Surveying the market

Yesterday was a fun day. It was almost the last but one day before the Shraadh concludes and I was out with another female friend to check out what other jewellers in the market had to offer. I don't know how ethical it is to snoop into other stores and see what is doing rounds in the market but then its an age old trade practice..something I personally find a little hard to break. We will dwell into the ethical part later, first let me share the good, the bad and the ugly I found.

So lets start of with the good part first :) Of the three stores we visited (I will omit the names) one of them was THE jewellery store of Delhi, the other one was quite a popular choice with the people of our locality and the third one was one of the stores whose ad I had heard so many times in the radio that I HAD to visit it.

Our first stop was the store which has been making a mark in the Pitampura area for the last few years. And I found good reasons for it. They had great sales girls: the warm, smiling kinds who would make your shopping experience a complete bliss, the kinds who would dig out 100's of boxes to find out just the right piece for you. I was truly impressed. In addition there designing was the best amongst the ones we have seen so far, in physical stores or online. They had an extensive range of jewellery catering to the needs of both- the masses and the classes. And the best part was that all of it could actually fit into your budget (btw, ours was 2-2.5 lac for a diamond set). Over the odd half hour that we spent there we forgot that we were undercover and were so fascinated by the jewellery that we had half a mind to buy it!

The only thing that stopped us were the prices. And that is kind of the bad part of the store. I personally found that there was a lot of disparity in the prices, so much that it looked ridiculous. And heres how: so, we had zeroed down on a diamond set which was estimated around 5 lac by the sales girl but when one of the owner was asked to give his best price he brought it down to a little over 3 lac. Now, a 40% discount on the mark up price was really new to me and set me thinking. I don't know about others but with me if someone offers a discount more than 10% it always sets me thinking...and I end up feeling that there is more I should have bargained for! But then there are quite a few that I know of, who feel that an out of the blue big discount is a deal to steal!

Now the ugly part of it: I know this goes around a lot in our fraternity but I feel there really is a need to educate your customers more than mislead them. So when we spoke to the owners about the return policy they had a simple one on cash refund or exchange: 90% of the diamond's cost + gold's current rate - labor charges. When prodded on why not give the diamond's current value too, the reply was that diamond is not a commodity and no one returns the appreciation in prices of diamond. I would beg to differ here because I know of at least one store that does this (and no it is not us), though I am not 100% sure, so once I have verified my facts on it I would put it down here. I guess the gist of the return policy boils down to: Diamond is not an investment. It looses 10% of its value the moment you step out of the store. Unfortunately thats the policy every one follows, including us. And thats something we should talk about more on in our later topics.

I would cover up my experience in the other two stores in the later posts, but I hope that this was an interesting read for all of you.

Btw, the Navratras are to begin tomorrow: So happy navratras, and happy shopping.