Jewellers have witnessed a whirlwind of a year! As they enter a brand new year, they share with Shreya Thakur their resolutions and strategies for the year ahead

With New Year comes newer resolutions, however, with the on-going slump in the Gems & Jewellery industry, it is interesting to observe how the market will react in the near future. Gold prices have been fluctuating throughout the year hitting an all time high in the month of January. Manufacturers and retailers across the country have nonetheless braced themselves for the challenges ahead and are working on innovative ways to tackle the bottlenecks. Renowned retailers spilled the beans on what one can expect from the market in the coming months. While some believe that the market is going to see a positive change, there were others who say it will take some time for it to revive. However, each retailer believes that the best way to reach their desired clientele is social media. Read on to find out their business resolutions and how implementing the same can reap higher rewards for your business.

A larger share, a larger turnover- Ankur Anand, HSJ Bareilly

Business resolution of 2020 would be to promote the sale of gold and diamond jewellery in a more positive and ethical way according to the government norms. I would want to go into higher value and heavier jewellery. For me when you are working on the pieces, the more we get into heavier jewellery; the easier it becomes to capture a larger share of the market. A larger share, a larger turnover and of course it is for the elite. Instead of concentrating on the middle class and upper middle class, I would concentrate more on the couture jewellery. I would like to build on my customer database, individually targeting my high-end customers. I want to help them understand about the processes of buying jewellery and guide them on how to invest and reap the maximum benefits in the future. We are working on our social media aggressively for the past two-three years. We do intend to start our online sales especially in the next three-four months. Good jewellers should be more aggressive in their stock inventory and they should target bigger sales. It is the ethical family jewellers who will be doing a good amount of business compared to people who are not selling jewellery ethically so they should not start looking for selling light weight jewellery and concentrate more on higher sales and higher income groups that have disposable income.

Staying Relevant- Prathap Kamat, Aabaran Timeless

We are looking to have 14 exhibitions cum sale outlets in tier two cities in Karnataka. That’s the plan for this year. We are primarily a metro based brand. Last year also we did exhibitions in tier two towns and we saw that people’s propensity and interest to spend is much higher in the tier two towns and that’s why we are looking at showcasing our jewellery and in future if possible we will try having our own stores in those towns. Overall consistent effort is what’s important for a vision. Being relevant, having the right product mix, having the right pricing strategy and a strong presence on social media is very important. Design is the key these days. If these things are followed then nothing can stop us from growing 8-10 per year-on-year.

Strengthening Brand Image-Anand Prakash, Abhushan Diamonds

To expand the business geographically whether physically or digitally by taking calculated decisions tops my business resolution list. To keep belief in the strength of the jewellery industry, keeping in mind that whatever recession and slowdown may come, jewellery is always going to do well as it is part of our culture. Also to believe in our strengths and to strategize around the same are other things we will be looking at. One should know the core competence of one’s business and build their marketing focus around those lines. Also to have a competent team, sales and production, is very important to achieve your targets and that will give you time for strategizing on your future goals. I believe in strengthening the brand image. That automatically gives you result in this trust deficient market. That brand building exercise could be one to one connects, being on the mind of your target customer through doing things a bit differently and I also believe every marketing pitch should not be a sales pitch and it should be about showing your brand in positive light. I see the coming year as even more challenging for the industry, with jewellers facing more liquidity crisis, attitude of the banks and the government also not being favourable and the challenge for the industry is to train itself very fast with the new regulatory system. Despite saying all this , this year I see further consolidation of the market in the hands of strong retailers, those who have got the fundamentals right.

Get more Proactive-Prerna Khurana, Khurana Jewellery House

It’s my personal plan as well as an organizational target to get more proactive, even better organised and more streamlined as an organisation. We at Khuranas also plan to get much more engaged with the stakeholders, be it the clients, the employees, the larger public or the industry as a whole. I think the chunky gold pieces, rich tones of coloured gemstone jewellery, which we saw so much in 2019 will spill over into next year. Looking at the rise in gold rate, light weight jewellery with precious coloured stones will be in trend in 2020. We will be working doubly hard at KJH to make our client dreams come true and keep delivering on our promise for excellence. 2020 being recognized as the year, I feel it gives us the motivation and drive to set bigger goals as an industry. Personally, we at KJH have massive new ventures, forays into new areas and big announcements planned for all our stakeholders. I can barely wait to kickstart this exciting new phase. Buying jewellery is an extremely gratifying, memorable and luxurious experience in itself. The entire process is dreamy and unforgettable, at least we at Khuranas make it our goal to provide an outstanding experience to every client. I think the online process lacks this personalized touch, this great service experience and the sheer joy and glamour of trying on the new piece before taking it home to be treasured for years to come.

Five more Stores-Saumya Sanjjay, AVR Swarnamahal

To be very frank, AVR Swarnamahal from the beginning has been focusing on quality, design and the most important thing for us is service. With the kind of exposure and knowledge that we have, everything is spoken to everybody. Digital is playing a very vital role in our industry, there’s no doubt about it. The digital market gives an idea to the customer of the products at display but finally the customer would like to feel and wear the pieces and only then the decision of buying is being taken. I want to open five more stores in 2020.

Provide Innovative & Wearable Designs Viraj Seth, Batukbhai Sons

Our business resolution always at the start of the year is to prepare a structured game plan as to how we will cater to our clients. We plan to be a step ahead by providing our clients with innovative and userfriendly designs compared to our competitors in the market. We also plan to be updated with global market trends as in an industry like us it is safe to go with the market trends as the acceptance level of the customers are then usually high. We look forward to providing our clients with hassle free after sales services to make their buying products from us a very smooth activity. We have opted to step out of our comfort zone and started participating in the B2C shows and are mainly targeting the 2 tier cites as they have a great business scope. We started with only 1 city last year as a pilot project and now we are catering to almost 4 cities, including metros and we plan to explore more cities as this strategy has turned out to be fruitful to us. This helps us create our brand awareness on a national level. We are also planning to improve on our tech and inventory management. We intend to go deeper into BAT (Business Analytical Techniques) for better understanding of our business activities and to make it more efficient as it would help us result in less dead stock and study the consumer behaviour. We are going to mainly focus on millennials. We are lately facing the ‘no locker policy’ trend, so we tend to provide our clients with the products that are very user friendly and efficient. Online presence of jewellery has become very vital nowadays in the functioning of the business. No matter how old you are in the business you still need to have an active social media presence. We are getting great business through social media as you can tap the clients across the globe, if you have the right product they are looking for. I have encountered a lot of NRI clients who visited our store only on the basis of our social media profiles and the ratings on Google, as we have the highest ratings in our city. The way you portray your products and services on the social media speaks a lot about your brand. We get themebased photography done of our product and every product has a story to tell, this really intrigues our clients and we end up getting great business from the social media.

Invest in more lightweight pieces-Ravi Choksi, Damodardas Jewellers

This year, we are focusing on lightweight jewellery in diamond and gold and we are launching a new collection in both soon. Talking of social media, it is the chain retailers who are making profit out of it but for family jewellers to get the hang of it will take some time since the delivery is the biggest issue. We are also planning to focus more on design especially in 22 carat gold, diamond jewellery and coloured stones. We are also planning to make light weight jewellery under Rs 2 lac for people who are struggling with the rise in gold prices.

Make our jewellery an aspiration for consumers-Ketan Chokshi, Narayan Jewellers by Ketan & Jatin Chokshi

First, we need to give more aspirations every year to our consumers. As a brand, we have been constantly innovating in terms of design and production. Any jeweller can broadly be termed as a family jeweller or corporate jeweller. Most of the brands in our country are family jewellers and
everyone is moving towards institutional retail. The consumer’s spending intentions are changing, we as Indians always think prevention is better than cure and looking at the gloomy economy as of now there is no such great visibility for the economy to come up from six months to one year so we have a mentality of spending less instantly. In this, the disposable income is not reducing but the intent for disposable income takes a back seat. The only way to do this and pull out their disposal income will be setting up their aspirational value through your jewellery. We need to build the industry together and create an aspirational value such that everybody is desperate to own a piece.

Focus on Direct Marketing & CSR Activities-Gaurav Pandit, Pandit Jewellers

Resolution to increase productivity by automating certain key processes and provide 5 star experience to our customers is our priority year. Hard work always reaps its rewards, I, however, would want to work hard with strategie in place. We as a brand would want to focus more on direct marketing and social media and also take up some CSR activities. The new-gen customer is very aware these days and wants to have more fun with their style, hence the need for more wearable designs is obvious. Apart from a few online players, nothing much is happening on the online sales for most of the jewellers. The trust, feel, and emotion value attached to our product makes it difficult for most women to buy online. They would prefer to see and feel the product in reality than virtually.

Get Newer Consumers- Siddharth Bafna, RC Bafna

Better design, better variety and better service! We have clients looking for bridal jewellery and we have clients looking for light weight jewellery as well. It’s all about giving a choice to everybody and increasing our productivity. When it comes to digital marketing, we are pretty active on most of the platforms including Pinterest. One of the most important things is to get new customers in since we have to do a lot of advertising but with social media, it becomes the cheapest or direct way of interacting with the clients.