Gemist
Inventory management
Led design for Gemist's internal CMS, replacing spreadsheet-based product data entry for a B2B jewelry platform.
Increased inventory management efficiency by 70% across a catalogue of 2,000+ products.
Context
Gemist's clients build custom jewelry lines with thousands of product variants: metals, stones, sizes. Their teams were managing all of it in spreadsheets, translating each option matrix into thousands of rows by hand, a process slow and error-prone enough that onboarding stretched to weeks. I led design for the CMS built to replace it.
Role
I led design for the CMS from V1 through the V1.1 release: research with stakeholders and users, analysis of 21,000+ product entries across 19 clients, and the predefined-options, bulk-editing, and real-time feedback systems that replaced the spreadsheet workflow.
Current experience & key problems
From engaging with stakeholders and users and researching other
products, I identified three major problems in user's workflow. The existing spreadsheet-based approach had several critical issues:
Tedious Manual Entry: Entering thousands of rows of product data
was time-consuming and mentally draining.
High Error Potential: Mistakes were easily introduced and difficult to
track, often requiring multiple checks to verify accuracy.
Limited Visibility on Edits: Changes made by one user could have
unforeseen impacts elsewhere, increasing uncertainty and risk.
Product option/matrix: Users begin workflow with defining product options/matrix first collabrating with the client.
Users were forced to translate the above product option/matrix into 2800+ rows of products information. This takes weeks of back and fourth engagements with clients.
Goal
Considering that only about 30% of the jewelry industry operates online, many need to familiarize themselves with advanced digital tools.
Deliver a simpler, more intuitive system that naturally drives CMS adoption cutting errors, saving time, and elevating data quality.
Simplify Manual Entry: Make entering and editing product data easier and more efficient than dealing with spreadsheets, steering users toward a better workflow.
Scale Marketing Data Capture: Effortlessly manage thousands of SKUs with a guided interface that streamlines marketing details, ensuring quick edits to messages, subtitles, and titles.
Streamlined Bulk Editing: Enable effortless editing of large product sets while allowing precise individual adjustments as needed.
Result
Predefined options
Introduced default predefined options/matrices from analyzing over 21,000 product entries from 19 clients. Aligned the options/matrices with the jewelry industry’s most common attributes. This shift eliminated cumbersome data entry, reducing initial setup time and inventory generation by 50%.
It’s simpler to tweak than to build product options/matrix from scratch.
Automated product sheets to save hours
With just a few clicks, users could instantly generate detailed product sheets directly from their matrix sets, saving significant time and simplifying workflows.
Streamlined bulk editing process
By alerting users to enter marketing data and presenting these fields in a bulk editing turned into a streamlined process. This approach improved data accuracy by 30%, freeing marketing teams to invest more energy in strategic, narrative-driven tasks rather than struggling with complex spreadsheets.
Smarter editing process with instant feedback
Real-time informational messages highlighted selected attributes, active editing cells, and the total number of resulting product variations. This feedback loop decreased errors by 40%, boosted user confidence, and established a strong foundation for future enhancements such as integrating a rules engine for even more guided and intelligent edits.
