Summers are officially here!!!

The Hot Indian Summer was already here since April but they have just arrived at Kathana. We have redone our look at the store. Take a look at the few pics below. The entire show windows and jewellery displays are done in Blue and Pink. We have gone for a cool blue look which is a respite from the bright yellow sun outside.




All the credit for the relook goes to Sarvesh and Sheila our creative salesperson. They did a fabulous job.Earlier too when they did a new look for the winters. 3 cheers to them.

NavBharat Times Plagiarises content from our website/blog.

This Sunday dated 6th June 2010 my father noticed a good news article in the Hindi newspaper Navbharat Times and bought to our attention. The article was titled " Jewellers par nahin, Hallmark par karen bharosa". It is well intentioned article by all means after all its educating customers and yes whatever they wrote in the article was what we have also been advocating for long. They even used a bangle image to help illustrate the point as shown above.

Except for one thing they broke the fundamental rules of journalism. The image used isn't theirs and they haven't credited the source of the image. The photo was taken by Aditya of Kathana Jewellers around 2 years back. It is used in our website and the blog to illustrate various aspects including "How to identify hallmark jewellery".
They just copied it. Period. We looked for some credit which we should have got after all our website clearly mentions that all the work is copyrighted. We couldn't find any.

The damage has been done atleast on 1 count.They chose to ignore giving the credit where its due. A lot of effort and planning ( even money) goes into conceptualizing and writing articles on this blog. They simply chose to ignore that. On another count they have trashed the ethics book by whom journalists are sworn to.

For us the battle is now finding the editor's contact and getting him to acknowledge the mistake. In any case they will simply issue a small write up tucked in a corner of the paper acknowledging our copyright over the image.

Ethics is not just a byword and especially not in the field of journalism. Where millions of readers can be influenced. Journalists cannot be judgemental in delivering news, nor can they choose to ignore the source of their information. By lifting the content from our website/blog Navbharat Times has set a bad example and we are going to fight it.

Jewellery offer for Dhanteras /Diwali 2009 Shoppers

Buoyed by the success we saw last year. For all you visitors to this blog, here's a exclusive offer before our offline visitors know about it. This sneak peek deal to our online visitors is a 2-Day exclusive afterwhich we do an announcement with a huge banner in front of our store. So get that jewellery item you have been wanting at a special price before it vanishes away.

Offer:
Rs. 100 making charges for gold jewellery
Rs. 160 making charges for Antique and Italian Jewellery.
15% off on diamonds.

The offer is valid till Oct.18th.

Awesome response to our Diwali Festive Offer

Thank You! Rohini , Thank You! Pitampura for the jampacked response to our Diwali Festive offer. Our festive offer which is also advertised in the post: Diwali Wishes and Offers from Kathana was well received by the denizens of pitampura and rohini.

We distributed close to 40,000 flyers in most of the rohini sectors and some areas in Pitampura. The result: For most of the evening on the day of Dhanteras I was restricted to a 2-3 feet of space busy welcoming guests and keeping a watchful eye inside.

While gold and silver coins formed the staple for those out for just the dhanteras. Among the serious shoppers Chains(Indian and Italian) were the hottest selling, followed by light weight jewellery items like earrings and rings. Some came back for more with their relatives who didnt want to miss the bargain while others placed orders from the catalogue. We had 1 walk-in from the internet who walked out as our customer. Oh and if you think you have missed it we have extended it by another week just for our online visitors. And the time of this posting, it happens to be the last day for the offer.

One thing that was missing was the line outside the store. Sigh! We will aim for that the next time :)

Photo credit: johnnyalive via Flickr

Fighting the Goliath - Tanishq

Talking to a friend over dinner a few nights ago. One question that came up was how are the family jewellers going to fight the onslaught of Big Retailers in the future.

Family jewellers have ruled the indian jewellery retailing for centuries now. So far, so called "organized retailing' was non existent or just a miniscule share of the more than $12 bn. jewellery market in India.

But now the big jewellers are upping the ante. The goliath in the jewellery industry -Tanishq recently opened its storefront in Pitampura. Goliaths being goliaths are deep pocketed and omnipresent rivals.
In the jewellery industry , its safe to say loyalty among consumers drives the family jewellers. But shifting loyalty is just a "so low making charges" away. So, is there scope for innovation beyond loyalty that can keep the family jewellers flags flying high.

With the impending big retailers push in the jewellery sector. What are the options for a family jeweller? How can they fight the onslaught? So what is it the davids can do the goliaths cant?

In this post I try to dig deeper to analyze some of those options.

1) Design is not a commodity:

No matter how big the giant be, no matter how deep their pockets are . Design will never be a commodity. And precisely thats the reason when you don't like something you have the option to go to another shop. A big retailer can only have so many designs which will appeal to so many users. Designs at a big retailer are mass produced to satisfy the lowest common denominator. And this leads to a distaste when you see someone else wearing what you are wearing.

2) Owning a niche:

Travelling through Chandni Chowk one cant help but notice how single product businesses are flourishing. People from all over delhi flock to the bylanes of this part of delhi for its savories. Whether its the dahi bhallas of natraj or the kachories of the corner shop past the paranthe wali gali. These businesses have held their own despite the biggies like haldirams and are just a stones throw away.
The remarkable thing these businesses have done is own a niche in the food sector. Similarly owning a niche whether its custom diamond engagement rings, moissanites or just polki jewellery has its own rewards.

3) Going the extra mile err... kilometer:

Its good to have certain processes which a company follows and have pre-determined rules in place. Often that helps in resolving conflicts later on. The sales person is trained to handle situations like this in a text book fashion. In a big retail store , Professionals have little incentives to make a one to one relationship with the clients.

When a customer needs a little bit of extra service or explanation. Can your 'processes' handle it? For example we have a 30-Day 100% money back on all our stocked jewellery. What if a customer came with a peice of jewellery on the 31st day or 35th day or maybe even the 40th day after the purchase? We will still be able to offer the same guarantee whereas the stringent 'processes' of the retail chain might not be able to extend that courtesy. Or schedule a payment collection from home? Can they open the store on a holiday to allow you to make that last minute gift purchase for your wedding anniversary?

4) Taking the best from the competition.

Besides Tata's reputation behind it, it was the standardization at Tanishq. Consumers knew that the gold purity was assured and so was the quality of craftsmanship. And this wouldn't vary if you went from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Quickly comply with the BIS hallmarking standards. The sooner you do the better. After all "its profitable to be ethical".
Side Note: Tanishq follows its own certification and not the BIS certification.

5)Being a part of the community:

We have been in the north west delhi for 15 years and that has helped us to understand this neighbourhood better than a lot of other people. A lot of small businesses have been in their respective neighborhoods for that long or longer. Take that and mix it with social responsibility(CSR). For E.g. you can support certain causes with school like no-firecrackers-this-diwali. You can adopt a road divider and green it up. You can sponsor cultural events in your neighborhood. No retail chains can be a part of your community like you can.

Goliaths like Tanishq has access to huge amounts of fund which are used to buy more designs, a better shop ambience and a scientific Karat-o-meter(to verify the purity of gold). Ofcourse, the Tata brand brings in unrivalled brand equity.

Davids are nimble they can 'change' fast and any change by goliaths will require innumerable meetings among their directors, they need to take care of cultural issues(being pan india) , logistics becomes a nightmare and sometimes their computer systems wont be able to handle it.

In the storybook outcome, David wins. Lets make that story come alive in the jewellery sector.

Image Courtesy: DNA- The third mobile operator