Gold jewellery sales needs trust, touch and feel factors which are very difficult to incorporate in an online jewellery website. The current market for online jewellery in India is about $135 million and has shown rapid growth in the recent years, with a projected market of $2 billion by 2022. In this report, we bring deep insights into the online jewellery websites, covering the must-have features and many more interesting aspects.
The analysis is based on customer reviews and conversations online in the segment. The analysis results presented are completely unbiased and not based on any subjective judgment. The source data used for the analysis are user conversations available publicly online like public forums and social media.
The immense growth of Indian e-commerce has unquestionably accelerated many industries – and gold jewelry is no exception to this! Most of the jewelry brands in the Indian market have started selling jewelry online – Tanishq, Mellora, Caratlane, Pipabella, Malabar Gold, Voylla, Bluestone – just to name a few. Indians have, traditionally, shopped for gold jewelry products such as necklaces, bangles, earrings, bracelets, pendants, chains, finger rings, and much more from their favorite jewelry shops – but this may be changing soon!!
According to research, the number of smartphone users is likely to touch 442.5 million by 2022. This is directly linked to an increase in online shopping. A study by Capgemini has found that smartphones have emerged as the top choice of device for customers when online shopping – for the first time outranking tablets and desktop computers.
According to a recent BBC report, India has the cheapest mobile broadband prices in the world. The BBC report, citing a UK-based price comparison site, said that 1 gigabyte (GB) of mobile data cost $0.26 in India (£0.20), compared with $12.37 in the US, $6.66 in the UK, and a global average of $8.53.
Disposable personal income in India has reached an all-time high of 192817450 INR Million in 2018 which is a 14% increase from 169623970 INR Million in 2017.
Gold demand in India to rise 33% by 2020: WGC.
According to research by the World Gold Council (WGC), the demand for gold in India would be driven by rapid GDP growth, urbanization, and a rise in the income and savings levels of the consumer. Gold purchasing would increase by almost three percent per annum over the next decade.
“The rise of India as an economic power will continue to have gold at its heart. India already occupies a unique position in the world gold market, and as private wealth in India surges over the next ten years, so will Indian demand for gold,” WGC Managing Director, India, and the Middle East, Ajay Mitra said in a statement here.
The enormous growth opportunity in the online jewellery business has pushed many jewellery retailers to rush and establish an online presence.
As many retailers in the jewellery segment envision a huge opportunity in the e-commerce sector, the market is getting increasingly competitive. The industry has become dynamic with its fast growth and hence, many changes are underway – in consumer behavior and the industry as a whole.
Consumers are expecting great online jewellery options as well as pleasant shopping experience. Consumers are demanding great choice, a fantastic online experience, easy payment gateways, and a hassle-free return policy. The growth of this industry will have to keep up with consumer preferences as they demand more comfort and easiness in buying gold jewellery products online.
Brand managers and marketers should look through the eyes of the customers to see how they experience brands in the real world.
Marketers are no more limited to just nice words and advertising – it has evolved into knowing customer perceptions. It is important to know how customers really feel about their brands and what are the drivers of brand loyalty. Customer perception plays a major role in buying behavior. Hence companies are going the extra mile to create a pleasant and happy customer experience. Companies are ready to spend money and effort to influence customer perception and drive profitable consumer behavior.
We, at Clootrack capture every experience that customers have with their brands. We analyze thousands of customer experiences to capture what people feel about a brand, and in turn derive priceless insights into products and competition,
“The modern shopper wants more in terms of the latest trends and contemporary designs. Not necessarily heavy jewellery that is used only for one or two occasions in a year, but jewellery that can be flaunted more often. This changing trend has enabled BlueStone to attract new customers and showcase its 5000+ designs,” says Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, Founder and CEO of BlueStone.
All online jewellery brands perform pretty well in terms of getting the basics right, delivering great designs and customer service. But how can an online jewellery brand differentiate and establish itself as a strong brand offering higher meaning?
Clootrack went beyond just social platforms to track discussions – online forums, social media groups, internal data such as customer care tickets, chatbot extracts, emails, and any other internal maintained forums. And all this is to understand customer perception – what your customers and prospects think of your brand – to analyze the perception drivers for online jewellery brands.
Here we explore the evolving online jewellery landscape and the top customer perception drivers, delight drivers and brand equity.
Consumer perception depicts how a customer or a potential customer views a brand and its products / services. Consumer perception has high influence on consumer buying behavior, which ultimately affects the profitability of a business.
While buying an expensive product such as jewellery, which mainly satisfies a consumer’s self esteem (according to the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs), a consumer displays complex buying behavior. Hence it becomes highly important to understand the factors the drive customer buying behavior.
Based on feedback from 20,883 online consumer conversations, Clootrack has analyzed and listed top 5 drivers:
Vishwas Shringi, Founder and CEO, Voylla, which sells fashion jewellery, says “There is a trust factor required for gold and so it is still not established much in the online segment. For people to spend more than Rs 5,000, they would want to touch and feel the product even though you might have the option of returning it after purchase,” he adds.
Buying jewellery involves a lot about trust, which was mostly established by personal interaction in offline stores – but the trust is now shifting online. With consumers’ shifting preferences from traditional, heavy and occasional-wear jewellery to a more delicate, unique and work-wear jewellery – your brand should create the trust factor that’s terribly important in the jewellery business. From website, designs, content, payment gateways to certification, your entire digital environment should display the authenticity and reliability of your brand.
Online websites should sell certified or hallmarked gold and diamond jewellery. It should be certified by reputed laboratories such as GIA, GSI, HRD and IGI. The gold coins should be BIS hallmark to ensure guarantee on gold purity. For diamonds, it has to be the finest quality jewels according to the industry standards of S-I clarity and I-J color diamonds. Further more, offer lifetime exchange facility which gives good reason for customers to trust you.
Ensure to maintain transparency by disclosing quality specifications and genuineness of gold jewellery which goes a long way in building greater trust with customers.
Every shopper enters your website for a purpose – Are they shopping for a birthday gift? or anniversary gift? maybe an engagement ring or could be for their big wedding day! Having an excellent collection of traditional wear, occasional wear, office wear, and daily wear jewelry goes a long way in satisfying your customers.
Most of the urban and modern customers feel that the heavy and traditional jewelry won’t go well with their western outfits, occasional wear clothes, or party clothes. Gold jewelry is mostly associated with traditional occasions such as weddings, and therefore customers feel there is not enough range of jewelry for their different fashion requirements.
Online jewellery should offer a wide range of jewellery, designer range, matching range, custom design, unique design, and imitation range. They have to target various sections of society, such as young working women, and urban women as well. The online stores should put up the latest and newest range of styles to attract customers.
“You still have to make sure the value to the customer is higher than your costs. Otherwise you will lose money with every product you sell ” says Eric Dolansky, Associate Professor of Marketing at Brock University
Price is of the utmost importance to consumers and is an important factor determining where people shop — 87% say that price is very or extremely influential says a study .
A typical brick and mortar jewellery store demands a large space and a good location which needs a considerable investment – all this is not the case in an online selling – thereby saving costs for the seller. Online jewellery stores eliminate the cost of supply chains, thereby enabling lower overheads. This results in savings – Customers are expecting these benefits to reflect in the product pricing.
Customers expect to see price break-ups on the website – price of the gold used in the product, price of the stones and gems used, the making charges, wastage charges and any other charges included in the product. This will build goodwill and trust among the online customers. This pricing factor can make your brand stand out when compared to others who do not offer such pricing details.
Jewellery should be offered at good pricing, affordable pricing and at a price that fits into consumer’s wallet.
Today’s consumers, who are busy and tech savvy, expect online retailers to offer convenient and personalised delivery options.
According to a research done by Research Now, “Consumers will not hesitate to abandon an online purchase if the delivery option they want is not available.”
The ability to deliver products based on customer’s choice is what defines business success for an online jewellery store. Delivery options become key differentiators when shoppers choose between online and marketplace sellers. It is also important to note that not many shoppers would like to pay high price for delivery. 90% of online shoppers say that the cost of delivery is a major factor when they plan to buy from online stores.
Based on a consumers research on online retailers, 83% of consumers say they preferred delivery options to be displayed clearly on the product page itself. And customers want it to be extremely convenient as well – 86% of shoppers want fast delivery while 83% want to know the guaranteed delivery date – not just that – 80% say that they expect a dedicated time slot to be available to choose from a wide rage of time slots.
This indicates that understanding delivery and the management of delivery is a defining pillar of customer experience. Online jewellery stores should offer on-time delivery, safe delivery, undamaged delivery, proper packaging and insured delivery of their products to customers.
“92% of consumers surveyed in a research, said that they will buy again if product return process is easy “
How a brand handle its returns is a major part of the overall customer experience. If you have a poor customer experience, your eCommerce business will suffer. As online shopping is becoming more common, the importance of a good return policy is becoming much more evident.
As customers of online jewellery do not get the option to touch and feel the jewellery physically before buying, the online stores should assure customers by providing fair and appealing return policies. Customers want the sellers to assure that if they don’t like the products, they should have the option to return it without being questioned about the reasons for the returns.
Customers are asking for a good return policy with varied options such as – no questions asked, return in 30 days, purchase return, not matching return and lifetime return options.
If an online jewellery store does not have an easy and good return policy, it is sure to turn off customers. Make sure to have the return policy clearly written and easy to find on the website. Shoppers should find it easily on the homepage or on product pages. Also, ensure to have an appealing return policy that benefits the customers.
The global jewellery market is seen shifting towards e-commerce, and India is no exception. While India saw a mere 7 crore in sale of online jewellery in 2012, it has grown exponentially and is expected to reach 50,000 crores by 2020. But all of this is possible only when the customers are offered what they want. The above customer perception drivers extracted from a detailed consumer conversation analysis will give the Brand Managers and Chief Marketing officers (CMO) the much-needed direction for all their brand strategy and marketing activities.
Brand equity is the value that a customer attaches to a particular brand due to the customer perception and the customer experiences with the brand. A positive experience will generate positive brand equity, while dissatisfying experience will result in negative brand equity. When a brand does not understand its brand equity, it can struggle to setup metrics for improvement. At the same time it is important to know your competitors’ brand equity as it has a direct influence on your company’s brand equity.
Brand equity reveals areas where your competitors are doing extremely well or areas where they not providing value to their customers.
Download the detailed report for free to get to know the various brands that were analyzed in this report, and how customers rank different online jewellery brands for the top 5 perception drivers. The detailed report also covers delight features and indifferent features.
The convenience an online store brings is unique. It does not just give the comfort of shopping from your mobile or laptop, but it also makes it easier to shop when you have time. It offers a range of options at better prices than a physical store. Customers of online jewelry stores are talking about what drives them to make an online jewellery purchase.
To know details of the features that delight the customers, other interesting facts, you can download the pdf version of the complete report for free.
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