Kolkata strikes gold on Akshay Tritiya

KOLKATA: Friday turned out to be a gold shopping festival. Long queues outside jewellery shops, attractive gifts on every purchase and discounts increased the sales pitch so much that even jewellers were surprised. Banks and post offices joined in by offering attractive rates on gold coins.
In Bengal, Akshay Tritiya or the third lunar day of shukla paksha in the month of Baishakh, has always been special from business point of view.Starting of new ventures or a new accounting year (haal khata) on this day was considered to be auspicious. However, buying gold or metal was never part of the popular tradition in the East as it always has been in the West and South.
But over the past six to seven years, the influence has spread to Bengal, with a large number of people make it a point to buy jewellery on this day. That gold price has long crossed the Rs 20,000 mark is not a deterrent.
"We wanted mass participation in the gold festival and, hence, concentrated on light-weight designs. We have designed a large number of gold items using semi-precious metals and stones. They look expensive but are not so," said an official at Anjali Jewellers.
Most jewellers in the city ran schemes for the day, giving anything between 20 and 100% discounts on making charges. There were yet others who gave a certain amount of gold free. Even banks and post offices followed that rule. "For every 10 grams bought, we have given half a gram free. The scheme was especially for Akshaya Tritiya and it has worked wonders," said V Mathur, director, GPO.
Homemaker Anasuya Banerjee bought a kaanpasha weighing 15 grams. "My wedding anniversary has just passed and my husband wanted to gift me gold this time. We decided to wait for Akshaya Tritiya," she said.
There were some jewellers who made their schemes attractive by giving away air-conditioners, laptops, air tickets or even holiday bookings. "This is an age of multibrand tie-ups. Earlier, lucky draws would be organised by jewellers and this would entice customers. But those days are gone. In order to convert footfall to actual sales, one has to give every customer something extra," explained Pankaj Parekh, head of Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council. PC Chandra, Senco Gold and MP Jewellers said the average customer preferred to buy at least 10 g of gold.
"Though light weight jewellery is the order of the day, Kolkata has a large number of conservative buyers for whom buying gold is an investment and buying anything below 10 grams is still not considered good investment here from the re-sale point of view," explained an official of PC Chandra Jewellers.