As large online marketplaces bulked up on temporary workers this festival season, India’s direct-to-consumer (D2C) jewellery brands took a leaner route by automating their supply chains to meet demand with fewer hands.
From Giva cutting manual logistics workload by 80 percent to Titan-owned CaratLane launching same-day delivery pilots, the festive playbook for premium retail is changing fast, industry experts said.
Giva recently partnered with logistics automation firm ClickPost to streamline its supply-chain operations. Its manual logistics workload has been reduced by up to 80 percent, the company said.
At the same time, it has continued to expand its offline network and plans to reach 350 stores by March.
Jewellery in the fast lane
CaratLane has launched a “quick-commerce” pilot to deliver jewellery within four to six hours in select cities such as Gurugram, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
The initiative indicates backend investments in automation and fulfilment.
The company has also adopted a low-code/no-code platform for backend operations, with about 40 percent of its warehousing, returns, repairs and supply-chain processes now digitised on this system.
“What we’re seeing is an early-stage operational shift in how premium D2C brands think about scale,” a senior research analyst at Kotak Securities said on condition of anonymity.
Large marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart still need people intensity during festive peaks because of sheer order volumes and category diversity. “But for jewellery or high-value retail, automation brings more control and consistency per transaction. Once the backend is digitised, incremental scale doesn’t require proportional manpower. That’s where the next phase of retail efficiency in India will likely come from,” the analyst said.
Giva’s collaboration with ClickPost introduced a unified platform that manages shipments across business-to-business, business-to-consumer, quick-commerce and store-replenishment channels.
Tasks that required two to three hours a day dropped to under 30 minutes, ClickPost said in a statement last week, citing its case study.
The study said Giva “centralised B2B, B2C and quick commerce shipments … cuts daily operations time by 75–85 percent”.
This operational shift marks the early signs of a broader trend — high-value retail, including jewellery and luxury, is beginning to move from labour-heavy fulfilment to process-driven models.
In its FY25 annual report, BlueStone said it benefitted from improved coordination between its online and in-store operations. Its inventory management had become more efficient with the use of just-in-time manufacturing and data to predict customer demand.
AI-led design recommendation and data analytics reduced acquisition costs, it said.
Automation is the way forward
Jewellery retail has been slower than other segments to adopt logistics automation because of high value of goods, insurance requirements and the trust-based nature of transactions. But as the market scales, operational efficiency is becoming a key differentiator.
According to a recent FICCI-Deloitte report, 73 percent of consumers now begin their product-discovery journey online even for tactile categories like jewellery, while 53 percent still depend on offline stores to complete purchases. The Indian jewellery market, pegged at $91 billion in 2025, is expected to reach $146 billion by 2030.
As this growth accelerates, brands are under pressure to modernise logistics and fulfilment models so they can scale without adding proportional manpower.
Audio-wearable brand boAt announced in September that it “scaled its supply chain with eShipz’s logistics automation platform, driving faster deliveries, better visibility and improved customer service”.
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