How Angara prepares for the Cyber 5, shifting consumer behavior

Online-only jewelry retailer Angara has been preparing for the Cyber 5 by increasing its focus on flexibility, according to co-founder and CEO Ankur Daga. That means giving its customers more choices and using data to respond faster to consumer behaviors. It also means “removing friction between inspiration and purchase,” Daga told Digital Commerce 360.

The Cyber 5 refers to the five-day period of Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. And in 2025, the holiday shopping season taught Angara that “the companies that can listen and adapt in real time have a very different advantage from those trying to predict the customer months ahead,” he explained.

Among the retailer’s biggest lessons from 2025’s peak season was learning just how quickly consumer preferences can change in such periods, he said. In the jewelry space, a traditional retailer could be making inventory decisions for the holidays about five or six months in advance.

But by the time retailers know what consumers want, it can be too late to react, he added. “For us, that reinforced the importance of staying as close to real-time demand as possible,” Daga said. “Because we manufacture just in time, we’re not sitting on large amounts of finished inventory.

We can see what customers are responding to — whether that’s a particular gemstone, shape, metal or price point — and adjust very quickly.” Angara is No. 363 in the Top 1000 Database. The market research tool tracks North America’s largest online retailers, ranking them by annual ecommerce sales and more. Angara is also No.

192 in Digital Commerce 360’s new AI Rankings. That set of rankings is available in the Top 1000 Pro with AI Database. Angara’s approach leading up to the Cyber 5 Daga said Angara’s busiest periods are the holiday season and Valentine’s Day. Both also overlap with a “major engagement season.”

“From a business standpoint, our model is built to respond to demand in real time rather than forecasting it months in advance,” Daga said. “Because we own our entire supply chain, we’re able to adjust and produce as we see what customers are actually buying.

During peak periods, preparation is as much about manufacturing capacity, technology and redundancy as it is about inventory.” Daga said the Cyber 5 is an opportunity for Angara to ensure its ecommerce and manufacturing systems “can flex with demand.” The retailer’s holiday data indicates that its customers behave differently during the period.

The share of lab-grown gemstone sales increases, as does the share of stones above one carat. Stone shapes like the oval and emerald cut become more prominent. “At the same time, the broader consumer environment is increasingly K-shaped, so we need to be prepared for shoppers trading up as well as those looking for greater value,” Daga said.

“That means having the right mix of gemstones and diamonds available across sizes and qualities, sufficient manufacturing capacity and redundancy, and an ecommerce experience that makes it easy for customers to understand their options.”

He said Angara’s just-in-time model “is particularly valuable during the Cyber 5” because the retailer can watch demand develop and then adapt production around what customers are choosing.

How Angara improves its KPIs Daga said Angara’s most effective strategy for improving its conversion rate and average order value (AOV) has been giving its customers more choices. At the same time, though, it has to make those choices easier to navigate.

“Jewelry is an incredibly personal purchase, so rather than pushing everyone toward a single product or price point, we allow customers to customize across metals, gemstones, stone quality and natural or lab-grown options,” Daga said. “That creates various options around a design and lets a customer trade up — or down — based on what matters most to them.”

Angara is also investing in richer product-page content and education. Daga explained that that’s because jewelry customers tend to do “a great deal” of research before completing their purchases.

Partially as a result of those refinements, Angara has seen a 500% year-over-year increase in traffic from its top three artificial intelligence (AI) referral sources, according to Daga. “What we try not to do is optimize conversion simply by reducing quality or taking material out of a piece to reach an arbitrary price point,” Daga said.

“Particularly with fine jewelry, there is a point at which making something lighter or thinner changes how it feels and wears.” He noted that Angara would prefer to create value for consumers through aspects such as gemstone size, material or customization rather than compromise on a product’s quality. Do you rank in our databases? Submit your data and we’l