At a trade evening hosted in Guwahati, De Beers unveiled its first detailed blueprint for retailers interested in entering the diamond jewellery market or boosting their current diamond sales, signalling the miner’s next push into India’s tier-2 and tier-3 markets.
Guwahati: De Beers hosted a natural diamond trade evening in Guwahati, bringing together the city’s independent jewellery retailers, regional trade bodies and manufacturers for a day of conversation on the future of the natural diamond business in the Northeast — making it one of the first dedicated diamond category-marketing gatherings the region has seen.
The platform introduced De Beers’ INDRA (Indian Natural Diamond Retailer Alliance) initiative, a program launched in January 2025 by the De Beers Group in partnership with the Gem and Jeweller Export Promotion Council (GJEPC), to Guwahati.
Designed to educate, support, and empower independent jewellery retailers across India to boost natural diamond growth,the event arrived in the eastern belt at an opportune time as retailers are already exploring ways to expand their product portfolio beyond gold and address growing consumer confusion around lab-grown alternatives.
Opening the session, the organizers framed the evening around India’s diamond growth story. India’s jewellery market is projected to reach USD 151 billion by 2034 and USD 200 billion by 2047 — effectively doubling from where it stands today. With natural diamond demand accelerating and De Beers continuing to invest heavily in the category, India is expected to overtake the United States to become the world’s largest diamond jewellery market by 2047. Two Guwahati retailers, Vikash Soni from L Gopal & Sons Jewellers and Krishan Kumar Soni from Manik Chand Jewellers, have already signed on with INDRA, with Manik Chand Jewellers having joined the alliance last year.
Murali Ayyar, Category Head Retail Trade, De Beers India, introduced INDRA as the retailer-facing arm of a diamond business built on 138 years of exploration, mining, marketing and branding. “In India, natural diamond penetration is still only around 10 percent of overall jewellery business, barring a few established markets. Gold margins are getting harder to earn as prices rise, but diamond carries a real margin opportunity — and that has to be built up through category marketing, training and footfall, not left to chance,” he said.
Ayyar’s session centred on INDRA’s “360-degree” retailer support model — sales staff training and certification, in-store storytelling material, and city-level activations designed to drive walk-ins and improve conversion. “Our first customer is our own salesperson. If they perform, the store performs — so we invest in training and recognition for retail staff just as much as we invest in the consumer campaign,” he said.
He walked retailers through three national De Beers campaigns Guwahati stores can plug into — “Love From Dad” around Father’s Day, a “Bestie” campaign for Friendship Day gifting, and the “Love From Universe” self-purchase pendant campaign for the November–December season. Each amplified through a store-locator tool that surfaces INDRA-registered retailers alongside national print, digital and hoarding advertising. “Wherever the campaign runs — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata — it carries the name of every INDRA retailer in Guwahati along with it. You don’t have to run the campaign to be part of it,” Ayyar said. De Beers has also tied up with cricketers Abhishek Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav for its “Real Hero” natural diamond campaign, extending the alliance into sports-led marketing alongside its Bollywood and influencer partnerships, which Ayyar said now number close to 100 creators nationally.
Citing a pilot activation in Nagpur, where ten retailers ran a 45-day cost-shared regional campaign with newspaper advertising and local influencer tie-ups, Ayyar said INDRA intends to bring a similar model to Guwahati. He added that INDRA carries a modest annual membership fee of Rs 35,000, which is reinvested into diamond category promotion.
The floor opened into a candid exchange, with retailers pressing Ayyar on how INDRA’s messaging would clearly differentiate natural diamonds from lab-grown stones, and how the campaign planned to reach Gen Z buyers. “INDRA is a trade name — a B2B platform, not a consumer-facing claim. On the ground, we’re giving retailers point-of-sale technology that lets a customer scan and trace a diamond’s mining origin, which a synthetic stone simply cannot offer,” Ayyar said. Several retailers shared first-hand stories of customer trust being broken by undisclosed lab-grown substitution, underscoring, in their words, why authenticity needed to be a louder part of the industry’s messaging rather than a quiet footnote.
Retailers in the room welcomed the initiative as a starting point for the Northeast’s diamond trade, with several expressing interest in co-investing in a Guwahati-specific activation along the lines of the Nagpur pilot. The organisers closed the evening by inviting the city’s retail fraternity to formally join INDRA, with further regional activations — including a Friendship Day campaign — planned across tier-2 and tier-3 cities in the months ahead.
Samit Bhatta, Co-founder, The Retail Jeweller- the trade partner spearheading the ground activation across 21 cities in India- said, “INDRA brings a holistic, efficient and ready retail template built on years of experience in building diamond markets across the globe to the doorstep of every jeweller looking to grow their profits through the diamond category.” He urged the jewellers to seize the opportunity and avail of the program.
By Xena Aayesha Stephen
Retail Jeweller India News
