Making the most of the weekend, as well as the continuance of the jewellers strike, a workshop was organised at J K Diamonds Institute for its students in association with eBay India – “Empowering Gems and Jewellery Entrepreneurs to sell globally”.
Ecommerce today, is the most trending topic in the current business scenario and its growth rate is increasing by leaps and bounds. A recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers states that the ecommerce sector will log an annual growth rate of 35 per cent and cross the $100 billion mark by 2019.
“Every 7 seconds a piece of jewellery is exported by an Indian jeweller online” pointed out Mr. Deepak Tulsian, National Head (Jewellery), eBay India.
As the ecommerce market boasts substantiated growth, the gems and jewellery entrepreneurs are not meant to sit quietly. The workshop focussed on several important issues and solutions for selling jewellery through online market places.
An Expanded market: a new horizon
Online market places, such as eBay provides a new opportunity to sell jewellery using existing infrastructure. What the jewellers would be selling offline in their retail outlets or as wholesalers or manufacturers can be directly sold online. As Mr. Tulsian mentioned while conducting the workshop, that online market places are like a virtual mall, where sellers are given their space online wherein they can list their products and sell.
Further, online market places provide a much larger audience for your product. eBay, for example has physical presence in 39 countries and buyers from about 206 countries. The United States sees the largest share of jewellery buyers. Indian entrepreneurs get access to tap into this very lucrative market quite easily.
Simple to register, Easy to sell
Registrations are generally free and the process being quite simple. Step by step assistance and tutorials are given to make the process a cakewalk. Sellers are notified when a buyer chooses to buy the product. The seller has to ship the product within the specific time mentioned by him in the product description. The description should be very specific and exhaustive. The online market places generally provide logistics services as well and hence the burden of delivery is also removed from the seller’s shoulder.
Compliance
There are certain compliances that the Jeweller will have to complete from his end. This includes typically obtaining the Import Export Code (IEC) to start off with. This process is digital and quite simple. The registration fee is a nominal amount of INR 500 and the code is generated within 4 to 5 business days. You can log on to www.dgft.gov.in for further details.
Other compliances during the stage of exports would include customs department documentations, custom clearances, Reserve Bank of India intimations, etc. It is advisable to be extremely diligent for all government compliances and take expert advice which will enable you to focus on selling your product easily than getting tied up in regulatory hassles.
Trends
One of the focus points during the workshop was what kind of jewellery was actually selling online. The trend says that the demand for fashion jewellery is quite high. Light weight diamond and gemstone studded jewellery is gaining popularity among the corporate employees. However, the jewellery designs have to be unique and trendy, more like designer jewellery. High valued diamond jewellery (such as necklaces) still have some way to go in this virtual mall. The reason being that such high valued jewellery is bought with abundant emotional sense and a perception is created that checking in to the store physically to have a look is more trustworthy than buying online. This could be just temporary.
Economical: Lower Investment
As mentioned above, the gems and jewellery entrepreneurs can utilise their existing infrastructure to sell online. Almost no additional investment would be required. The entrepreneur need not have the diamond, gem or jewellery article in stock. He/she can instead upload the image and commence manufacturing on receiving the order.
Selling through online portals are also a suitable option for new entrepreneurs and startups. For jewellery, usually rendered images created using 3D CAD technology are listed on the website to generate orders. Once the order is placed, the manufacturing process commences. However, adequate training of CAD for jewelry and market knowledge is essential to be able to utilise such technology. Since these are high valued products, even the smallest mistake can result into losses in monetary terms as well as lead to trust deficit.
Higher Profit Margin
India, being a manufacturing hub for diamonds as well as jewellery, and further due to the low cost of labour, is able to reduce is cost of manufacturing as compared to other countries. On the contrary, the demand from countries such as US, France, UK, UAE, Australia and Canada is increasing, enabling the jewellers and diamantaires to sell at a premium. Hence the profit margin in exports is higher vis-à-vis domestic sales.
The workshop also mentioned the steps to sell a product in eBay, and live examples of analytics services wherein the seller is made aware of the number of views to its listed product, sales, etc.
We hope the students would benefit from the workshop as well as this blog.
For further details you can log on to www.ebay.com or www.jkdiamondsinstitute.com or Contact us. Do mention your feedback in the comments section.
