Even as gold prices are hitting newer heights with every passing day, jewellers are increasingly turning towards newer schemes to make it convenient for their customers to buy yellow metal even at peak prices.
According to senior official from World Gold Council, local jewellers are playing a vital role in encouraging consumers to buy gold even at the prevailing high prices.
Many jewellers from different parts of the country are seen offering 'save-for-gold' schemes, which gives convenience to the consumers to purchase gold or gold jewellery by saving a small amount every month with the selected jeweller.
"There is an increasing trend of jewellers offering such schemes to the customers. We did a survey of top cities in the country including Ahmedabad and Surat in Gujarat, and what we found was a large number of jewellers are offering save-for-gold schemes for consumers," said Ajay Mitra, managing director (India, Middle East), World Gold Council.
As per the statistics provided by Mitra, as many as 75 per cent of the total jewellers in Surat are offering such schemes, while in Ahmedabad, the number is slightly less at 64 per cent.
He further mentioned that in cities like Chennai, Madurai and Nagpur 100 per cent jewellers offered such schemes. In Bangalore 94 per cent jewellers offered saving schemes, while in Mumbai 77 per cent jewellers practiced this method to attract buyers even at the high gold prices.
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"Saving-for-gold schemes are good for retail jewellery buyers, who would not afford to make huge one-time investment for buying gold jewellery. This method encourages them to start planning in advance for their gold purchases especially for marriage buying. We see good response to this scheme," said Manoj Soni, director, AB Jewels - an Ahmedabad-based jeweller.
Jewellers offer 11-15 months of saving cycle with fixed amount to be deposited with the respective jeweller every month. This becomes convenient for the small consumers, who would deposit smaller amount ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 5000 every month.
Considering the rising engagement of jewellers in the financial transactions, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is also believed to be considering bringing jewellers under its regulatory gamut. "It is because of some isolated incidences of jewellers disappearing after taking money from depositors, the RBI is now considering to bring some regulation for such jewellers who are engaged in non-banking financial activities," Mitra informed.
In the wake of rising fraud cases for quality of gold, the union ministry of consumer affairs would make hallmarking compulsory for all the jewellers across the country. "The ministry will make hallmarking of gold compulsory from January 2012 for all the jewellers in India," said Mitra.
Gold prices have seen incessant increase since 2003 from US $ 352 per ounce (average price for Q1 2003) to US $ 1506.1 per ounce (avg price for Q2 2011). Hence, the convenience of saving with jewellers and get pricey jewellery without feeling the heat of fiery gold prices is attracting more buyers even at peaking prices of the precious metal.