While businesses are talking about recovery rates, we're talking about high growth rates: Mithun Sacheti, CaratLane

• In a year when many businesses are still on their road to recovery, omnichannel jewellery brand CaratLane has posted a 38% YoY growth in Q3.
• We speak to Mithun Sacheti, Founder and Managing Director, CaratLane about the brand's performance, and his growth strategy for CaratLane.

Last week, omnichannel jewellery brand CaratLane declared its quarterly results, and for a quarter when most businesses are trying to recover from the impact of 2020, the brand shared it achieved 38% YoY growth. In fact, November 2020 (the month of Dhanteras) turned out to be the first-ever Rs 100 crores+ month for the company.

“The change in consumer behavior during the months of lockdown has given a boost to all direct-to-consumer brands, and we have been a big beneficiary too. There was a robust consumer demand even post-Diwali. During Diwali we had thought it might be the pent-up demand but we soon realized it was not that. People were just consuming all things that conveyed sentiments. So if people’s desire is to buy jewellery and buy it online, we’re a net beneficiary of a greater magnitude than everybody else. So, while people are talking about recovery rates, we're talking about high growth rates,” explained Mithun Sacheti, Founder and Managing Director, CaratLane.

The company recorded revenues of Rs 273 crore in Q3. Its online business delivered a growth of 68%. The brand’s online buying experience has got a boost with Try at Home and CaratLane LIVE - a video call service to enable customers to either see the jewellery before they buy or get a video consultation with an in-house jewellery expert. the Try at Home service saw a growth of 37% in Q3 and has been scaled up to 15 cities, with Patna, Ludhiana and Chandigarh added in Q3.

The pandemic led to more and more becoming comfortable with buying jewellery online leading to a lot of first-time users on its platform. “The pandemic led to huge changes in consumer behavior. We saw lots of first-time users. Also, a lot of Tier II and Tier III users who would not have been so savvy and comfortable with buying digitally before had their access restricted to online. We also saw a lot of older people shop on our platform too,” he said.

Meanwhile, more and more people are returning to their retail outlets too. Its retail business saw a strong rebound and delivered a growth of 43% over the same period last year.Like-to-like growth for the quarter stood at 9%, with 17% LTL growth for high street stores.

Founded in 2008 with the motto of making beautiful jewellery accessible, affordable, and forever wearable, Sacheti said the task now at hand is in making this a reality. The launch of its silver jewellery brand Shaya, is a step towards achieving this goal. “We identified a challenge quote early, that we don't serve everybody. If you look at what is sold to a farmer or to the household help, you will realize those products are not led by design. They are led by an investment philosophy. Our goal is to marry the two and deliver something that makes reasonable commercial sense but at the same time, makes you feel proud of wearing it. Jewelry as an industry is still using the same manufacturing techniques it was using 100-200 years ago. If we were to innovate and solve for these problems, we will we will continue to grow the market to a larger audience, which is not able to afford it today. As an industry, we don't work hard enough on the lower price point. We should, because that's the future,” he added.

Moreover, the brand is also focusing on the children’s segment, which Sacheti maintains has been witnessing robust enthusiasm and growth.

The brand is already working on going deeper into the country and aims at taking its store count from the current 109 to 120 by the end of 2021.