Our same store growth has seen a CAGR of over 20% over last 5 years: Vijay Jain

How has your brand evolved as a brand in India? What’s the y-o-y growth?

The jewellery market in India is gold dominated with a share of 85%. In a gold dominated market, we launched ORRA as a diamond centric brand in 2004. Over the years, not only has the brand gained momentum, but for the last couple of years it has been ranked as India’s Most Trusted Brand in the Diamond Jewellery category by IBC Infomedia. Our same store growth over the last five years has been over 20%.

 

Keeping in mind the growing customer preferences, what’s your onmi-channel strategy? Is booming e-commerce an opportunity? What’s your online pivot?

 

Ours is a consumer centric business and over the last few years there has been a fundamental shift in the consumer’s outlook in general. The consumer is no longer on multiple channels but simultaneously on more than one channel. One in three consumers are simultaneously on their cell phones while watching television. While the traditional place of discovery used to be the store and word of mouth, today this has shifted to become the social and digital medium. Our key focus has really been to build a stronger connect with the consumer through our omni-channel presence. 

 

The online space in terms of ecommerce is definitely seeing a spurt in growth. The focus being the product, we understand that first time consumers are always apprehensive when it comes to making large purchases for jewellery online as it is not merely a financial investment but an emotional investment as well. We therefore have a strong online-offline connect with our presence in 32 stores across 24 cities that allow consumers to come and experience the product at their will. From the second purchase onwards, however, we see a factor of ease setting in having already established trust in the mind of the consumer. In doing so, we further expect online sales to pick up within the next few years.

 

What all innovations have been introduced by the company this year – in terms of design, customer loyalty, technology, among others. 

In terms of design, we have placed focus on creating designs that would be on par the international fashion trends while appealing to the national consumer sentiment as well. 2016 has been a great year for us with ORRA bagging many awards including the Best Earring Jewellery Design of the year at the National Jewellery Awards 2016, Blogger’s Choice Award (Non- Vivah) and Best Platinum Sales Manager National awards at the Retail Jeweller India Awards 2016. We were also selected to be part of the prestigious list of case studies conducted by search engine giant Google, in India recognizing our efforts to successfully capitalize on the digital medium to increase sales as well as spread the essence of luxury to the online world.

 

In terms of programs for customer loyalty, we have put in place a dedicated analytics team to look to marrying consumer profile and  buying behaviour which is both in the online and offline space. With the governments focus on a digital economy, we have created opportunities for our customers to experience additional incentives while making a purchase through the digital medium. Post that we are in conversation with the top three credit card companies in India for tie ups and promotions.

 

What all opportunities do you see going ahead?

We see a huge opportunity for the brand in the coming months. With the renewed focus on the digital medium, brands like ORRA which already fall into the organised space of jewellery retail, the opportunity is immense in terms of both, recall of old customer as well as acquiring new customers. 

 

What’s going to be your future growth strategy? 

We will focus not only on efficiencies of store matrix - Same store growth has seen a CAGR of over 20% over last 5 years but also a focus on strengthening the brand with a focus on CRM and digital. Focus would be both for retention and new customer acquisition.