For Rohit Khindri of SK Jewellers, Amritsar, business is about breaking the boundaries

A second-generation jeweller, a Commerce graduate and a GIA-trained gemologist, Amritsar-based Rohit Khindri, Partner of SK Jewellers, joined the business in 2015. He tells The Retail Jeweller how identifying the limitations in design choices and international accessibility opened up new vistas for business

YOUTH-CENTRIC DESIGNS, NEW SOURCES

To attract today’s youth, we revamped the inventory entirely. A deeper understanding of the needs of my customers and the changing demand patterns enabled this transition.

We also explored new vendor partners. Previously, we depended on local manufacturers and vendors for jewellery designs and collections. However, when I joined the business, I visited jewellery exhibitions in India and abroad. Gradually, we decreased the share of heavyweight inventory from 70% to 40% and increased the percentage of lightweight and trendy jewellery from 30% to almost 60%. It has given an enormous boost to our sales. We have witnessed an increase of close to 35-40% in our overall sales (including both lightweight and heavyweight jewellery) from 2017-2022.

“There are very few Indian jewellers who have expanded abroad to cater to the Indian diaspora. We tapped the opportunity to serve the Indian diaspora globally. Most of the orders are for traditional jewellery”

Rohit Khindri, Partner, SK Jewellers, Amritsar

CATERING TO INDIAN DIASPORA

I always wanted to expand my business to other countries, and the global pandemic played a crucial role in helping me realise my dreams. During the pandemic, we marketed heavily on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook and started getting orders from NRI clients. Initially, the volume was relatively low; however, with time, the volume increased, and we decided to open our export arm also. We now export our jewellery to the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia. Most of the export orders are for traditional jewellery, as there are very few Indian jewellers who have expanded abroad to cater to the Indian diaspora.

POWERING WITH DATA

In today’s time, data is the new oxygen for any business. I decided to capture data at every point, whether inventory or customer data, by installing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in the business. Through ERP, we have successfully tagged the existing inventory, which ultimately helped me identify the slow and fast-moving items and take action accordingly. I have successfully reduced the dead inventory from 25-30% to 5-10%. I also introduced discount schemes to phase out the slow inventory from the showroom.

The Retail Jeweller India