Amish Shah: Founder and CEO of ALTR created diamonds shares his insights gathered at JCK, Las Vegas

words cheaper or affordable means you are demeaning a consumer.

It takes six months for a diamond from the stage it is grown, cut, polished and studded into a piece of jewellery. Over 30 highly skilled people, master craftsmen are involved in this journey. This is the story that we need to tell the consumers.

Our story starts with… craftsmanship. We want to highlight and position our brand as New Age Luxury. We will talk about the technology and human achievements in our communication.

We would like our consumers to buy diamonds as everyday luxury, the way they buy shirts, suits and other apparel. Labglow will offer a wide choice to the consumer. They can choose from 500 to 1000 different shapes and vivid colors such as greens and vibrant orange to match with their attire. Our jewellery will have spring, summer, autumn and winter collections.

We will not be talking the language of a jeweller. We will talk about fashion, trends and frequent launches (Spring summer, Autumn, Winter) the way a consumer brand does. We have decided to take an Omni - channel approach (to retail) and have set a goal of opening 150 doors in 3 years. Our first retail store will come up in Mumbai by Dashera followed by a second one in Surat. In the first phase we jewellery stores. It will be an interactive store that will be a combination of physical and digital. We will be doing away with traditional show cases and display counters. Consumers will be able to touch and feel every product. Diamonds are perhaps the only products that are not subject to wear and tear. They are everlasting and last forever. They don’t depreciate. We will therefore offer lifelong exchange. In case you want to sell a diamond back, we will stand by the product and that’s our guarantee. In the medium or long term, only integrated players will survive and prosper. LGDs have changed the gross margins in the industry. In the natural diamonds business 90% of your funds were locked up in the raw material. In LGDs the ratio is reversed. How do you communicate and win the consumer hearts holds the key. Only brands will survive. No manufacturer or grower will survive in the long term… if they don’t invest in brand building.

While everyone is eyeing the engagement rings market, we will be different in our approach. Our aim is to grow the market by offering a wide variety of products. When you are talking about offering a bigger diamond for the same price, you are not targeting a new buyer; you are trying to convert an existing one.

want to open company owned stores.

We are on a recruitment drive and will hire consumer marketing and fashion professionals rather than people with a jewellery background. Our store format will be totally different than traditional

EVAGLOW:

A new lab grown diamond jewellery brand from the Salem based house of AVR Swarnamahal Jewellers.

Lab grown diamonds jewellery is getting the attention that they deserve from consumers in the southern hinterland.

14 th April 2022 was celebrated as Tamil New Year day. On this occasion, AVR Swarnamahal jewelers headquartered in Salem launched their own label of lab grown diamond jewellery branded as Evaglow diamonds.

The brand is a brainchild of Brand director AVR Siddhanth who says, “We took a bold decision to launch of our first LGD jewellery range that has lightweight as well as classic jewellery pieces. We are the

First jeweller in India to launch fancy colour, fancy

shaped LGDs,” We have received an encouraging response to our new brand. 600 customers walked in to our flagship store on the very first day. As a part of our consumer education initiative we demonstrated the CVD production process through a specially made hologram”. Sustainable production has become the strongest product pitch for proponents of LGDs. AVR Swarnamahal, for instance, claims that production of each Evaglow diamond saves 109 gallons of water and 250 tonnes of land extraction.

In the recent months there has been a disruption in the supply of natural diamonds. As a result prices have gone up disproportionately by almost 50%. Consumers are therefore delaying their purchases as they find the prices unaffordable.

Lab grown diamonds have received an overwhelming consumer acceptance in the US. In a digitally connected borderless world, many Indian consumers have also starting to emulate their American counterparts. Many of the younger consumers have therefore started considering LGDs as an alternative to natural diamonds. It is only a matter of time before the acceptance levels in India go up. The time is therefore opportune to start retailing LGD jewellery and it is a proactive move by AVR. There is a plan to introduce ten collections in a phased manner at all the AVR stores.