Keeping in tune with industry trends while prioritizing customer satisfaction is the recipe to hip hop jewelry empire, Frost NYC’s, success.
Blessed with a storied jewelry industry background, Arthur Ilyev knows how to start a jewelry business online. Judging by the massive success of Frost NYC in just under a year, this is certainly the epitome of an understatement. After all, it is his very knowledge of all things hip hop jewelry that has made this website one of the most profitable online businesses of the decade, thanks to his shrewd ability to make and maintain that success based on the ever-growing demand for luxury bling.
“Even though jewelry websites were booming, they mostly featured fashion jewelry collections like Charm and Chain and Bling Jewelry,” Ilyev recalls from his Diamond District office. “I knew that there needed to be that kind of website that catered to hip hop jewelry lovers, especially since I, myself, know many people who wanted to get that streamlined shopping experience online.” It was with this vision in mind that a new online boutique that focused on men’s street style jewelry and hip hop fashion accessories was born at the beginning of this year. Since then, Frost NYC has added gold chains, bracelets, gold pendants and rings at an incredible rate, making it one of the fastest-growing e-commerce sites in the jewelry industry.
Prior to launching the website, Ilyev owned and managed an extremely successful hip hop jewelry store in the heart of New York’s Diamond District. “From hip hop fans who wanted the same iced-out look as their favorite rappers to the A-list hip hop royalty themselves, they were always coming into my shop to customize their bling,” he recalls as he points out a 14-karat yellow gold rope chain on the site as one of the store’s classic bestsellers. “Everyone kept on coming back for more pieces, which is what finally kickstarted my jewelry business plan to bring that level of hip hop glamour online.”
Fortunately for Ilyev, he already had the perfect ingredients to get his dream of a luxury street jewelry website off the ground. “I already knew that Frost NYC had the potential to be a global brand that would rival the established hip hop jewelry sites,” he says. “The same guy in Paris who couldn’t get enough of Wiz Khalifah’s weed leaf pendant is the same guy that would spend hundreds of dollars to get that flashy look, so it made perfect sense for me to give him the opportunity to buy that look online instead of flying across the globe to buy it.”
The first course of action for Ilyev was to ask his clients what their ideal hip hop luxury jewelry business would be. “Even though I’d asked them in a hypothetical tone, most of them pretty much told me that they’d love to have the same custom jewelry experience on a website that we were giving them in our shop,” he says. Even though one can get a distinct idea from the term “specialty store”, he was confident that there would be plenty of jewelry business opportunities that could spring from fulfilling the demand of clients who weren’t always able to come to New York to buy their hip hop bling.
The concept of buying a 14-karat rose gold multicolor genuine diamond bracelet from the convenience of one’s tablet anywhere in the world was too good an idea to not follow through on, so Ilyev tested out that theory by posting the item online on a simple web platform and promoted it via e-newsletter to his VIP clients. In a matter of just six hours, the bracelet had sold out thanks to those who wanted to get their hands on the jewelry piece before anyone else did. “Right then and there, I knew that following the customer-is-always-right mantra was what would be a key to this site’s success and we’ve never lost sight of that,” he states in a matter-of-fact tone.
Ultimately, being able to be innovative while adapting to the constant change of the e-commerce industry is how Frost NYC is able to call itself one of the most successful website launches in the last decade. “
