform now supports a growing roadmap of features, including subscription services, marketplace selling, and social-driven discovery.

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