In the depths of the first year of the pandemic, Secret Sales co-founder Sach Kukadia struck gold with a new business idea. He explains how 7879’s customers are encouraged to gamify the system, its sustainability focus and plans for future expansion.
On a sunny terrace in Soho House, serial entrepreneur Sach Kukadia sits down with Retail Week for a coffee to chat about his latest venture, jewellery brand 7879.
Named for the atomic numbers of platinum and gold, the brand brings a twist on the traditional with dynamic pricing and a sustainability focus.
Kukadia is most well known for founding discount etailer Secret Sales with his brother Nish in 2007.
The pair sold the flash sales site to Lifestyle Retail Group in 2019 and Kukadia has since gone solo with his brand, launched in September 2021.
Silver linings
The idea for 7879 came to him in the midst of the turmoil of the pandemic in 2020, when he noticed that gold continued to trade at one of the highest prices.
“After three months’ worth of sort of explorative processes, it became clear that there was an opportunity within the direct-to-consumer space to create a business that allowed everyday consumers to buy into gold,” Kukadia tells Retail Week.
“For people to actually enjoy what they’re wearing, and for the first time, invest into a really safe commodity and have a physical product that they can enjoy rather than it being an invisible investment.”
The business is based around “purity, surety and luxury over puffery”, he says.
Pieces such as chains, pendants, rings and bracelets are made either out of 24-carat gold or 99.9% platinum, sold at the trading price of its weight plus a 30% margin for design and manufacturing.
In comparison, luxury jewellers will often charge a 500% margin on the cost of the metal.
Prices of each item, therefore, change by the second and once purchased customers can track their investment on site in real time, like a stocks-and-shares portfolio.
Customers are then offered the opportunity to sell the product back to 7879 at any point at the prevailing price of the metal, meaning they liquidate their assets and potentially make a profit.
“You can gamify the process of purchasing in this way and we want consumers to feel like what they’re purchasing is smart,” Kukadia says.
“I think what’s happened off the back of Brexit – and what’s come out of Covid – is a really smart, savvy consumer who really cares about what they’re purchasing.
“They care about the environmental impacts of the items they’re buying into; they care about the brand’s footprint and the stance those brands have; and, fundamentally, they care about what that brand represents.”
Green and gold
7879 also holds sustainability as part of its core values – all gold used is recycled and all platinum is ethically sourced with a view to becoming fully recycled in the future.
By using 100% solid metals, the brand can also recycle any returned items into new products – although Kukadia says only one customer has taken them up on that offer so far.
With sustainability at its heart and a vision to make investing easier and more transparent, Kukadia pictured the brand’s core customers as 20-somethings with some income to spare, and an interest in spending sensibly and saving the planet.
The reality has been quite different – with doctors emerging as 7879’s biggest repeat customers.
“Before I started trading, I painted the profile of four personas, of which there were three women and one man, and the ages went up from 20 to 40, but we always assumed that the core demographic would sit between 25 and 35,” Kukadia explains.
“Now, experience tells me that I’m usually wrong with painting pictures of personas – at Secret Sales, we painted a picture of an 18- to 25-year-old woman who lived in the city, but when we got under the data the core consumer was actually somewhere between 30 and 40 years old.
“My sense is that we’re still yet to see what the real consumer looks like in 7879, but the early indicators are showing that you have younger consumers who are really buying into the concept of transparent pricing, and the older demographic – who are still slightly more affluent – are really interested in the investment angle.”
7879’s view of the customer has also been skewed by its recent pop-up in Selfridge’s corner shop.
Alongside diamonds made from CO2 and a 3D-printing robot that turns ocean plastic into chairs, 7879 took part in the department store retailer’s ‘Supermarket’ future of shopping pop-up.
As well as acting as a good brand-awareness exercise, the pop-up allowed 7879 to test itself against a wide cross-section of customers.
Building on this, Kukadia says he is keen to partner with other department stores and would someday be keen to open a standalone pop-up, or even a store.
“I feel like we are a little bit away from that right now,” he says, however. “There is an awareness that we need to drive for the brand that we don’t yet have.
“What was amazing about Selfridges was the concept space itself. A huge amount of traffic goes through that specific corner and to drive that level of traffic into our own pop-up store I think would be quite expensive.
“In the short term what we’d like to do is cross-pollinate – we want to work with partners and brands who we feel also believe in the same core values as 7879”
Sach Kukadia, 7879
“In the short term what we’d like to do is cross-pollinate – we want to work with partners and brands who we feel also believe in the same core values as 7879.”
Looking to the future, Kukadia is seeking scale, sustainability and education.
“We’re currently in a period where education is really important to us and we want to increase awareness for the brand,” he says.
“I want to scale the business in a way that makes sense for us – of course we want to grow as quickly as possible, but we don’t want to scale in a way that suddenly throws certain parts of the business out of proportion. We want to stay true to our proposition.”
International opportunities
Kukadia wants to take the business international, breaking into Europe in the next 12 months and – while sticking to its core offering – he also suggests that the brand may move beyond jewellery.
“7879 will absolutely start making items that may not necessarily be deemed jewellery, it may be deemed a paperweight or an ornament of sorts,” he says. “Regardless of that, we will always stay true to the proposition of transparency.”
“The fundamental underlying value of 7879 is giving value back to the customer and for that customer to buy into gold in a way they find useful – so if there is something that can be made out of gold or platinum that we think someone will buy, chances are we will make it.”
Kukadia is sceptical whether 7879’s dynamic pricing, guaranteed buyback and investment concept could be replicated in other retail categories.
Using the example of a leather jacket, Kukadia points to the number of variables that would need to be taken into account to form a dynamic price point.
“With a precious metal like gold and platinum, in its purest form, it just needs to be weighed,” he explains.
“Its weight will then be governed by an international market and that market will dictate how much it’s worth. So, it’s really simple for you or me, or anyone around the world, to just weigh a ring from 7879 and then to go on to the internet and within seconds know what it’s worth.”
7879 certainly has the potential to disrupt the jewellery market and bring younger shoppers into the luxury space – and with Kukadia at the helm all that glitters might just be gold.
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