The third Spectrum Seminar session revolved around the changing landscape of jewellery through digitisation. The panellists spoke in detail about their marketing strategy, the advent of artificial intelligence – critical for digital transformation, and the shift in perception in buying jewellery online. The session was moderated by Sumesh Wadhera, Managing Director & Chief Editor, The Art of Jewellery.
Hemal Soni CEO & Founder – Jewelx, an online jewellery marketplace, said, “We don’t consider any ‘categories of consumers’, all are considered one, irrespective of the segment. This year, the company’s focus was around design and bridal marketing and we see that our loyalists are our influencers, hence we decided to showcase our customers rather than a celebrity.”
“Digital marketing works in an ecosystem. We adopted the system in May-June 2021 where we started encouraging B2B, B2C jewellers by offering basic subscriptions starting from Rs. 10. The requirement was to answer all the customer queries of the leads generated. No servers are required, no fear of hacking. There are 800 million searches happening monthly in India, of which 70% is about online jewellery collection,” Hemal added.
Goutham Kothari, Founder, Ordofy, MRK group, informed, “Using Artificial intelligence is critical for digitisation. It helps risk optimisation, facilitates innovation, it tells you which product is doing well in which region and in turn gives a good exposure to customer buying patterns.”
As we agree that online jewellery reduces buying expenses and makes it an affordable option, the dissemination of the same is a challenge. Kotari added, “We are working to overcome this challenge, where products can be delivered at a bare minimum cost completely with security and insurance.”
Pratap Kamath, Managing Director, Abaran Timeless Jewellers Pvt. Ltd. mentioned that, “High value jewellery can be sold online though it’s still at a nascent stage. For instance Rolex watches have a lot of collections where a customer can choose the product he likes, but he must buy them offline by physically visiting the store. This mindset will change over the period of time.”