SVARAA Jewels – Chahat Shah’s Passion Project

1,00,000 sq. ft of total retail area and a strong team of 650+ passionate staff . The company enjoys the trust of 5lakh happy consumers and has an annual turnover of Rs.2000 crores.

InAugust 2022, Kalamandir launched its first exclusive Lab Ground Diamond Jewellery store Svaraa in Ahmedabad.

Chahat Shah (21) is the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Svaraa Jewels( a Kalamandir partnership). Hw was a bright student in school. He studied at G D Goenka international school in Surat. He wanted to pursue education in the US and on the strength of his SAT and IELTS score got admission in South Carolina. Fate however had other plans for Chahat. The outbreak of Covid 19 prevented him to travel. So at the young of 19, his father Milan Shah advised him to join the family’s retail business in Surat. He spent the first 4 months behind the sales counter to understand the jewellery retail business. Chahat took to sales like a fish to water. There has been no looking back for Chahat ever since. He shared his plan of building a pan India branded chain of Svaraa jewellery stores.

When an owner’s son joins the family business, the first few months are tough. People, who have been working with the organization for a long time, invariably don’t take you seriously until you prove yourself. In order to assert yourself, and seek their cooperation is often tricky. Fortunately, I found that sales and consumer interaction were my strengths. I gained the respect from our team, when I was able to liquidate slow moving inventory (400 pieces) of jewllery imported from Italy. The stocks had not moved for the last three years. I voluntarily set a personal target to liquidate the entire stock in one month.

Rather than offering discounts for the slow-moving designs, I devised an attractive incentive scheme for the sales staff. This worked as a motivator that resulted in the completion of target in record time.

My second initiative was the identification of the corporate sector as a Major Account to generate incremental revenue. We created an independent team to focus on this segment. We identified products that were ideal for gifting and sourced them at attractive prices from vendors. As we bought them in bulk, the vendors supported us. The sales team focused on large, reputed companies in south Gujarat. These companies regularly buy in bulk for gifting to their employees and customers.

In the very first year we were able to generate a sale of Rs. 15 crores.

We started our retail journey with lab diamonds at our Kalamandir store in Bharuch. We had apprehensions and reservations in our mind about the consumer response. Mehul Jain, the founder of Everbrite has been very supportive. He helped us create an Everbrite Shop in Shop (SIS) at our Bharuch store.

The positive response to the new offering came as a pleasant surprise to us. What worked in our favor was the Kalamandir goodwill that we have built over a period of 36 years. All that the consumer was expecting from us was an assurance. When we extended the buyback and exchange facility to them consumer confidence and sales picked up. The consumer can come to us anytime for the buyback, he is offered a refund of 80% on the price at which he brought the jewellery from us. In case

As a scion of a Bania family, the profit imperative is ingrained in our DNA. We don’t have investor money and hence don’t believe in cash burn or long gestation periods.

Svaraa was launched on 27th August 2022 spread over an area of 1600 square feet. The store is designed by an

Italian architect who was earlier associated with Tiffany. The furniture and fixture are thus imported from Italy.

The encouraging response from Ahmedabad has given us the confidence to roll out two more stores viz; in Surat and in Borivali. By 2025, we plan to open 50 stores in major Indian cities.

At our Kalamandir Surat store, we are creating 3000 sq ft of space exclusively dedicated to LGDs. Everbrite SIS will be housed here. We already have the brand in Kosamba and Bharuch. In the next phase we will have them in Surat and Vapi.

We have yet to embark on the full fledged marketing of changing their buying habits to favor environmentally-friendly products. A Pew Research Center survey finds Millennials and Gen Z stand out for their high levels of engagement with the issue of climate change. with a pen and a pencil. These are made of recycled materials. To support sustainability, planting a tree on behalf of the consumers has almost become de rigueur. The Svaraa team motivates their consumers to plant a tree. The Basil diary is embedded with seeds that you can sow and grow the TULSI sapling at home.