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| Sparkling the virtual world |
| Shivani Shinde / Mumbai Nov 09, 2009, 00:31 IST |
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He might have inherited his family’s jewellery business but Mithun Sacheti did not stop at being just another jeweller on the high street. This young scion of Jaipur Gems instead chose to sell solitaire diamond jewellery in the virtual world.
It took a lot of convincing for Sacheti’s partner and co-founder, Srinivasa Gopalan, a seasoned entrepreneur in IT and founder CEO of Lister Technologies, to agree to the idea of selling diamond jewellery on the web. But Gopalan gave in when a friend from the US happily invested approximately Rs 50,000 to buy solitaire jewellery online.
Thus was born www.Caratlane.com, exactly a year ago, even though it took nearly four years to set up the business model. Today, this diamond and jewellery portal acts as the aggregator for diamond vendors across India and abroad. It has close to 3,000 diamond vendors registered on the site from India, the US, Hong Kong and Antwerp. What stands out on Caratlane.com is that all diamonds sold online are certified by standard laboratories like Gemological Institute of America, American Gemological Society, International Gemological Institute, Belgium, and Hoge Raad voor Diamond, Antwerp, which have global acceptance.
The site, claims Sacheti, has shipped 450 pieces of jewellery until now and gets 800 hits per day. Sacheti says, “Every buyer looks for a certification. We offer buyers not only certified diamonds but also play the role of an aggregator for a vast number of remote diamond sellers.” Caratlane gets a fee on every sale through its portal.
Sacheti is clear to make Caratlane unlike any other online jewellery portal. “We are not a listing site. We offer the highest range of solitaires in India on our portal,” he says, adding, “At any given time, we list close to 95,000-100,000 diamonds on the site, whereas any offline jewellery store in India won’t have more than 50 diamonds in its inventory.”
A qualified Gemologist, Sacheti articulates that selling solitaire online has its challenges but remains a hugely profitable business. Designed to help the first-time buyer, Caratlane details all the steps of choosing a diamond.
Going ahead, Caratlane is looking to create offline experience centres. “By the end of this fiscal year, we will open centres in Mumbai and Hyderabad. These stores will be created for people to come and see what we have. None of the stores will stock diamonds,” explains Sacheti.
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