Rethinking retail strategies to cater to current consumer behaviour

Kashish Jain, Manager Head, Diamond and Polki Section, Gujranwala Jewellers, Jalandhar, joined the family-run business in 2013 as a trainee to get first-hand knowledge of the industry. In his initial trainee days, this fourth-generation jeweller spent time in various departments including with the karigars. In 2015, Kashish went to GIA to do a one-year course in gemology and colour stones. In 2016, Kashish joined the company as a full-time employee.

Executing digital push

After joining the brand, I felt that we are far behind when it comes to digital. We then created profile pages across all the social media platforms and aggressively pushed the marketing content to reach out to more customers. However, the breakthrough in digital came in 2020 during the first Covid lockdown when all the stores were closed. As the customers were unable to reach us, the digital platforms helped us immensely to reach the houses of the customers. We now get a lot of product-related queries on social media. Out of all the queries, at least 30-40% gets converted into actual sales.

Diversifying inventory

Previously, we used to deal more with heavyweight jewellery such as kundan polki and jadau jewellery. Almost 70-80% of the existing stock was in heavyweight jewellery. However, millennials and new-age customers don’t prefer heavy jewellery, as they look for wearable jewellery which also suits the pocket. Many young customers also come to us with pre-decided online designs which are mostly lighter in weight. So, it became very important for us to properly bifurcate the designs based on weight category so that we can attract young customers. I decided to introduce more lightweight and pocket-friendly jewellery collections in polki and diamond jewellery such as chokers, earrings, bracelets, etc. So, currently, lightweight and heavyweight jewellery constitute equal halves of our inventory. So,  we have shifted our focus to jewellery in all weights.

Tapping NRI base with local lure

Generally, a lot of NRI’s visit Punjab for their weddings and thus there is a huge demand for wedding jewellery. We have observed that for most of the time, the NRIs are dependent on local make-up artists for recommendations, when it comes to buying wedding-related jewellery from the local market. So, we try to serve those NRI customers through our association with the make-up artistes. Previously, we used to be very laidback in reaching out to customers as we were getting customers quite easily. But with the increase of competition, we have been on our toes always to look for a new customer base to increase business and visibility.

Written by Manoj Chakraborty