Most participants at the “Trends Conference” organised by the FICCI Gem & Jewellery Committee at Mumbai yesterday stressed the importance of changing the traditional approach to selling jewellery as a key to the industry competing successfully with other luxury goods categories. The conference was part of the International Solitaire & Designer Jewellery Show.

In the first session on “Designer Jewellery and Prospects for this Category”, the panelists Harshad Ajoomal, Varuna Jani, Bina Goenka, Farah Khan Ali, Mira Gulati and Siddharth Sawansukha discussed the challenges of doing business in this sector, and some of the strategies that have been adopted to face them. They all stressed that retailers needed to rethink their pricing strategy – pointing to the fact that no other luxury product was sold by calculating costs of the components and adding ‘making charges’.

Consumers do not view designer jewellery as an investment, but choose pieces for the design element and as a fashion accessory. The jewellery had to be created by skilled designers and craftsmen and marketed with an emotional appeal, through stores with a luxurious ambience and by highly trained staff. All of this required a complete makeover in the way the industry has traditionally viewed and sold the product.

The session on “Diamonds as Investment” also saw a lot of debate around the pros and cons of having transparency in prices, which all the panelists agreed was a necessary condition before diamonds could be traded by investors. While Gitanjali Chairman, Mehul Choksi emphasized the need to build consumer confidence by educating them on qualities and prices, others stressed that this could possibly have an impact on the consumer’s willingness to pay higher prices for jewellery.

A panel of retailers from across different Tier II and Tier III cities – Ludhiana, Baroda, Guwahati, Thane, Akola, Indore to name a few -- shared their experiences of how their local markets have been changing. In the new emerging retail scenario, they all agreed on the need to modernize both product and store. Across cities, the common report was that the interest in diamond jewellery and designer brands was rising, but some of the retailers stressed that consumers must be provided assurance by offering buyback schemes. They also urged manufacturers to develop similar buyback schemes to the retailers.

The second half of the day was devoted a Buyer-Seller meet between the participating retailers and manufacturers.