With sales flat, no glitters this Akshaya Tritiya

CHENNAI: The craze of buying large pieces of gold jewellery on Akshaya Tritiya seems to be wearing off. Despite a fall in gold prices, jewellery sales appear muted this year, on the day in the Hindu calendar considered auspicious to buy gold. Jewellers say that while the market has been good, they haven't seen a big increase in sales this year over last year.
"The volumes and the average sale price has been flat this year, with no major increase over last year.The summer heat and today being a weekday have had an impact, but we have seen good sales during the evenings," Joseph Prince, director of Price Jewellery said.
Globally, prices have fallen by about 10% since last year and analysts have warned consumers over heavy purchases as prices could fall further. "People buy on Akshaya Tritiya more for sentiments than anything else. We see that people come and buy something at least for a few grams on this day - be it a coin or some small pair of lightweight earrings. We see volumes because of the sentiment that if you buy something on this day, you will see more of it," G R Radhakrishnan, MD of GRT Jewellers said.
Jewellers have hence been riding on this for several years now, and are innovating both with purchase schemes or offers and with handing heavy footfalls. This year, the innovations came in the form of quick billing processes. The newest entrant into the city, Kalyan Jewellers, for instance, had bills readily prepared for all denominations of gold coins that people could purchase. "We went for the customary coin purchase at a newly opened jewellery showroom in T Nagar. What surprised us was an assembly line operation. i.e bills of various denomination were already stacked up. And when we went to the counter and said we wanted a one gram coin, they immediately delivered the coin and the bill. Usually, billing takes a long time in jewellery showrooms," Dhivya Krishnan, a Chennai-based finance professional said.
"Most people come a few days in advance and decide what they want to buy, and only make the final billing and purchase on Akshaya Tritiya. So we have put up additional billing counters so they can come, pick their piece up, bill it quickly and leave," Radhakrishnan of GRT said.