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Melorra is the jewellery brand that's making designer-ware affordable. This is the new thinking in affordable luxury globally.
When we designed around one of the hottest global fashion trends " California Girl" with a nod to the summer beach season this year, we knew metro audiences will find an appeal in this stylish gold jewellery collection which is hippie and happy. We also saw Seeta Rani from Kesinga, Odisha a village with a population of less than 20,000 buy a pendant at Rs. 18,000 ($256) from this collection. We see this behaviour over and over again. We see that all over India from metros to Tier 4 towns and even Rural India.
India is a predominantly middle class country with 80% of households set to become middle class by 2030 from the current 50%. We are also rapidly urbanising. 590 million people would be living in Urban India from the current 340 million. We are also seeing rapid westernisation with international brands growing in India -both in reach and sales. Instagram is leading the vanguard in making everyone everywhere aspire to a better, more fashionable lifestyle.
Yet Indians are some of the most value seeking customers on the planet! They want aspirational brands at accessible price points. Across categories they will demand more and more of such brands as they go about becoming global citizens. Brands like Melorra are well positioned to serve their needs.
In the summer of 2018, we decided to expand our delivery capability to all the pin codes in India. We now can serve 6,50,000 cities, towns, villages and meet the rising aspirations of the youngest population in the world. We took this step because everyday we used to be flooded with enquiries from small towns which we didnt deliver to. We were not sure if these were serious enquiries. Guess what? These consumers were dead serious. As soon as we increased our market coverage with COD facility we have been seeing tremendous growth from small towns. From serving 150 towns by April 2018 in two years of existence, we have grown to serving nearly 1000 towns a year later. In the month of March alone we added 134 towns. Compare that to the fact that the market leader in jewellery is in 155 cities after being around for 22 years. We are seeing the true power of being online.
We are just scratching the surface.
“There are now generations of Indian women whose dressing sense has changed, whose lifestyle has changed, whose needs are different, and jewelry is no longer playing a role in their lives except on their wedding day.”
Buying jewelry is as much about the experience of browsing as it is about the actual purchase. After the last year I’ve spent working with Melorra (coupled with 11 years of marriage) I’m slowly starting to understand this phenomena.
Indian women’s lives have changed. It’s time the jewellery industry changed. With Melorra jewellery women do not have to endure heavy jewellery that they take off at the end of the day with a sigh of relief!
As Apple launches its store online, Ikea opens one of its most ambitious projects in Hyderabad and Muji brings its functional minimalism to India what we’re witnessing is three of the world’s hottest brands pit creativity against the challenges India presents.
More than pure play consumer startups, Lightbox looks to invest in ones that use technology effectively in their business models to transform their industries.
At Lightbox we’ve always tried to use tech to build interesting businesses. Companies that understand what Indian consumers want as well as they understand their household budgets. We ran our annual day at a modern art gallery in Colaba, with our CEOs as well as a few founders from our network to lead the discussion.
Indian consumers have repeatedly demonstrated their comfort with new technology. And that's starting to show at scale in the 120 emerging metros where demand for new and better products and services outpaces supply. Even at the foothills of the Himalayas, people are ready for life online – and open to a new way of doing things.
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