Amazon has entered India’s luxury retail market, launching a jewellery e-store.
Tech In Asia reports that most of the leading jewelry brands, both Indian and international, are offering their wares on it. Shoppers can now pick up everything from necklaces to anklets and mangalsutras – a kind of wedding band worn on the neck instead of the finger.
Specialised homegrown jewellery eCommerce stores like Bluestone and Caratlane have also partnered with Amazon to be on the new site.
Pricey luxury items like jewellery have been slow to pick up online sales, because people like to have a touch-and-feel to see if they suit their individual tastes before shelling out big bucks. But this is changing. A recent McKinsey report says online accounts for only four per cent of luxury sales, but it is growing twice as fast as overall sales.
“By 2017, pure online sales [of luxury goods] should account for six per cent of the sector as a whole,” the report states.
Amazon obviously thinks India is in step with this trend.
“Much like the West, we in India are also witnessing an increasingly trend in online jewellery shopping,” says Vikas Purohit, category lead for fashion at Amazon India, in a statement. The launch of the jewellery e-store was timed to coincide with India’s wedding season.
The products are curated under different sections like diamond, gold, and gemstone jewellery and designer stores as well as under various brands like D’damas, Aspen, and couture jewellery brand Rose Group. It also has a special ‘Conflict-free diamond collection’ for the socially conscious. Amazon promises that all the products in this store will come with valid certifications like hallmark guarantee.
Thus far in India, every step by Amazon is matched by a counter-move from Flipkart – its chief rival in the country – and vice versa. So, expect an announcement from the homegrown eCommerce unicorn soon.
Ecommerce has taken off in India this year, with billions of dollars invested and millions of shoppers going online. Google’s annual online shopping growth trends report released on Thursday says India will have 100 million online shoppers by 2016. There were 35 million online shoppers this year, more than four times the number of 2012.
