Coimbatore: The Dubai gold market, also popularly known as gold souk, is the ultimate destination for jewellery lovers. Ever thought of having similar kind of facility in your locality? If yes, there’s good news. The city is all set to get a gold souk in a few years.
The move comes amid small gold jewellers losing business to big competitors and lack of a customer-friendly shopping experience for jewellery lovers, said B Sabarinath, president, Coimbatore Jewellers Association.
Pointing out that every year around five to six small jewellers from the city go out of business, he said, “Over the past three years, more than 20 small jewellers have gone out of business.”
Sabarinath said the main idea behind the gold souk was to save the livelihoods of small jewellers. “The plan is to bring together 50-100 jewellers from the city. We would need anywhere between Rs 500 crore and Rs 700 crore for building the facility, which may take four years to materialise,” he said. The funds, he added, would be pooled in by individual jewellers on their own or through bank loans.
The plan is allot a 400sqft to each jeweller. “Whether the jeweller is small or big, everyone would get the same shop space to ensure fair play,” Sabarinath said. While the members of Coimbatore Jewellers Association would be given priority, they expressed readiness to accommodate anyone depending on the shop vacancy.
There are around 350 jewellers registered with the association and another 300 non-members. “We are getting inquiries from jewellers from Tirupur, Erode and Salem asking whether they too could set up shop in the souk,” Sabarinat said.
While there are gold souks in Delhi and Kochi, they haven’t tasted success because of the location, he said. “The souks there are far away from the cities. We are trying to get a place at a prime location in the city,” he said and added that they were in the phase of finalising the location.
Jewellers in the city are optimistic that gold souk would help small players. B R Kamalanathan, who owns BMN Jewellery on Big Bazaar Street, said such a facility would increase the business prospects of small jewellers. “In places like Big Bazaar, the main problem customers face is parking. Lack of a proper parking facility dissuades several customers from visiting small shops,” he said and added that the proposed facility would provide a friendly atmosphere for customers to do gold shopping.
However, some were reserved in their comments. “The idea to bring jewellers under one roof is a good one. But only when the facility is up and running we could say whether it is a success or not,” said CBB Sharavanan, who owns New Kruba Jewellers on Big Bazaar Street. He said business for small players like him was dull due to aggressive competition from big players.
“There have been such attempts in the textile sector, but we can’t say all the shops in the mall are successful,” he said and added that only if the rent for shops in the facility is nominal jewellers would benefit from the same.
