Local entrepreneur Andrew Landau today announced he is launching Jewel, a luxury e-commerce loyalty site based out of Grand Circus in Detroit.
Jewel partners with premium brands and sells goods at a discounted price to cost conscious customers looking to buy luxury goods online. Jewel allows the luxury retailers to maintain their brand image while reaching an untapped section of the marketplace.
When customers shop through Jewel, they get cash back from their purchases, which is sent electronically. Jewel also gives a portion of every sale to charities including Detroit-based Empowerment Plan, a nonprofit that employs single parents from local homeless shelters as seamstresses. Currently, Jewel has more than 75 luxury retailers committed and six team members.
“There is an entrepreneurial renaissance happening in Detroit,” Landau says. “The spirit, energy, and culture of Detroit are second to none. There is so much opportunity being part of the Detroit entrepreneurial community. There’s no place I’d rather start a company.”
Landau was born and raised in Detroit. He spent four years at Google before co-founding Chalkfly with his brother, Ryan, a Detroit startup backed by Detroit Venture Partners that sells office and school supplies directly to consumers, businesses, and teachers. After Chalkfly, which was acquired in 2014, Landau moved on to head of business development at New York-based Jet, an online shopping site that was sold to Walmart in 2016. Landau moved back to Detroit in early 2017.
Landau says he sees Jewel as a great opportunity, not only for customers to save money from the brands they like, but for luxury retailers to expand their markets.
“Digital luxury goods sales will triple to around $80 billion by 2025,” says Krystina Gustafson, a retail reporter at CNBC. “With estimates that online sales could make up to 40 percent of luxury sales by 2020, the luxury industry is seeing much larger growth than many other areas of e-commerce.”
To access Jewel, click here.
