Jewellery major Senco Gold and Diamonds with an all-India footprint and headquartered in Kolkata claims to be the largest organised jewellery retail player in East India with 97 stores and with the biggest geographical footprint in the non-eastern states. MD & CEO Suvankar Sen talks to EastIndiaRetail
By Special Correspondent | October 18, 2022 | 9:00 am
Apart from the regular Senco Gold & Diamonds showrooms, plans are to add new and future generation formats like the D’Signia showrooms in areas of comparatively higher affluence, and Everlite showrooms in areas with comparatively lower age median. SENCO
The Brief
West Bengal, the most prominent jewellery market and a major manufacturing hub in the East, is famous for intricately designed and handcrafted gold jewellery with delicate gold filigree. Reputed for its lightweight, handmade jewellery, the skilled ‘karigars’ or artisans are renowned for their craftsmanship.
Manufacturing hub: A major gold and diamond jewellery exporting region, the manufacturers also supply to neighbouring states and other parts of the country.
Favourable state government policies like the setting up of a gems and jewellery park in Domjur, Howrah by the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation Ltd
has been a boost for the industry. Sprawled over six acres with good connectivity to Kolkata, it is the prime gold manufacturing cluster in the state.
Consumer call: Gold jewellery purchases in East India have a close association with tradition and culture, and consumers here go for more traditional designs. Apart from traditional bridal pieces like the chandbalis, choor, ratanchoor, mantasha, saptalahari, hansulis, nabaratna sets, kundan, polki and meenakari sets, there are gemstones too used for astrological purposes in the form of graharatna jewellery.
Retail presence + product portfolio Senco sells jewellery in gold, diamond, silver, platinum, precious and semi-precious stones and other metals which includes costume jewellery, as also gold and silver coins and utensils made of silver.
Its 127 showrooms, occupying a total area of approximately 393,342sqft, spread across 89 cities and towns in 13 states, offer a catalogue of more than 108,000 designs for gold jewellery and more than 46,000 designs for diamond jewellery. Some of its franchisee showrooms are located in tier II and tier III locations.
What is the contribution of the East and the NorthEast to your total revenues?
Our revenue from operations as of FY21 was ₹2,660 crore. Senco grew faster than all peers in terms of revenue from operations in fiscal 2021. The East and Northeast region contributed 84% of our total revenue in FY21 and location wise split of revenues for the same period was metros (34%), tier I 1 (29%) and tier II (33%).
In FY21, the consumption demand of gold was ₹1766 billion and investment demand was ₹679 billion. Consumption demand for gold includes gold jewellery, while investment demand for gold includes bars and coins.
Within India, the southern states dominate with 38-43% of gold demand while eastern India commands a 13-18% share.
Demand for jewellery in the eastern region is focussed largely on the 22-carat type. Southern India is predominantly a 22-carat traditional, handmade market too while the northern and western regions prefer 14-carat and 18-carat jewellery.
What are your expansion plans and strategy?
In line with our expansion strategy, while entering new state geographies, we endeavour to register our presence in the state capital or the largest city through company-operated showrooms before venturing into tier II and tier III locations, primarily through franchisee format in order to leverage logistical efficiency of inventory and return on capital. We believe that this hub-and-spoke approach has enabled us to successfully implement a franchisee model for our business and become a well-established name for jewellery, particularly in East and Northeast India.
As part of our expansion strategy and becoming a future-ready company, we intend to customise our showroom formats based upon location and target segment. In addition to our regular Senco Gold & Diamonds showrooms, we intend to add new and future generation formats like the D’Signia showrooms in areas of comparatively higher affluence and Everlite showrooms in areas with comparatively lower age median.
How is the market for the branded jewellery segment shaping up?
We believe that the branded jewellery market has significant growth opportunities. With the increasing number of working women, exposure to global designs, and rising number of young consumers who prefer to purchase jewellery for adornment rather than investments, consumer preferences are shifting away from traditional bulky jewellery to lightweight contemporary jewellery. Hence, jewellery retailers have started manufacturing lightweight jewellery of contemporary designs, suitable for daily use.
The jewellery industry is subject to rapid and unpredictable changes in fashion trends and customer preferences. Customer preferences for jewellery designs and types vary from region to region in India. In addition, the availability and consumer acceptance of alternate metals such as cubic, zirconia, moissanite or laboratory-created diamonds has resulted in rapidly changing consumer preferences.
The world has gone phygital. What has been your strategy?
In addition to physical showrooms, we have also adopted the phygital model. To ensure that we reach geographies beyond brick-and-mortar, we intend to continue building our brand presence through the available e-commerce and online channels, including continued and seamless customer experience for online and offline sales through our websites, mobile, chat-bots and mobile application. Towards this end, we consistently invest in technology with a view to complementing our physical showroom presence with our digital presence. We aim to continue to increase our presence in the digital space through our online platforms as well as through online marketplaces. With the increasing use of the internet in India and the continued development of online channels, we believe that we will be able to expand our customer reach and increase our sales through the digital channel with relatively low investments. In addition, we believe that we can enhance our brand awareness among internet users and cater to a wider customer segment.
We have launched our online platforms, www.sencogoldanddiamonds.com, www.mygossip.in and www.mysenco.in and a mobile application, MySenco, through which we offer our jewellery products and gold coins to a diverse range of customers. Further, we have started selling our products on websites of various e-commerce aggregators.
What are your marketing budgets and campaigns like?
Highlighting the variety of our collection and designs, the Senco marketing campaigns are tailored to enhance brand recall and generate increased footfalls throughout the year. Our marketing schemes vary as per occasion, season and the needs of our customers and are tailored for occasions such as weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and festivities, when people customarily buy jewellery. During fiscal 2021 about ₹26 crore was incurred on advertising and sales promotion. Over the years, we have appointed actors like Vidya Balan, Kiara Advani and Jaya Ahsan, Olympian Dutee Chand, and ace cricketer Sourav Ganguly as brand ambassadors to enhance brand presence.
