The Jewelry Man Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, founder and CEO of BlueStone believes that jewelry has moved beyond being a weight-and-material-marker
By S Shanthi
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Seeing the early digital revolution across categories like electronics, consumer durables and fashion, Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, founder and CEO, BlueStone understood what the jewelry space stood to gain. As a category, jewelry had remained traditional and involved a formal, offline store with painfully limited choices. "That is why, tapping into growing consumer trust in technology during the aughts (2000-2010), we started as a purely online brand. Based on extremely sharp insights from our proprietary systems, we have expanded on choice and channels over the past decade," says Kushwaha.
He believes that jewelry has moved beyond being a weight-and-material-marker to being a marker of individuality and style, thus taking precious pieces beyond investment value. "Our consumers; young, cosmopolitan couples; seek jewelry with a sense of modern wearability. Today, they can pick from nearly 10,000 designs across multiple seamless channels where customers' carts, wishlists, and wallets travel with them," he says.
The jewelry startup is able to achieve customer delight by taking an informed business decision using proprietary tech that leverages data. An integrated system within the company flows across merchandising, manufacturing, operations, in-store operations, logistics, and more, allowing the brand to iterate and streamline effectively. "We have always wanted to create a niche within retail tech. As a part of that, we have built a category-disrupting tech stack from scratch. It seamlessly flows from design to delivery, resulting in a dramatically elevated omnichannel experience for consumers. That said, we rely on platforms like Zoho for analytics and tracking," says Kushwaha.
BlueStone's first store was launched in 2018. Since then, it has scaled to 150+ stores across the country. While the size of opportunities within the jewelry industry is tremendous, there are some challenges too. "At BlueStone, a bulk of the challenges concerning retention and acquisition lie ahead of us. Answering these challenges will lead us, and other similar-stage brands, to the next phase of hypergrowth," says the founder.
He also shares with us that the startup is working towards keeping a consistent pace of offline expansion nationally while simultaneously eyeing international waters.
FACT SHEET
- Online platform resulting in maximum revenue: Own website
- Turnover for FY 2022-23: N/A
- Year of Inception: 2011
- Team Size: 1000+
- Customer Repeat ratio: 50%
- Amount of external funding raised: INR 556 crore
