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Online diamond and jewellery portal CaratLane will use its recently acquired $6-million funding from Tiger Global to strengthen its marketing efforts to reach customers across the country. The online portal has sold 3,000 solitaires since its launch in 2008. CaratLane CEO Mr Mithun Sacheti says the company has only touched the tip of the iceberg. The Indian jewellery market is estimated at Rs 60,000 crore.
Sales
The company that at present sells close to 15 solitaires a day now, apart from diamond and gold jewellery, plans to have at least six retail experiential centres for customers across the country, with the first couple in Mumbai and Delhi. Customer problems such as credit cards not having enough credit limit or people not able to transact online would be sorted out at these centres, explains Mr Sacheti. CaratLane also plans to invest in technology that helps in 3D viewing of the jewellery.
At any point in time, CaratLane has at least 250 suppliers of diamonds and gems displaying over one lakh solitaires on the site, says Mr Sacheti.
Customers can buy the stone or get them set in jewellery from the company's manufacturing units, located at Mumbai and Chennai.
The current average ticket size on the portal is around Rs 1 lakh per transaction for solitaires and Rs 15,000 for gold jewellery. CaratLane's plans for this year includes launch of men's and children's jewellery, says Mr Sacheti.
On Akshaya Tritiya this year, the portal introduced gold coins and sold about 1,500 of them at that time.
Price
CaratLane solitaires are priced 10 to 25 per cent lower than retail stores because the business model enables reduction of intermediaries between the customer and the diamond manufacturer, in addition to the benefits of lower costs and overheads that all online businesses enjoy, explains Mr Sacheti.
The company closed fiscal 2010-11 with revenues of Rs 50 crore.
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