Government support will boost jewellery industry- Awe Olutayo, CEO, Delphi Metals
The jewellery industry can be transformed into a major contributor to the country’s GDP if the government is ready to provide the needed support.
The assertion was made by one of the rising jewellers in Nigeria, Awe Olutayo, CEO of the wave-making Delphi Metals brand.
“Although the government supports businesses one way or the other, we believe more can be done, especially for small and medium enterprises,” he said, noting that government can help by providing grants, enabling a constant power supply and lowering tariffs on the importation of machinery.
Speaking about the unique challenges facing entrepreneurs in the jewellery business, the Delphi Metals CEO drew from his own experience thus: “One major challenge we faced when we started the business was winning the trust of the market. We started as an online jewellery store.
We used to get several calls and enquiries from prospective customers asking for (the location of) our store and as soon as we mentioned that we did not have a physical store, many of them would end the call or stop communication immediately. I guess their fear at the time was attributable to the high number of fraudsters who pose as legitimate online businesses only to defraud people.”
Continuing, he said: “The other challenge was convincing customers that the company could deliver the designs requested, particularly the very complicated ones.
The average Nigerian, at the time, believed that high-quality jewellery could only be sourced from foreign jewellery stores.”
Scaling the hurdle, he averred was made possible by “keeping to our service promise of delivering value and quality.”
According to him: “Now, people believe in our brand, the products we offer and the superiority of our craft, as it matches and even surpasses what they get abroad.”
At the moment, the challenges facing the jewellery business, Awe affirmed, “include among others, epileptic power supply and high tariffs charged on the importation of machinery.”
