Chennai: With eyes on the increase in gold prices, a large tanishq jewelry brand betting on light gold jewelry.
It aims to move more than 50% of the range of gold jewelry to the ‘Hi-Lites’ segment which was recently introduced in 12 months.
CEO of Titan (Jewelry Division) Ajoy Chawla said, “The hi-lites range offers between the lightest heavy products on the market and, after our soft launch before Diwali, it has seen sharp growth in new customers in Q3.” The overall growth of Tanishq customers rose 32%, but the brand saw a growth of 39% in new customers.
“New customers usually buy gold wear and everyday and Hi-Lites products have contributed 40% of the sale of gold jewelry,” he added.
In the second phase, the company will add more products to a light category.
“We have seen all the best-selling books and, in the future, all new products will go through a light weighting process,” he added.
“We institutionalize it.” Tanishq hopes to sell hi-lites products to “more than one million buyers in 12 months”, Chawla said.
Gold prices have risen more than 20% in the past 12 months, encouraging brands to find ways to lose weight some of the best-selling designs.
“We have reaped a piece of product at 3,500 Skuses (stock storage units), which is one of our best-selling books, and launched it in October,” Chawla said.
The hi-lites range is 30% of gold jewelry in stock, but contributes 40% of sales in Q3.
The reduction range is 15-25% with the company using a combination of “design reconstruction to remove the excess gold”, change the manufacturing process to make lighter pieces and change the material into a hard 22-rust gold alloy to provide a lighter weight piece in the same design .
“We have reduced the weight of gold in these products without sacrificing quality, display, functioning stability,” Chawla said.