This BIZ Experiences Points Out Challenges Of Online Jewellery Purchase In India 'Buying ornaments offline involves a prolonged customer engagement, which online platforms don't allow'

Building trust among customers means everything to a brand. If your customers don't trust your brand, they will not buy your products — online or offline.

The idea of selling products online might seem simple to many, but it involves a lot of risks that crop up with time, especially if it's a jewellery brand.

In course of a conversation with the BIZ Experiences India, Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, Founder & CEO of BlueStone.com, talked about the challenges in online jewellery space, besides highlighting the importance of building consumer trust for a particular brand, be it online or otherwise.

Trust Is Of Paramount Importance In Online Jewellery Space

"With time we have observed the shift in trend of purchasing goods online. A woman, shopping online since her 20-21 years of age, will be superb comfortable in the entire procedure involved and probably by the time of her marriage she will turn out to be a potential customer of buying gold online," he explained.

"Trust is not just important for online shopping. People won't visit your physical store if they don't trust your brand," he added.

According to Kushwaha, challenges in online jewellery space are plenty. "Currently, the purchase through this mode is less than one per cent in the country. This needs to grow and for that you have to win customers' confidence," he said.

Jewellery Portals Don't Allow Enough Consumer Interaction

Kushwaha stressed there were certainly some advantages of purchasing jewellery from physical stores that continue to lure customers.

"You can see a piece of jewellery, weigh it and check it from all sides before buying. Buying ornaments offline involves a prolonged customer engagement. Most jewellery sites don't allow such good interaction with products. A few images flash on the site and you have to select from them. I feel portals would work better for standard category goods like books or mobile phones, among others," he explained.

He added while purchasing gold, people seek deeper visual engagement. One needs to come up with a mechanism blending technology in the procedure to allow people to interact with the product in a better way.

With his jewellery start-up, Kushwaha is planning to launch a platform where one can actually have a feel of the product.

"When we started in 2012, it was a big deal to convince people that ornaments could be purchased online. With time, we have seen a change in people's buying patterns. Now, they are slowly opting for the online mode of purchase," he added.