Brereton Jewellers targets exports with new ecommerce platform

One of Ireland's best-known jewellers, the 100-year-old John Brereton Jewellers family-owned group in Dublin, is rebranding and launching a new ecommerce site to tap into the international retail market for luxury products.

From next week the jewellers, which operates three stores in central Dublin including a €5 million flagship outlet on Grafton Street, will be known simply as Brereton. Its new website will also go live next week, targeting online sales of €200,000 in its first year, rising to €500,000 after year two.

The new site – www.brereton.ie – will also offer a “ring-builder” service from February or March next year, allowing international shoppers to design custom-made diamond rings online, which will be made at its O’Connell Street store in Dublin and shipped worldwide.

The jewellers is currently operated by the third and fourth generations of the family. John Brereton bought a jewellers and pawnbrokers on Capel Street shortly before Easter 1916, just before the Rising. The store closed when fighting broke out, but reopened the following week, according to ledgers in its store today.

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Current directors

The current directors of the business are brothers John and

Liam Brereton

, the grandsons of the founder. Their respective sons, Paul and Derek, also help run the business,especially the Grafton Street flagship, which opened in 2012.

Paul Brereton said the rebrand would help make the name of the business easier to find online as it ventures into the world of ecommerce. "The Brereton name is now synonymous with jewellery and it is a simpler, cleaner brand."

He said its current website gets about 14,000 hits per month, and it is hoping for a conversion [to sales] rate of about 2 per cent of that number on its new ecommerce platform.

“When we launch the ring-builder service we hope that will be the major driver of transactions on the site. Customers will pick their own diamond from a list of thousands, and match it with a ring and setting. We will then build the ring in-store and get it shipped within two weeks,” he said.

The site is the group's biggest investment since it opened on Grafton Street after buying the building from builder Joe Moran for €5 million in 2010.