CaratLane.com, promoted by Mithun Sacheti, director of jewelry retail chain 'Jaipur Gems' and Srinivasa Gopalan, an IT entrepreneur, has made buying diamonds online a pleasurable experience for customers. With a limitless choice for diamond buyers, the duo has launched this portal to sell certified and high quality diamonds. All the diamonds are certified by international agencies such as GIA (Gemological Institute of America), AGS (American Gemological Society), IGI (International Gemological Institute, Belgium) and HRD (Hoge Raad voor Diamont, Antwerp).

GJEPC.ORG spoke to Mithun Sacheti and Srinivasa Gopalan, the directors of caratlane.com, about their online venture.

You claim CaratLane.com to be the first-of-its-kind portal to sell certified and high quality diamonds. But there are other portals also selling diamonds online. What are the distinguishing features that sets carat lane apart from others?

Mithun Sacheti: The other Indian portals selling diamonds online are b2b/trade portals. CaratLane on the other hand is a b2c portal. This is the first time that a company in India is offering a range of close to 60,000 loose diamonds of all color, cut, clarity and carat combinations for direct purchase by consumers.

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Another unique feature is that our 'make your own solitaire jewelry' section. Once the customer has decided on her solitaire, she can choose from various designs/mounts of rings, pendants or earrings that are available on our website and create her own customized solitaire jewelry.

With your background in IT, what expertise have you brought in to CaratLane.com?

Srinivasa Gopalan: One of the biggest technology challenges that we have faced has been to bring together the inventory of close to 4,000 manufacturers from across the world and present it to consumers in a user friendly format. Developing an information rich/image heavy website to give customers a great online jewelry buying experience without compromising on website performance (given the low Internet bandwidth in India), was our other biggest challenge. Also, taking care at every stage to ensure a very secure purchase process for our customers was equally important.

Can you share with us the advantages of selling diamonds online? What is the wee side to it?

Mithun Sacheti: A diamond as a product is defined and sold by universally accepted technical specifications – key parameters being cut, clarity, color and carat. Usually, one of the renowned international laboratories verifies a diamond on these and other parameters and certifies it. In such a situation, the value addition by a regular Brick and Mortar retailer is minimal. Online portals such as ours allow customers to review tens of thousands of stones, compare specification and price to make a well informed decision. It makes online purchase more attractive when the price is significantly lower than what the customer will get from regular stores.

What are the other things to be kept in mind while going online? Where can one go wrong?

Srinivasa Gopalan: This was a challenging situation for us. Being a pioneer in India for online sale of Solitaires, we had to see everything from a customer perspective and design the portal. Key factors that influenced our business model included:
**Provide the largest collection of stones from a large number of suppliers to give choice,
**Design the portal for ease of navigation. We engaged usability experts to design the portal,
**Provide multiple payment options to suit all needs,
**Include a detailed education section on diamond purchase to guide first time buyers,
**Pay great attention to logistics to deliver on promised date of supply,
**Set up a customer care centre staffed with highly trained agents to answer all queries from prospects and,
**Above all, offer certified diamonds at great price.

What is the average number of diamonds sold per day/month? Do you have any statistics to share with our readers?

Mithun Sacheti: CaratLane was launched in October 2008. Considering that online selling of Solitaires is new to the country and we have done low key promotion till date, the response has been terrific. CaratLane has seen customers make online purchase for a single transaction of value Rs 500,000 and above – probably for the first time in India, redefining the level of adoption of online purchasing. In four months, we have processed over a 100 transactions.

How is the business going in the online front? What is the number of people clicking onto your site? How many of them turn to actual buyers?

Mithun Sacheti: CaratLane has grown from 40 visitors/day to over 600 visitors/day, now. In four months, we have processed over a hundred transactions and another 100 plus potential customers are seriously evaluating a purchase with CaratLane. As you know, a solitaire purchase is a very involved process and customers typically spend quite some time visiting various stores and evaluating options before they make up their mind.

What are the various payment options for a customer while buying online?

Srinivasa Gopalan: We have multiple payment options for our customers. Customers can pay online using their credit/debit card. Alternatively they can do an online funds transfer or deposit cash/cheques into our collection accounts across the country.

Why buying online is not that a preferred option for many buyers? Why aren’t many consumers comfortable while buying online?

Srinivasa Gopalan: On the contrary, we have been very encouraged by the terrific response CaratLane has received in the short time. We have had customers routinely place orders in the value range Rs 100,000 to well over Rs 500,000 for a single diamond – just based on reviewing the portal and speaking with our customer support agents! As word of mouth publicity and brand promotion of CaratLane spreads the awareness, we expect to see rapid growth of online purchase of diamonds.

Are there any other advantages a customer can derive while buying online?

Mithun Sacheti: Customers of CaratLane get the following benefits:
**Price lower by 10% to 25% compared with regular shops,
**Wide choice of diamonds to suit all budgets,
**Custom- made solitaire jewelry within seven business days and,
**Ease of purchase.

Though not too many people buy online, analysts feel that selling diamonds and jewelry online is a very futuristic thing. What is your opinion on this? What is the future of online selling?

Mithun Sacheti: In the US, online sale of diamond jewelry is worth over $ 4 Billion, annually and growing. It is bound to grow rapidly in India once online purchase options are available to customers. Thanks to the new generation employees being tech savvy and pressed for time, online purchase will become popular, in the near future. In the US, online purchase of diamond jewelry is 7.4% of total sale of diamond jewelry. We expect Indian market to be no different.

Courtesy: The Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council, India

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