Marketplaces, jewellery brands join hands to multiply sales & it’s working!

This year jewellery shoppers have chosen to buy their gold and precious stones online. Traditionally, Indians have preferred to keep the precious jewellery shopping limited to the physical stores. However, this trend seems to be changing in favour of the online marketplaces. Leading marketplaces have managed to bridge this gap this Diwali season.

Diwali and Dhanteras are considered auspicious to buy gold, and online marketplaces have leveraged this with tie-ups with leading jewellery brands. This has resulted in a win-win situation for both the brands as well as marketplaces.

Greater sale margins

Leading marketplaces have witnessed a growth in the sale of jewellery.

“With gifting season kicking in, our sales of both artificial and precious jewellery have seen a significant growth from Big Billion Days to the period leading to Dhanteras,” says a Flipkart authority.

Snapdeal has also recorded a higher sale rate. According to Rahul Taneja, VP, category management at Snapdeal, “The number of buyers increased five-times during Dhanteras. The revenue growth was 8X, indicating that people were buying higher value jewellery and majority of the sales came from our existing customer base on the marketplace.”

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em

Everybody agrees that tying up with marketplaces has given them a higher rate of sale. Having a dedicated website for a particular brand is clearly not enough, so brands are exploring other options to widen their reach.

Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, founder CEO of Bluestone has this to say, “The volumes we are doing on the marketplace are only 1 to 2% of the overall sales. However, the horizontal marketplaces have a bigger footprint.”

While most Indians would prefer to personally handle and try out their gold before they buy it, marketplaces are doing their bit to change this mindset. One of the major reasons for this could be greater levels of trust. The hard work and sacrifices that online sellers have undertaken seems to be paying off. Indians are slowly but steadily moving all their shopping online.