Jewellery showrooms

The trade

How this trade really works

From the factory to the customer, each person in the chain wants something different. Most of what goes wrong comes from the gaps between them.

The bullion dealer and the wholesaler

You buy gold and silver, and ready designs from wholesalers and manufacturers in places like Mumbai, Rajkot, Kolkata, Coimbatore or Jaipur. Some designs come on approval: you keep them for a while and return what does not sell. Others are bought outright.

The karigar

The karigar is the craftsman who makes and repairs pieces. He makes your own designs and the orders customers place for weddings. Gold goes to him by weight and comes back as jewellery, with some lost in the work. Trust between you and him is old and personal.

Your showroom and branches

Each branch has its own trays, its own staff and its own kind of customer. The old branch in the market sells heavy bridal sets. The newer branch in the colony sells lighter daily wear, gifts and diamonds. Every piece is counted into the safe at night and out again in the morning.

The salesman at the counter

He knows the families who come back for every wedding. He opens the trays, shows the designs, and holds the customer's trust. He shows the designs he believes will sell, which are often the ones that sold last time.

The customer

She comes for a wedding, Dhanteras, Akshaya Tritiya, a child's birth or an anniversary. Often she brings old gold to exchange. She has a design in mind from a relative's wedding, and she wants to see it in more than one weight before she decides.

Gold in a showcase is gold you cannot use

Every piece on display is metal you paid for. While it sits unsold, you cannot use that gold for a new design, an order from a bride's family, or the next wedding season's stock. Owners think of their showcase as wealth. A large part of it is simply money that has stopped moving.

Designs go out of fashion slower, but they do go

Gold does not lose its worth, so owners believe jewellery cannot become dead stock. But the design does. A heavy necklace that every bride wanted some years ago now sits while families ask for lighter pieces. Sooner or later it goes back to the melting pot, and the making charge you paid is lost.

The wedding season decides the year

Most of a showroom's big sales come in the wedding months and around Dhanteras and Akshaya Tritiya. In those weeks, families buy whole sets at once. If the right designs are not in the right branch then, the family goes to the showroom that has them, and they often stay with that showroom for every wedding after.

Old-gold exchange is a large part of the business

Many customers do not pay fully in cash. They bring old gold, which is tested, weighed and set against the new piece. That gold comes into your stock, goes to be melted and refined, and returns as metal for new work. Each of these steps is a place where records can drift.

Each branch has its own taste

The branch in the old city sells heavy bridal sets and temple designs. The branch near the offices sells light chains, earrings and gifts. When both branches get the same mix of new designs, each holds pieces its customers will never ask for.

Trust is the whole business

Families buy from the jeweller their parents bought from. Staff handle pieces worth a great deal every day. Owners keep tight control by keeping most things in their own head and their own register. That works for one shop. Across several branches, it means the owner cannot be everywhere, and nobody else can see the whole picture.

Where the money quietly goes

What you cannot see today, and what it costs you

Which designs have sat the longest

Every showroom has trays of pieces that have been shown many times and never sold. Without knowing how long each design has been lying, the owner cannot decide which to send to another branch, which to offer at a lower making charge, and which to melt and remake.

How much money is locked in slow pieces

The owner knows his total stock. He does not easily know how much of it is in designs that have not sold for a long time. That is the money he could be using for designs that families are asking for now.

Which branch sells what

One branch may sell bridal sets well while another sells mostly light daily wear. Without branch-by-branch records side by side, new designs are divided by habit. A slow branch is usually not short of customers. It is short of the right stock.

Where each piece is today

Pieces move between branches for a customer who wants to see a design, and sometimes they do not come back the same week. When those moves are not written down, the evening count at each branch does not match the register, and the owner spends his night finding out why.

Which designs truly earn

Some designs sell often only because the making charge is cut to win the sale. After that cut, they earn very little. The owner keeps ordering them because they look popular.

A season, the way it usually goes

The story you already know

It is October in a jewellery business in Ludhiana. The owner has the old showroom his father started in the market, and a newer branch in a busy colony on the other side of the city. Before the wedding season he orders new designs from his karigars and from a wholesaler in Rajkot, and divides them between the showrooms as he always has.

In November, a bride's family comes to the colony branch and asks for a light necklace set they saw at a cousin's wedding. The branch has nothing like it. The salesman shows them heavier sets, which they do not want. They leave to look elsewhere. At that moment, a set very close to what they wanted is lying in the old showroom's tray, where customers mostly ask for heavy bridal pieces. Nobody in either branch knows.

In February the season ends. The owner looks at the trays in the old showroom and finds several heavy necklaces that have now sat through another wedding season. In the colony branch, the lighter designs sold out early and he could not get more made in time. He decides to melt some of the old pieces, losing what he paid for making them. He still cannot say exactly how much of his stock has been sitting idle, or for how long.

What you can now decide

Decisions you could not make before

Send the design where it will sell

When a design has sat for months in a branch where customers want heavier pieces, you can move it to the branch where light designs sell. The move is recorded and both branches' stock stays correct. Move it, do not make it. Same gold, no new making charge.

Divide new designs by branch taste

Once you see what each branch has sold, you stop dividing new designs equally. The old-city branch gets the bridal sets. The colony branch gets light daily wear and gifts. Each tray holds what its customers ask for.

Decide what to melt, and what not to

Pieces that have sat for a long time in every branch are the ones to melt and remake. Pieces that sat only in one branch should be moved, not melted. Knowing the difference saves the making charge on designs that would have sold elsewhere.

Free gold before the wedding season

When you know how much money is locked in slow designs, you can clear some of them early, with a smaller making charge, and use the gold for the designs families are asking for this season.

Order from karigars by what sold

Your orders to the karigar and the wholesaler change when you can see which kinds of designs sold, in which branch, and how quickly. You stop reordering the heavy pieces that sat and make more of the ones that went.

Count with confidence at night

When every movement between branches is recorded, the night count matches the register. If it does not, you know at once which branch to look at.

Where you get ahead

Where your competitor keeps losing

You have the design the family is asking for

In jewellery, a family that finds what it wants at your showroom for one wedding comes back for the next. Having the right design in the right branch, or bringing it from another branch the same day, is how you win those families from the showroom down the road.

Less gold sitting idle than your rivals

Most showrooms still treat everything in the showcase as wealth. When you know which designs are idle and move them early, your gold works through more seasons, and you need less fresh money to keep your trays full.

You can grow without losing control

With staff tied to one branch, every movement recorded, and the owner able to see every branch from one place, you can open another branch without the fear that you can no longer keep track.

The same season, with Vyavora

The story, told again

October again in the same Ludhiana business. Both showrooms now bill on Vyavora. The staff at each showroom see only their own trays. The owner sees both, with a switch between them. He divides the new designs from his karigars and from Rajkot by what each showroom sold last season.

In November, a bride's family at the colony branch asks for a light necklace set. The manager looks and sees a close design lying in the old showroom. It is brought across within the hour. The family sees it, and buys it along with matching earrings and bangles. The move from one showroom to the other is recorded, and both counts match that night.

Before the season is over, the owner looks at what has been lying longest. Some heavy pieces have sat in the old showroom through more than one season. He sends a few to the colony branch, where they sell. The rest he offers at a smaller making charge to families who still like heavy designs. When February comes, far less is left to melt, and he knows exactly how much of his gold is free for next season's work.

Why the others agree to it

Everyone in the chain is better off

For the branch manager

He can find a design in another branch while the customer is still at his counter. His staff see only his branch. Every piece moved in or out is recorded, so his night count is clean.

For the owner's accountant

GST is kept branch by branch and added up for filing. Every sale and purchase carries the branch it happened in, so month-end does not mean sorting bills by hand.

For the owner's family in the business

Sons and daughters who join the business can see the whole picture without the owner having to explain everything from memory.

What this does not do

Vyavora does not value your stock at the day's gold price, and it does not work out the price of a piece from its weight. It does not test or value old gold brought for exchange. It does not track the gold you send to the karigar or what is lost in the work. It does not mark individual pieces with hallmark details. If a piece is moved between branches without being entered, the records will be wrong until someone enters it. What it does is show which designs have been lying, in which branch, for how long, and how much money is tied up in them.

Straight answers

Questions people in this trade ask

Will my salesmen see the stock of every branch?

No. Staff are tied to one branch and see only that branch. The owner, and anyone he allows, sees all of them.

Does it value my stock at today's gold price?

No. Vyavora does not value stock by the day's gold price. It shows which designs have been lying unsold and for how long, and the money tied up in each, so you can decide what to move, discount or melt.

What happens if the internet goes off during a busy wedding-season evening?

Billing carries on without internet and catches up when the connection returns.

Our stock records are in Excel sheets. Do we enter them again?

No. Vyavora reads the Excel and PDF files you already keep.

Can I see which branch sells which kind of jewellery?

Yes. Branches can be compared side by side, design by design, so you can see which branch sells bridal sets and which sells light daily wear.

Can I send WhatsApp messages to my regular families?

Yes. Customers can be reached on WhatsApp, for example before the wedding season or Dhanteras.

Every design that sits in your showcase is gold you cannot use.