Q&A: Bohomoon founder Katie Lynch on taking the business from her bedroom to the world

Founded by Katie Lynch in 2014 from her bedroom while studying at university, Bohomoon is a jewellery brand that prides itself on affordable, high-quality jewellery.

On a mission to offer trend-led, tarnish free jewellery to young female shoppers, all of Bohomoon’s products are quality checked in-house at its Shropshire-based warehouse – something the business has recently invested in transforming to become an eco warehouse as it aims to up sustainability credentials.

Having seen sales during Black Friday rise 104% year on year, as well as a 101% increase in year-on-year sales during the month of December, the jewellery brand is inevitably doing something right in terms of winning over customers, despite operating in an increasingly competitve market.

Shipping worldwide but with a large focus on the UK market to date and with ambitious growth plans, including dreams of Maya Jama and Hailey Bieber becoming the brand’s celebrity ambassadors, founder Katie Lynch sat down with Retail Week to discuss the business’ journey so far, what makes the brand stand out from the crowd and plans to tackle the mammoth market that is the US.

Talk me through the Bohomoon journey

I started in my university bedroom more than 10 years ago, after I’d been thrifting and selling on eBay for about a year. I really put a lot of effort into styling the products and taking pictures. After the first few sold I spent £500 of my student loan on buying a lot of jewellery. Six months later, I rang my parents and said I needed to quit university because I couldn’t fulfil all the orders. I was paying my flatmates to go to the post office for me at this point, so my mum ended up taking over the fulfilment from her spare bedroom so that I could finish university and concentrate on the buying and marketing of Bohomoon.

Within six months of that we got an office in Telford, and it just went from there. We started hiring local staff and it just grew and grew. We got a bigger officer probably every year, we started taking on an extra room in the building and we’ve taken on another two floors since. It was slow and steady up until about three years ago and it’s just been crazy since.

In a competitive market, where does Bohomoon sit?

We’ve really found our own place in the middle market, as there wasn’t historically anywhere between tarnishing, high-street jewellery and solid, expensive gold. I feel like we’ve really found a mix/luxury price point that’s affordable but also the best quality in my experience.

It’s been a lot of trial and error with the materials that we use. We started with copper as it’s the standard, but because I was doing the customer service at that time, I was directly receiving the complaints about green fingers and tarnishing and I just thought ‘I can’t do this, there has to be something better’. Then we found stainless steel, which really catapulted the proposition because people were buying it and it was lasting, which really drives that returning customer.

We have what we call a cult following. We know that once we’ve got a customer, we’ve got them. For the price, our jewellery is unbeatable really in the market. The level of competition in the market now just spurs me on to make sure we’re the best. We have the most products and the most inclusive size range, as well as the most options across silver, gold and rose gold. We are trying to offer everything for everyone so that no one needs to go anywhere else, that’s the plan.

We also have some products that we have sold for five years that still remain at the same price. That’s really important to me as it’s one of our huge, unique selling points and something we want to maintain.

What’s on the horizon for the brand this year?

The big plan for 2025 is the US. We are going there soon for a research trip and we are hopefully going to secure a PR agency over there. We already ship there, about 10% to 15% of our sales come from the US but we really want to hone in on it. We want to get our shipping amazing over there.

Trying to navigate the challenge of encouraging people to make the first purchase will obviously be the hardest thing for us, but once we get the product in their hands we are very confident. 

We’ve also always wanted to do a pop-up in the UK, but it’s the logistics – we’ve never really had enough staff to be able to focus on it. There’s always just so much going on. We’re growing so much year on year that it’s definitely in our plans, especially within university locations.

What’s the biggest challenge and area of focus for Bohomoon as you continue to grow?

The main thing is just keeping up with the growth and the demands of scaling, because we are doubling in size every year. We are adapting and hiring new team members and we’ve got our warehouse management system going in, which is a big change to the way we’ve always done things.

We’ve recently brought in a new head of ops, which has been exciting. I’m adapting to putting trust in people with their previous experience, which I’ve not really done before. I couldn’t imagine orders, for example, going to an external warehouse and not having my eyes over it, but I know I can’t do that forever. I just really want to be involved and make sure it’s perfect for the customer.