NRJ Creations has a ‘return goods for cash’ policy, as we stand by the quality of our products: Simran Jain

The brand has one store in Dubai, and plans to expand to the US, Qatar, Italy, UK and France, as according to Jain, the competition in Dubai is too intense, and jewellers have to compromise on price points and profits  

Dubai: NRJ Creations is a single-store jewellery business recently started by Simran Jain and her husband in Dubai. Jewellery has been a part of Jain’s life since her childhood, with her father and grandfather being jewellers, and she having worked 25 years in this field, handling her father’s company.

Here are excerpts from a conversation The Retail Jeweller Middle East had with Simran Jain on the USP of her store and challenges of running a new jewellery business in Dubai: 

You have competitors who are targeting the same retail customers as you are. How do you ensure that you offer something different to keep attracting repeat and new customers?

I don’t go down with price points with my clients when the market is at competitive levels and I don’t panic when the market crashes. Diamonds are not to be sold like vegetables. The market keeps fluctuating and crashing almost every five years and a recession happens, as exhibitors keep coming from outside the country for 5-6 days and offer lower prices by selling cheaper stuff. There are no government regulations for them such as checking the identity of customers before selling to them. But we check the customers’ ID; if their ID is not okay, we cannot sell to them. We have a bar on selling, but exhibitors don’t have any such restrictions. They don’t sell pure gold and there is no surety of their claim. Due to mixing, the quality of diamonds also suffers and the exhibitors have cheated people a lot. Exhibitors don’t have many expenses, but we have a whole lot of expenses, including the water we have to buy. Local jewellers are suffering due to outside short-term exhibitors who come and go, and this is a big issue. 

Has ‘tourism shopping’ of jewellery helped your sales in any way? If yes, do you have any plans to capture rising spends by tourists?

Most tourists have a small budget of maybe $500 and it is difficult to run the show based on tourists’ small budgets. The other is that because of the competition, jewellers have to compromise with the price points and profits. If the profits are very minimal, it is very difficult to survive here because everything is becoming expensive. 

Can you talk about some innovative measures to engage customers that you implemented in your business that have had a positive impact on your retail sales?

We have a ‘return goods for cash’ policy which nobody in Dubai is offering; so, whenever you want to bring our products back, we are happy to take them and give back cash, minus 15% of the price, as our goods are genuine. 

Meanwhile, lab-grown diamonds have made natural diamonds lose a lot of lustre. We provide almost the same price points in naturals as lab-grown diamonds, so we had to drop our prices for natural diamonds and with that, there has been a drop in profits and margins. If people keep on buying lab-grown diamonds, they will get no returns on their investment. 

Give us an idea of your expansion plans.

If we expand, we are definitely not doing it in Dubai; as Dubai does not give us any kind of space to grow because of too much competition. A host of jewellers have migrated to the US, UK, and even Qatar. NRJ Creations has one store right now, and we plan to expand towards the US, Qatar, Italy, UK and France. It’s not about less competition in those places, but about the governments there helping you to expand your business and grow.

Written by Anindya Rai Verman

Retail Jeweller World Exclusive