How Kendra Scott reversed its fortunes by playing offense
When Kamanasish Kundu joined Kendra Scott as head of digital and e-commerce in 2023, the jewelry brand was in a multi-year decline. The key to change its fortunes, Kundu shared at Glossy’s E-Commerce Summit in Miami on Monday, was to play offense rather than defense.
“There were a lot of gaps we had, like we didn’t know the entire customer funnel, we didn’t know the friction points. We didn’t have a good foundation for testing as well as optimization, personalization,” said Kundu during Monday’s panel. “We spent millions on different tools. And when I started looking at the utilization reports, those were at, like, 1%, 5%. So that means we didn’t have the right people to run those sophisticated tools.”
Building upon his past experience at Pandora, Kundu wanted to move fast on a three-year offensive strategy. “I created an analytics and personalization team and brought in the experts, people who have worked with me in the past. And we soon launched a very clear customer journey. We started identifying the friction points in that journey. We set up guardrails, in terms of pre-testing, statistical modeling and writing business cases — basics which we didn’t have. And I think that that has been a growth engine for the business over the last over two years now.”
Since the launch of the new strategy two years ago, Kundu said Kendra Scott has grown by 50%. While Kundu does not expect to see double-digit growth throughout 2025 in a difficult retail environment, he is focused on building more immersive storytelling into Kendra Scott’s digital storefront. He said Kendra Scott’s multi-generational audience has connected with collaborations with the likes of Love Shack Fancy and Disney, and the brand has remained a standard in #BamaRush TikTok videos.
“One of the big bets we have for this year is that we are starting the site redesign with the Yellow Rose brand in the first half, and then in the second half, we are redesigning the Kendra Scott brand, as well. And as part of this rollout, we are moving into a progressive web app and composable architecture, which has been my dream from day one,” he said. “This is going to help us offer a much more immersive storytelling experience. It’s going to give you that fast app-like experience — and with speed, we know there is conversion.”
But there are still elements outside of the company’s control. Like many brands, Kendra Scott is facing a changing supply chain due to volatile tariffs imposed by President Trump. Kundu said Kendra Scott’s diversified supply chain and manufacturing relationships should keep it healthy, but maintaining brand equity is also key in a fluctuating market.
“We’re responding to the changes by answering: How can we elevate the perceived value of our products? How can we invest more in the brand to differentiate? Because we think this is a great opportunity for us to double down on the brand health. We have 20-plus ideas sitting in the queue for 2026, so we are just picking and choosing three, four, five of them, and that’s going to help us to overdrive the volume going into the second half,” he said. “We’re always keeping the customer at the center of those decisions, and along the way, we are constantly testing and learning.”
