New-age preferences have ushered in lightweight jewellery in inventory: Shreyansh Agarwal

Shreyansh Agarwal, Partner, Baijnath Jewellers, Kanpur joined the family-run business in 2017. Although he has done his formal education in the two disciplines of graphic and media design and branding and communication, he had always wanted to join the family business. He has introduced a profitable lightweight jewellery segment in the brand.

Introducing lightweight jewellery segment

We have experimented with our product range and introduced a lot of modern lightweight jewellery with varied concepts targeting at the younger generation. We introduced Italian designs in the gold vertical, while our diamond segment consists of interesting pieces with small solitaires. Lightweight jewellery can be used for various purposes, for which we are also using colour stones and gold for our lightweight jewellery collections such as everyday earrings, pendants, bracelets, etc. Recently, layering necklaces and stacking rings have also become a trend in this category.

As far as inventory is concerned, we had 20-30% of our inventory in lightweight jewellery previously, but that share has gone up to 40% with the increase in the variety.

Trigger

My elder brother got married 4-5 years ago and in all these years, I have not seen either him or my sister-in-law wear heavyweight wedding jewellery. All of their wedding jewellery are kept inside the locker. So, although wedding jewellery is a big investment, there are very few occasions where one can wear it. We have seen that today’s brides don’t want to wear heavy jewellery sets at weddings. Although they like wearing them, their high cost prevents them from staying carefree while donning them in public. Casual lightweight jewellery, on the other hand, can be worn everyday. Secondly, customers like to wear unique pieces regularly, which is difficult for heavyweight jewellery. These factors motivated us.

Implementation

Apart from hoardings, we have used digital marketing effectively to reach out to new-age customers. Low priceis the biggest point of attraction for lightweight pieces, for which , we have done several online campaigns last year.On the social media front, we which increased our engagement which helped initiate better conversations with clients apart from product promotion only. We are also making interactive stories on Instagram.

Apart from that, we are also doing a lot of customer-specific data promotions through WhatsApp, emailers, SMS etc. We also did an in-store preview last year where we showcased our latest lightweight jewellery and invited people to browse the collection. As we kept gaining new-age customers, we retained focus on the trust of traditional jewellery lovers.

Result

Our engagement with the customers has improved a lot. A lot of times it happens that people look for other jewellery collections, but lightweight lines catch their attention, leading to instant sale. Despite pandemic, our lightweight jewellery sales have increased by 15-20% as compared to last year. Due to our strong digital promotion, we have seen that the children of our traditional customers are also visiting the store in good numbers and buying jewellery. So, it gives us a lot of happiness to serve both generations together under one roof.

Courtesy: Retail Jeweller India News Service