PULEN AU

Jewellery is associated with opulence. I therefore zeroed on the name opulent for our online brand. We wanted to create an aspirational appeal for the brand. Opulent therefore, matched perfectly with our positioning.

Unfortunately the name OPULENT was registered by someone else. After brainstorming within the team, we decided to replace the letter O with AU. AU stands for Aurum. It is the Latin name for gold and AU is the symbol for Aurum. The name Aupulent thus helped us break the online clutter and get noticed.

Because of the innovative name and designs, we received an encouraging response. We have a team of designers who are creating designs that resonate with the tastes of our young target audience.

We are at a nascent stage and are taking baby steps towards creating an omni channel presence. In the next three years, we would like to have a brick and mortar store.

I was born in a traditional family of jewelers from Punjab. Nikkamal Baburam Jewellers is our parent company, based in Ludhiana. . In the nineties my father shifted his base to Chandigarh to start his independent retail business. Like most traditional businesses, the emphasis was on operations and on maximising profits. My parents however, never discouraged me from trying out new things..

I completed my degree in computer engineering and headed to the US to pursue MBA/ Masters in management from Harvard University. After spending some time in Boston, I moved back to India in 2015.

Physical stores have a limited reach and opening multiple stores in a wider geographical area is both expensive and time consuming.

I wanted to do things differently within the Jewellery business and started evaluating opportunities in the online space.

I closely studied D2C players such as Caratlane, Bluestone and Mellora.

It was during 2018/ 2019, that I came across an article on LGDs. This aroused my interest in the category.

The consumer acceptance of LGds in the US market made me consider this business opportunity. It was clear to me that the new business wouldn’t fit in the family’s traditional jewellery retail business.

I therefore, firmed up a plan for starting an online jewellery business that led to the launch of Aupulent.

The LGD category in India is new. There is a lot of curiosity in the minds of young millenials about lab diamonds. We are taking conscious efforts to reach out and educate the consumers who visit our online store. We do this by closely monitoring the online traffic to our website. Our team members make phone calls, video calls and do home visits to show the jewellery and explain them about LGDs. This is beginning to show results and the consumer acceptance is reflected in increasing conversion rates.

In the beginning of our online journey, we used to get 50 unique visitors every week. Our marketing and PR initiatives have resulted in this number going up multifold. We now get 700 to 1000 unique visitors every day. The conversion rate is around 2% and we are currently doing 250 transactions every month. The number of visitors increases during festivals such as Diwali and Christmas. A consumer makes at least three online visits before making a purchase decision. We follow up by engaging the consumers on whatsApp as well as zoom calls.

Majority of our sales transactions take place from tier 1 towns. We have recently witnessed transactions from cities such as Jaipur, Bhubaneshwar, Indore and Panipat also. These transactions reinforce our confidence in the category and our designs.

We sometimes face a logistical challenge when it comes to delivering a product to remote locations.

I remember a wow moment in our business journey when we received an order for solitaire studs worth Rs.5.5 lakhs. This is the highest ticket price that we have registered so far. It took us a long time

(40days) to engage with the consumer, handhold him

The customer lived in a remote place near Mysore. This pin code was not serviceable. We therefore delivered the product to Bangalore. One of our associates travelled to Mysore to personally deliver the product to the customer at his home. Investment in time and resources was worth the effort.

In addition to the usual digital marketing techniques, we also engage the consumers by curating unique experiential events. Rather than engaging the services of a celebrity, we invite REAL women achievers from different walks of life such as interior designers, doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants and so on. These women act as micro influencers. We create a campaign featuring them. These events give an opportunity to real women to narrate their stories and make a style statement as they get an opportunity to flaunt their jewellery. We get an access and an opportunity to interact with their followers who emulate them.

In order to spread our network of customers wider, where there is a good customer traffic. Banquet halls and hotels are the alternative venues. We encourage prominent people to act as our anchors and invite their close circle of friends and extended family members for these shows. The idea is to educate the consumers about LGDs and to promote brand Aupulent.

We have created a design bank of 1200 SKUs. Out of these 600 are listed on our website. In order to add an element of freshness, we shuffle the designs. Invariably an interested customer, will ask us to show us more variety. Our design bank comes in handy at such times. Our design team is abreast of the global trends. They follow these trends and keep introducing new designs.

As profitability is important in our business, we manufacture the jewellery ourselves. We also have an arrangement with a Surat based grower for sourcing of HPHT as well as CVD diamonds.

We look forward to the Valentine’s day as jewellery is the most preferred gifting option.