Designs drive UAE jewellery market

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Designs drive UAE jewellery market

PNG Jewellers from India, which recently opened its first store in the UAE in Dubai’s Meena Bazaar, said it will open at least five more stores by 2017

By Rohma Sadaqat

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Published: Sun 26 Apr 2015, 10:57 PM

Last updated: Thu 25 Jun 2015, 7:35 PM

Dubai — PNG Jewellers pins hopes on jewellery designs to strengthen its presence in the competitive UAE market, its top official says.

The jewellery retailer from India, which recently opened its first store in the UAE in Dubai’s Meena Bazaar, said it will open at least five more stores by 2017. It offers a wide range of gold, silver and diamond jewellery for different occasions. Operating since 1832, the brand boasts Bollywood personalities Salman Khan and Madhuri Dixit as brand ambassadors.

KT photo by Leslie PableoIn an interview with Khaleej Times, Saurabh Gadgil, chairman and managing director of PNG Jewellers, said that it had only been two months since the brand’s store opening, but the response had been “very good”.

“People are familiar with the brand, and we had a very successful Akshaya Tritiya campaign.”

“Our first take was that we may not be able to attract consumers from different genres immediately. ,However we found that we were getting a lot of Sindhi and Punjabi customers, who were coming to us and expressing their interest in our designs. This was a very positive step towards our journey in Dubai.”

“We have plans to add another five stores in our UAE portfolio in the next two years. We are looking at locations in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. In addition, we also have plans to expand to the rest of the GCC, but for now, our focus is on the UAE market,” he said.

Asked about the various products that the brand offers, Gadgil said: “We offer gold, silver and diamond products. We have a lot of collections in our gold category for a wide range of occasions and we have a very strong temple jewellery collection.”

Gadgil also explained that the brand places a lot of emphasis on heritage. “The uniqueness of our collection is that it is manufactured in India. Since we have been in this business for so long, we have a lot of old designs in our databank, which other retailers do not have. We have designs that are more than a 100 years old. This is why our designs stand out from what the market has, and this is an advantage that we have over the new players in the market.”

He said that the retailer has a very strict formula that is followed across its stores. “Firstly, we ensure that customers who enter our stores like our designs. Secondly, we focus on providing them with the best service possible. Lastly, we focus on the price. Prices are mostly the same everywhere and people are aware of it. So, we don’t focus on this as much as we do on our designs and customer experience.”

Gadgil said that there is a lot of doubt on gold’s purity in India, which is why loyalty plays a very big role in customers shopping for jewellery in India. In Dubai, he informed that since gold quality is not an issue, jewellery designs play a very important role,” he said. “Customers in the UAE don’t think twice about changing their jewellers if they don’t offer them the designs they want. For them, shifting from one jeweller to another is not an issue, like it would be for customers in India.”

Asked about the group’s plans for 2015, Gadgil revealed that the retailer was currently in the process of expanding its existing store in Meena Bazaar. “Our current store is 2,000sqft and we have bought another 2,000sqft directly adjacent to our store, and will be launching the expanded store in the first week of June this year. The expansion will allow us to have more room for our stocks and dedicated areas for our various categories.”

He also revealed that the store will soon be offering Salman Khan’s ‘Being Human’ line of silver jewellery. “We will be calling it ‘jewellery with a heart’ and will have it in our store in time for Eid.”

rohma@khaleejtimes.com


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