In the Loupe
In the Loupe
Season 7 Kickoff: What I'm Thinking About for 2026
We set the tone for Season 7 with a focus on substance: vendor stories without the pitch, real data that guides decisions, and platform upgrades that make selling online easier for everyone. 2026 gets a bold forecast as we track ADA progress, performance trends, and the metrics that matter.
Send feedback or learn more about the podcast: punchmark.com/loupe
Learn about Punchmark's website platform: punchmark.com
Inquire about sponsoring In the Loupe and showcase your business on our next episode: podcast@punchmark.com
Welcome to In the Loop. What is up, everybody? My name is Michael Burpo. Thanks again for listening to In the Loop. We are so back, baby. This is the first episode of season seven. Oh my gosh, I am getting old and you guys are witnessing me getting old. I think you should send me an email if you've been listening since the very beginning. When we were the jeweler survival kit, you should send me an email, Michael at punchmark.com. If uh you've been listening since the beginning, I'd love to hear. Uh this episode is just kind of me talking about what I'm excited for for 2026, tease a couple things. I also want to talk about some stuff that is going on at Punchmark that we're starting to get excited about and just sort of set the scene. This start of the year is going to be really exciting for In the Loop. I took a little bit of time at the start of uh the season and I invited a whole bunch of heavy hitters that were too busy to talk to me during the holidays, and now their schedule is freed up, and now I'm kind of cashing in on that. So it's gonna be a good start to the year. I am so excited to be back uh talking with you on In the Loop though. It's uh again my favorite part of my job. I think we got a lot of cool things coming down the pike, and I hope you're locked and loaded and ready to come with us. So, everybody, please enjoy.
SPEAKER_00:Our mission reaches way beyond technology. With decades of experience and long-lasting industry relationships, PunchMark enables jewelry businesses to flourish in any marketplace. We consider our clients our friends, as many of them have been friends way before becoming clients. Punchmark's own success comes from the fact that we have a much deeper need and obligation to help our friends succeed. Whether you're looking for better e-commerce performance, business growth, or campaigns that drive traffic and sales, Punchmark's website and marketing services were made just for you. It's never too late to transform your business and stitch together your digital and physical world in a way that achieves tremendous growth and results. Schedule a guided demo today at punchmark.com slash go. And now back to the show.
SPEAKER_01:A few returning guests and also a few people I haven't spoken with before. This season I'm actually gonna try my hardest to lean into uh jewelry vendors a little bit more. As a part of my, you know, my job, I'm able to do that a little bit better. I have you know regular contact with a lot of uh jewelry vendors, especially some of the industry leading ones. And I'm gonna see if I can get them to come on uh the podcast and talk about what they're doing. Uh it's always a little bit of a balance because my listeners are their uh potential clients. And I really want to make sure that uh this isn't a sales pitch, it's you know, talking about their interesting stories and their foundings and things like that before in instead of like, hey, we're the best, you should sign up with us. Um so that's gonna be one of the things I'm gonna try to focus on is kind of getting vendors to tell their interesting stories and what differentiates them. Uh so coming up real soon, I'm having a returning guest with uh next week, uh the guys from Stone Algo. And these guys uh they were on last year. It was our best performing episode by a pretty wide margin, it was a really popular one. They have this AI-powered um ring builder that is it's really cool. And I had them on, and they also shared a whole bunch of data with us about what people are selecting and buying. And I think that's really I love talking about data. It's one of those things I feel like not enough people are sharing data, and I sort of wish that they would share it a little bit more. So I think that that'll be something uh, you know, I think that you should look for. It's coming out next week. Another one is going to be uh talking a little bit more about Punchmark's own narrative for the year. One of the things that's really cool is Punchmark got a whole bunch of stuff done right before the holidays. And for better or for worse, we're pretty cautious with it. Uh, one of the things that I've talked about in the past is that a lot of jewelers, I think it's like 30% or even more of jewelry sales will take place between November and uh New Year's. So pretty much everybody's selling a ton in those two months, and it's so important for us to not uh release anything that could potentially impact those sales. So as a result, we ended up not releasing a couple of things that were we think were ready, and now we're pushing them out right now. A few of those things uh I'm actually not going to uh to tease them, but there are these pretty important infrastructure changes uh that you know kind of masquerade as a feature release. But under the hood, there's these pretty important, impactful things that are changing. Uh, one of the biggest is ADA compliance. Um, we spent a pretty astronomical amount of time working on ADA compliance and making sure our websites are the most ADA compliant. Again, I've talked about this several episodes. ADA stands for the American Disabilities Act, and what that is, is essentially ensuring that anybody with any uh potential disability is able to use your website in an accessible way at the same uh way someone who doesn't have a disability could use it. Uh things like using screen readers if you're um hard of sight, or things like a um having color um what is it, contrast. There you go. Color contrast that makes it so that if you're colorblind, you're still able to use websites, um, you're still able to tab through and be able to check out if you don't have um gross motor skills, things along the of that nature. It seems like it wouldn't be that uh important for everybody, but it is increasingly important. ADA compliance is one of the things we're going to hang our hat on because we've spent so much time on it, and we were like, okay, if we're gonna spend our time on this, we might as well spend in a ton of time and do this as well as we possibly can. So that's one thing that's coming down the pike. Another thing that's gonna be really fascinating is going to be uh talking about, I want to do these check-ins with our marketing team to talk about what how jewelers are performing. It's no secret, I tatted it from the rooftops last year, but 2025 was our best performing e-commerce year since 2021. It was it almost, it almost beat 2021. It would have been awesome if it was our best year of all time. 2021 had a lot of things going for it, obviously. Uh, you know, there was uh a little thing you probably have never heard of it called the you know global pandemic that was going on, and everybody's luxury budgets were getting funneled into uh tangible objects such as jewelry, and they were all buying them online. So you could you could argue that 2021 was artificially inflated, but we need to compete with that, and that's where my data shows is that 2021, insane. 22, a little bit uh worse than 21. 23 uh kind of continues the trend slowly down. Uh 24 was actually our not very impressive year. I thought it really cooled off, and I sort of thought there was a chance that maybe uh e-commerce was kind of cooling. And then 25 came back and it was incredible. What we saw is some clients producing really well on the high end, selling um really high dollar amounts. We also saw some clients on the lower end, but also selling uh lots of product, so lots of transactions, lower average order value. And what that tells me is that if you could do both of those things, you're doing something right. So when you kind of combine those things, I think that there is uh, you know, some exciting stuff coming. My prediction, I already made this prediction in the second to last episode of the year. I think that 2026 is going to smash every record that we have when it comes to e-commerce. I think that 26 is going to set a new high water mark. I've no idea about 27, it's too far, but I think 26 is going to uh absolutely break every single record that we have. Here's another thing on a personal note. I think I need to come to grips with the fact I have a little bit of a screen addiction. Um, I I think that one of the things I'm going to try to endeavor on 2026 is that I'm going to try to use my phone a little bit less. I had this moment a couple of weeks ago where I just was like really scrolling and I just don't like the feeling of being like, I don't think the word is beholden to, but I felt like I was uh it had got me, you know, it was in me. And I need to beat that. So on a personal note, I think I'm going to try my hardest to uh you know cut back on how much screen usage I'm using. I think that's tough, is my job requires me to be on my uh computer all the time, and also to promote my art business, I have to be on my phone and be using Instagram. And that's definitely my uh my drug of choice. It's definitely Instagram. And I think one of the things I'm gonna do is I'm going to um I put a limiter on my Instagram. Right now I have it set to one hour. I can only use Instagram for one total hour um on the for every day. I think maybe I'll try to cut that back down to maybe 45, and then I think 30 minutes is a pretty healthy amount, but it just, man, it really got me. So that's one thing I'm kind of paying attention to. Maybe you should also consider re-evaluating your own uh screen usage. Another thing that I'm kind of looking at, I'm starting to think about uh what do I want the message of in the loop to be? I think a thing that I sometimes overlook, and I did at the end of this past year, is I was thinking about like why what is the proposition for why you should be listening to In the Loop every single week? Uh you're probably not listening because you just really like me. You know, that's not really the point. I'm trying to make this get back to our roots, which is to say, tell interesting stories, convey uh uh cutting-edge information about you know technologies or marketing or uh things related to the jewelry industry that will make you better, but also sharing um stories for people that I think matter. So I think I'm gonna try to keep that at the heart, is going to be like, why should you tune in every single week? I think I'm gonna try to just keep it in the value proposition of uh you should be listening because um we offer substance. There's a couple episodes at the end of the year where I was sort of up against the wall and I didn't want to cancel some episodes. And I was realizing I was like, oh man, I'm sort of like making this without that value proposition in mind. I think I was making episodes that I was interested in, and sometimes we gotta think about our end consumer, and sometimes jewelers need to do this too, and think about what is it that makes us what is our value proposition. And I think that that's one of the main parts is if I can make something that I think will make my listeners better, then I'm you know heading in the right direction. And then finally, I think I'm gonna try to start uh a few new series. So historically, I have a lot of these episodes that are recurring. Um, you know, uh breaking down the best is definitely one of them. And I kind of want to do a couple more of those episodes. I think that they're very fun. And I also do these recurring episodes, for example, with Steven Barnes, um, checking in with him every year, and Craig McBean from Ospie. But I also think I want to talk about, for example, like what um these founders of the jewelry industry. So, like, where did uh some of these ideas come from that are so beholden? For example, like who was it that started laser engraving, which really changed a lot of stuff. It used to have to be everything used to have to be hand engraved. So I think I'm gonna try to dive into that sort of thing so that people kind of know the interesting stories behind it. It's something I'm working on. If you have any ideas about like how to do that, um I'm putting together some stuff maybe about patents. I think that patents are really interesting. Um, my brother's uh fiance's dad owns like a lot of patents and they're really interesting. I was talking to him over Christmas and I was realizing I don't know anything about patents. So I might start talking about a couple of those things. And one last thing is I think that for this year, season seven, there's a few white whales that I have as far as um, you know, who I've always wanted to interview. And this year, I think I'm gonna see if I can land them. Uh, I won't say exactly who they are, but you'll know when I get a chance to lock in and interview with them. Uh, it's gonna be promoted pretty heavily, so please do me a favor and make sure you listen to those episodes because I think I'm gonna do uh yeah, I think I'm gonna try to land a couple of the white whales. So, okay, this is just sort of a kickoff the season. Let's get really excited for 2026. I am going to be paying attention increasingly to average order values, the price of gold. Uh, I'm gonna be paying attention to jewelry industry trends as much as possible. Um, I think that the fluctuating markets when it comes to not just gold, like the price of silver, silver is insane right now. Uh, that's gonna be another thing I'm gonna be looking at. And if I can con if I can convey that information to you all, then I'm doing something right. As always, thanks so much for listening. Uh, we'll be back next week, Tuesday with more episodes. And the first one is gonna be a banger. It's with Stone Algo talking about their uh their last six years of incredible growth. They were our best episode from last year, and I'm hoping to kick it off with a bang. So, everybody, thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next week, Tuesday, with another episode. Cheers. Bye. Alright, everybody, that's the end of the show. Thanks so much for listening. This episode was brought to you by Punchmark and produced and hosted by me, Michael Burpo. This episode was edited by Paul Suarez with music by Ross Cocker. Don't forget to rate the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and leave us feedback on punchmark.com slash loop. That's L-O-U-P-E. Thanks. We'll be back next week, Tuesday, with another episode. Cheers. Bye.
