| | October 20209e-commerce stores. Apart from the existing players, this industry now needs new entrants with fresh ideas, innovative marketing strategies, and unique yet appealing designs. If a right combination of technology, product knowledge, resources, quality & customer service is applied, I think this industry would gain the trust of its buyers and it would be able to boom the gems & jewelry revenue to a huge extent.What is Repelling Customers from Online Gems & Jewelry Stores?Well, first of all, the sellers should make a strategy to eradicate the hesitation in the mind of buyers to buy their products online. Their approach towards the buyers (whether through online or offline channels) should be transparent and trustworthy and should reach them in an emotionally connecting manner.Some of the items which are religious such as gemstone rings, pendants, rudraksha, are only bought after proper consultation from astrologers and nowadays, most of the astrologers have started keeping their own bunch of gemstones and they try to sell their own inventory rather than referring the buyers to jewelers. This also keeps the potential buyers away from online stores. When it comes to other jewelry items like nose-pins, rings, necklaces, and more buyers are skeptical about the size & fit. And of course, it can be seen as a nor-mal tendency of buyers that they ask more questions about the metal, de-sign, looks, quality, and others. from the online stores as compared to the showroom retailers. This is simply because it is quite easy and comfort-able to ask a person about various things over a phone call or a chat or email than sitting in front.What Approach is Mandatory to Gain Potential Buyers to this Industry?To gain the trust & faith of buyers, the online stores must look at intro-ducing 'Try at Home' service for Free, more 'Consumer-friendly Return pol-icies', extended 'Cash on Delivery' facilities, attractive 'EMI features', Fresh unique jewelry designs, and many more. They must also think of introducing some new lines of jew-elry items apart from rings, pendants, bracelets, earrings, nose pins, and so on to attract more potential buyers. Buyers should be able to blindly trust the online store, its products, its staff and its services. This needs a lot of transparency in the terms and conditions, online catalog and product lines when serving the customers, which many of these online stores lack in.Secondly, the nature of these products is such that a potential buy-er would unquestionably want to see the end product before purchasing. The new entrants should bring new ideas and techniques to overcome this limitation.A high definition real-time video or a 360-degree high definition view of the products might be one of the solutions for this problem to an extent however, it involves a lot of hard work, time and cost.Ideal Road Map Ahead:To make this industry as shining and glowing as its products, the existing retailers, and aspiring entrants must look for all the possible solutions or alternatives to the above-specified problems. They must keep their relationship with the buyers as professional and friendly as possible. They must work extensively on clubbing the modern day technology with an age-old tradition of wearing gems and jewelry. This country has known for its unique crafts and gems since ancient times and the current and upcoming generations of online sellers must be keen to take this up as a responsibility and make this industry blossom again.Otherwise, buyers would keep on losing their trust and interest in buying gems & jewelry online and sellers would remain local instead of becoming global brands. If a right combination of technology, product knowledge, resources, quality & customer service is applied, the industry would gain the trust of its buyers and it would be able to boom the gems & jewelry revenue to a huge extentP. R. R. Nair
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