Stealing the show

JEWELLERY DESIGN

Indian design shops are walking away with lucrative deals this festive season.

Four months ahead of the festive season in the west - starting with Christmas, through to Valentine's Day and ending with Mother's Day - buyers from the US have begun thronging Indian jewellry manufacturers. And quite a few of these are small scale manufacturers who have begun offering contemporary international designs at competitive prices.

The client list includes big chain stores like Wal Mart, J C Penny and Home Depot. Gone are the days when these stores would send detailed designs and the Indian manufactures would just execute the designs and send off the pieces for final finishing to European or American manufacturers.

Now, Indian manufacturers, especially the small and medium level manufacturers, are orders which include both design and manufacturing. Said Siddharth Kedia of Suashish Diamonds, one of the favoured few this season, "We just get the number of pieces and the price range. The rest of the home work we do with our designing team to offer contemporary designs at competitive prices. Our clients include almost all the big chain stores in the US."

Others in the fray include companies like Ishtaa Gold Jewellry and Goldiam International. A majority of the products supplied today are designed in-house by the Indian companies on the basis of an basic brief given by the specific retailer.

"The obvious reason that Indian manufacturers are favoured is the cost advantage that they offer in manufacturing. Add to that the growing expertise in the area of design, and final finishing, the Indian SME sector offers an unbeatable proposition," said Diamond Trading Corporation's managing director, Cherie Saldanah.

"Indian designs are catching up in the international market with eye-catching designs making the country hot in new designs and jewellry production," Saldanha added.

Another advantage is the vast store house of traditional designs that are being blended with contemporary international sensibility by these design houses. "When you combine these factors with the 25-390per cent cost advantage that you get from an Indian manufacturer, it is a win-win situation for both sides," said Saldanah.

"Retailers from the west expect jewellry manufacturers to come out with design options catering to specific local demands in their countries. Indian jewellry manufacturers have gone that extra mile and invested large amount of resources in understanding the design and product requirements in the market and creating products according to it," said Kedia.

Industry statistics point out that the export gap between the big and the small design shops has narrowed too. The smaller companies now account for nearly 20 per cent of the Rs 16000 crore export revenue, up from the five per cent they were contributing a few years ago.

"We have a team of merchandisers and designers who constantly travel to the western markets to attend shows and visit retail outlets, interact with store staff in order to understand the latest trends. This helps us create designs match that consumer preferences there," said Kedia.

Indian made international designs form a major part of the product mix for a lot of mass retail chains across the western countries. But, specially in the last 4-5 years we have also noticed an increasing presence of Indian made designs in the couture boutiques on high streets, industry said.

"While finalising the designs one should keep several parameters in mind like the type of retail outlet where the products will be sold, the target audience (i.e. customer's customer), the occasion for purchase, the price points, the gold carat and colour requirements, the diamond sizes and qualities. There is a difference in the design preferences in different markets. For instance the designs that would work in the USA may not be popular in the UK and vice versa," said Kedia.