Aukera ensures quality assurance by offering diamond testing machine at retail outlet 

The Bengaluru-based lab-grown diamond brand started operating the machine to tell grown diamonds from mined ones by identifying traces of nitrogen, which only mined diamonds have

Bengaluru: Lisa Mukhedkar, Founder & CEO of Bengaluru-based lab-grown diamond brand Aukera, doesn’t mince words when she says that the customer walking in has a fair understanding of grown diamonds, what they are, and why they should care to make a choice. Interestingly, the word ‘Aukera’ means choice and the brand is exploring new markets fanning out from Bengaluru with its offering of a diamond testing machine at its retail outlet. 

The internationally certified testing machine was launched in the interest of transparency and the brand claims it is the first such offering at the retail level in India. “We need our customers to know that the products we are selling are real diamonds. The machine tells a grown from a mined diamond. It doesn’t identify anything other than a diamond. Mined diamonds absorb various natural gases while they are formed, one of which is nitrogen. The machine picks up nitrogen and reflects mined diamonds in the blue colour and separates them from the red-coloured grown diamonds,” says Mukhedkar.

The machine has been active ever since the brand started its flagship store in Bengaluru in August 2023. Consumers and window shoppers want to test their diamond jewellery in this machine. This increases trust and positioning of Aukera as a transparent brand that vouches for its design-centric grown diamond jewellery. This is the next level of assurance after IGI certification of every Aukera piece, says Mukhedkar.

Gradually, the brand is expanding its base through pop-ups. It started pop-ups in March 2023 and ever since, has been thriving on referrals and repeat purchases as information barriers between grown and mined diamonds keep lowering. Aukera has also doubled down on CSR with its ‘Share the Sparkle’ initiative, through which it sponsors the education of a girl child with the purchase of every Aukera piece.

“Before we launched our store, all our pop-ups were in Bengaluru. We are also in Chikkamagaluru, Coorg and Mysore. We get good responses from Tier II and Tier III markets now. Aukera will soon be a national brand and based on decades of experience in the industry, I can vouch for the fact that grown diamonds have a very bright future in retail irrespective of industry inhibitions,” concludes Mukhedkar. 

Retail Jeweller India Exclusive