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Deep-rooted beliefs are a tough nut to crack. And when it comes to buying jewellery, especially in India, consumers have always preferred touch and feel, prior to committing to a purchase.
For CaratLane, one of India’s largest online jewellery retailer of diamonds and gemstone jewellery, solitaires and gold coins, this posed a challenge.
“However big your jewellery store is, you still have only one door to enter, but online there are multiple doors to enter from. Earlier, people could not gauge the size of the jewellery, that they wanted to buy online. They were concerned about the size, wanted to know if it was perfect for them and wanted to get comments/suggestions from family or friends before buying,” says Mithun Sacheti, Co-founder and CEO of CaratLane.
To address these concerns, CaratLane came up with an app for customers with the ability to try and buy jewellery designs “virtually’, aided with an innovative 3D mirror The company wanted its customers to discover the perfect piece of jewellery that was right for them, and decided to embrace technology’s potential with enthusiasm.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, an interactive experience for them all
To address the customers’ problem of not being able to see how a product looks on them while shopping online, CaratLane introduced the world’s first virtual 3D jewellery Try-on app. The app uses facial recognition and 3D imaging technologies to provide a life-like immersive try-on experience for customers to discover a range of jewellery designs, try on earrings and buy jewellery. Once the app is downloaded, a user’s laptop or mobile turns into a handy mirror and shows you how those earrings look when worn, from all sides.
“The app or the perfect look mirror lets you virtually try on a piece of jewellery, and be confident of buying it. The unique feature of this product is the art of superimposing and giving a realistic view of how the earring will look on a customers’ ear lobe. They will not be able to get this experience even on a real mirror,” says Gurukeerthi G., Co-founder, CaratLane.
While trying a piece of jewellery, customers can have a 180 degree view of themselves. They can swipe their ‘virtual’ face to look at themselves, from various angles to see if the selected jewellery suits them or not, and whether they should make a purchase.
“So, we have not only taken the true experience of trying jewellery on to the virtual world but made it significantly better. Customers don’t have to actually wear and remove a hundred earrings. They can now try on a thousand earrings without actually having to go through the tedium of wearing and removing each piece, and they get to see it perfectly well on their own face,” says Sacheti.
According to Avnish Anand, Co-founder, CaratLane, ”There has been an almost 20 percent increase in the earring business online because of this app, and a higher percentage in stores. However, we are not limiting ourselves to a certain kind of jewellery. We want to be the destination of choice to buy online jewellery in this country eventually. We want to offer all of it and our business model allows us to do that and that’s what we are going to do.”
