Diamond World (DW) May - June 2020

Cover Story
“We have to portray diamonds as a
safe investment. During uncertain
times, savings is important. People
don’t want to make impulse
purchases on EMIs anymore. This is
the perfect time to let people know
that diamonds are a safe investment
and that we need to go back to our
roots, and do what our parents and
grandparents did. The resale value
of gold and diamonds has only gone
up. And with diamonds, one can
buy it, wear it and still think of it
as a safe investment,” says Alkesh.
In the heydays, jewellers in India
would always convert gold buying
customers into diamond buying
customers because that’s where the
money was. “We need to get that
back in practice,” adds Alkesh.
Customers have realised that gold
and diamonds are an investment
and they hold their value. There
was a lot of predisposed buying
happening but now people have
this inherent need to feel safe.
“People are not spending money
carelessly – they want to obviously
spend their savings on something
prudently, so we have to give them
at opportunity. People are picking
up solitaires and we are also going
to be focusing on simple jewellery,”
adds Dipu. People who have
purchased solitaires a few years ago
have made some money on it, may
be not a lot. But people who have
invested in real estate, equities
or bonds have lost a lot of money.
And diamonds are also a great
investment against the dollar. “We
haven’t really promoted diamonds
as an investment and we should do
that. We should learn a lot from the
mutual fund industry. In 4 years,
mutual fund hasn’t given anyone
any returns. But the way people are
being pulled towards investing in
Buying diamond
jewellery has always
been about the
sentiment. There
are times when a
consumer will walk
into the store with
a particular budget
in mind and she will
even exceed their
budget if they like the
product, because of
the sentiment. What
we need now is for
the sentiment to come
back. The biggest
impediment right now
is fear. So, rather than
asking a client if they
are safe and okay,
we talk to a client as
though everything is
normal, you need to
give the client a picture
that things are normal
Ishu Datwani, Anmol
Jewellers
DiamonD WorlD | may-june 2020 | 71