Forevermark Knowledge Forum blends inspiration and aspiration for business

The knowledge series of Forevermark Forum started with Costantino Papadimitriou with latest developments in-store. Consumer’s seeking personalised experience are still forming queues outside luxury retail brands such as Louis Vuitton and others abroad, said Papadimitriou, discussing how advanced technology such as facial recognition are giving scopes to the retailer to analyse consumer psyche.

“What does data do for us?” asked Papadimitriou, displaying unique retail experiences such as a plus size mannequin at a London retail store, breaking the rules of brand and consumer perception. Showing the extravagance of historical artwork inside a coffee shop in Venice, he shoe how the sleek, white Forevermark retail decor always has a welcoming approach. “Unique signatures depict the journey of a Forevermark diamond with integrated digital experience, this making a data hub. The discovery wall allows a piece of Kimberlite to be touched by onlookers. The shopper path shows how a customer moves inside a Forevermark store, pointing out the attraction nodes,” he said. Demarcating the circular relationship between commerce and customer relationship, he concluded his presentation.

The next presentation by Abhinay Chaudhary, co-founder of Big Basket, said Indian market was not prepared for buying fruits and vegetables online. “Now 18% of our revenue comes from that vertical. Driving a B2B business for restaurants, a daily milk subscription and digital vending, customers can get food delivered online from 10am-7pm. For emergency services, we have 2 vending carts delivering 48 highly necessary products to you in case you forgot to order during business hours,” Chaudhary said. Talking of unmanned cashless smart stores of Big Basket, he said the trader must have a full assortment of products online. Be it frozen, chilled or dry products, their objective was to avoid customer trips to store. “As a trust-building measure, we also gave delivery guarantee by returning 10% of order back to buyers’ wallet, if not delivered on time. As a result, we have 90% of our delivery on time,” he said. Dealing on products of daily necessity, Big Basket charges only 5% of the excess weight and value of the nature product. If a buyer is dissatisfied with the delivery, he can return the poor product and the delivery person will return the price for the same,” Chaudhary concluded, adding that the brand’s sheet focus on prompt customer service mandates staff to answer the buyers’ calls in 10 seconds of ringing, almost 90% of the time.

Shedding light on the prospects of aviation, astronaut and space tech entrepreneur Sushmita Mohanty demonstrated how space technology can help luxury retail. Showing a video on the retractable RAMA Rover, she showed how space can be used effectively to maintain the sanity and micro-society of astronomers en route. “System engineering, architecture and human practice talked up about three years to make a prototype. Space architecture in India took a long time to be recognizable in international standards. Moonfront was my first venture as an entrepreneur in San Francisco, while Liquifer Systems Group in Vienna. We design, build, test and fly. Designers like us take us a lot of information from nature,” said Mohanty, how a prototype for astronauts dress requires the person to latch his dress to a slot on the exterior of the vehicle and get in by wiggling backwards, so as to stop dust pollution inside the spacecraft.

Talking about her 3rd organisation Earth 2 Orbit, Mohanty took on the US embargo of stopping sale of space components to India. “The US department gave the final waiver to allow PSLV launching U.S. satellites in tandem with Japanese satellites too. It took 5 years for us to break this embargo,” she said. Mohanty also showed a viral photograph of Indian women astronauts celebrating after Mangalyan landed on Mars, stressing about women empowerment in international space technology realm. Talking about the future of technology citing popularity of 3D printing, Mohanty said piecemeal architecture with locally available materials will help space technology in Mars. Concluding her presentation, she cautioned the audience about the difference between exploitation and exploration. “Businesspersons must be multi-disciplinary to excel. We should also conserve the planet in order to thrive,” she said.

Summarising the presentation, Forevermark CEO Stephen Lussier said retailers need to be braver to attract new customers in-store. Reiterating Chaudhary’s insight on rethinking product presentation to maximise its beauty, Lussier said pointing out customer issues are necessary to serve better. Drawing inference from Mohanty’s presentation, Lussier said that Forevermark strives to provide better products that are made of eco-friendly production methods. “People in stores must be comfortable to provide technology so as to serve effectively,” he concluded.

Technological and procedural advancements

Decoding consumer buying behaviour, Forevermark interviewed over 16,000 people in tier 1, 2, 3 and 4 cities, thus knowing their demand patters, emerging markets, occasions and seasonality of purchase to create the Diamond Acquisition Study. Forevermark also displayed its 2019 trendbook, featuring three natural designs of enigma, on the wave and culture fusion that has influenced jewellery design globally.

Wooing the design lovers, the campaigns Artemis II by Bibhu Mahapatra presented diamond jewellery designed and inspired on and by female determination, while ace couturier Sabyasachi’s Zanyah Collection featured hand-picked Forevermark diamonds bringing back the wonder of 1920s’ Italian renaissance. Several other collections such as Half Carat, Tribute, Traditional Setting, Exceptionals, Red Carpet, Circle of Trust, The Black Label, The 100 Carat collection and the Forevermark Bridal Collection were displayed.

Among the most stunning programmes were the state-of-the-art devices that gave customer insight to retail like never before. The diamond prism showed the brilliant light properties of a Forevermark diamond while Social Café demonstrated the physicality of a hashtag. Forevermark brought three interactive games to the forum to imbibe the benefits of gamification through transactions or offers in retail. While the attendants were amazed by the mind-reading headgear that mapped brain waves, so as to give an idea about consumer preferences, the versatile Tribute Kiosk allowed one to design their own virtual ring stack and even place an order for it.

Courtesy: Retail Jeweller India News Service