At a recently held trade gathering in Guwahati, IAGES (Indian Association for Gold, Excellence & Standards) introduced a framework for retailers to achieve the highest level of excellence across all realms of their gold business
Guwahati: Guwahati’s jewellery trade got its first detailed introduction to IAGES (Indian Association for Gold Excellence and Standards)-India’s first Self-Regulatory Organisation for the gold industry, built by the industry, for the industry that sets the benchmarks of integrity, compliance, and excellence across the gold value chain.
Attended by the city’s independent retailers, regional trade bodies and manufacturers, the session discussed on matters of placing trust and building the highest self-regulatory standards that instil trust in both the category and the retailer.
It arrives in the Northeast at a time when jewellery is increasingly being viewed by consumers as a financial asset rather than a purely ornamental one.
The organizers opened the discussion by framing IAGES within India’s broader growth story, noting that gold jewellery is expected to play a central role in the country’s economic modernization over the next two decades, and that the association’s Guwahati chapter is intended to formalize retailer participation in that push over the next five to ten years.
Prasenjit Basu, Regional Head – East & North, Indian Association for Gold Excellence and Standards (IAGES), walked retailers through the research that shaped the association’s formation. Citing a joint market study conducted with a leading business school and ISB Hyderabad, he said gold’s role in Indian households has changed fundamentally in recent years. “Gold used to simply mean jewellery. Today, that is no longer true — ETFs, digital gold, and a dozen other instruments have entered the category. But for those of us who have spent our lives in jewellery, our study made one thing very clear: today’s customer, especially the younger generation, is buying gold as an investment, and what they are asking for above everything else is trust, credibility and authenticity,” Basu said.
He explained that IAGES was formed as a self-regulatory organization, or SRO — drawing a direct parallel to how the mutual fund industry organized itself in the early 2000s under a similar self-regulatory mandate to build investor confidence. “Just as the mutual fund industry needed a self-regulatory framework to earn the trust of a new generation of investors, jewellery needs the same thing today. That is what IAGES exists to build — a standard the entire trade can stand behind,” he said.
He argued that IAGES’s standards framework, paired with fact-based, testimonial-driven storytelling, gives retailers a more durable way to hold consumer trust than discount-led advertising, which he said has left much of the industry unable to build long-term value for the category.
Retailers in the room responded with a candid, occasionally sharp exchange — on how the association planned to reach a Gen Z audience that has little connection to the traditional celebrity-led advertising the trade has relied on for decades.
Several retailers pointed to their own store-floor experiences as evidence that a written, fact-based standard — rather than an emotional pitch alone — was what would ultimately move a skeptical, younger buyer.
Samit Bhatta, Co-founder, The Retail Jeweller, closed the discussion by placing IAGES’s Guwahati launch within the wider trust movement now unfolding across India’s jewellery trade. “What IAGES is building is exactly what this industry has been missing — a shared, credible standard that retailers, big or small, can stand behind. For a market like Guwahati, where trust between a jeweller and a customer is built over generations, giving that relationship a formal, association-backed foundation is a genuine opportunity, not just for bigger stores but for every independent retailer in the room,” Bhatta said.
The organizers closed the session by inviting Guwahati’s retail fraternity to formally engage with IAGES, positioning the evening as the first of several regional conversations planned to bring the association’s standards framework to jewellers across India’s tier-2 and tier-3 markets in the months ahead.
By Xena Aayesha Stephen
Retail Jeweller India News
