The Colour Problem Nobody Talks About at Rs 1,50,000 Gold

Picture this. A couple walks into your retailer’s showroom. They have a budget. Not a small one but not a 22KT one either. Not anymore. Not with gold where it is.

The salesperson guides them to the 14KT section. The designs are beautiful. The price is right. Everything should work.

Then the customer picks up the piece, turns it under the light, and pauses. Puts it down. Walks three counters over to the 22KT display. Holds up a chain. Looks at the colour. Comes back. Picks up the 14KT piece again.

“Yeh gold jaisa nahi lag raha.”

That is the moment you lose the sale. Not because of design. Not because of price. Because of colour.

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The Squeeze No one Prepared for

Gold crossed Rs 1,50,000 per 10 grams. A simple chain in 22KT now costs more than many customers’ entire jewellery budget. The industry’s response has been logical: push lower caratage. 14KT, even 9KT. Same designs, lower gold content, more accessible price points.

Makes perfect sense on paper.

But here is what the spreadsheet does not show you: standard lower-caratage alloys produce a pale, washed-out yellow. Almost white-ish. Place a 14KT piece next to 22KT and the difference is not subtle it is startling. Your retailer knows it. More importantly, the customer standing at the counter knows it.

So you end up in a bind. The people who can afford 22KT are fewer every quarter. The people who cannot afford it are rejecting your 14KT because it does not feel like gold to them. Your addressable market is shrinking from both ends.

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What this Actually Costs You

We hear this from manufacturers in Mumbai, Rajkot, Coimbatore different markets, same frustration.

Lost conversions at retail. The customer touched it, compared it, walked away. Your retailer blames the design. But aap jaante ho design toh accha tha, colour ne gadbad ki.

Margin pressure. When lower-caratage jewellery looks inferior, buyers negotiate harder. You cannot command a making charge premium on something that does not look premium. Simple as that.

Export orders walking away. International buyers especially from the Middle East and Southeast Asia specifically order lower caratage with rich yellow colour. If you cannot deliver that, the order goes to a competitor who can. Woh wait nahi karenge.

The irony? You moved to lower caratage to protect your business. But the wrong alloy is costing you the very customers you were trying to reach.

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Solving for the Display Case, not Just the Crucible

This is exactly the gap we kept hearing about from manufacturers. A 14KT piece with the colour depth of 22KT one that passes the display case test.

The industry-accepted 22KT yellow colour master alloy from Legor does precisely this. It is engineered to deliver authentic, rich, deep yellow the kind Indian customers associate with real gold in your 9KT and 14KT castings.

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What Changes in Practice:

22KT Appearance in 14KT Gold Content: Your retailer’s customer picks up the piece, turns it under the light, and it looks like the gold they grew up seeing. No mental comparison needed. Sale stays on track.

Cleaner Castings: The alloy composition is optimised for casting fluidity, which means fewer rejects and less rework. Pehle se better fill, pehle se cleaner surface.

Better Durability: 14KT is inherently harder and more scratch-resistant than 22KT. So your customer gets the gold look with better wearability. That is a genuine value proposition for the retail floor.

Lower Gold Content, Better Margins: The arithmetic is straightforward: 58.5% gold in 14KT versus 91.6% in 22KT. Same visual impact, significantly lower material cost per piece. Your margins improve while the customer’s price comes down.

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What this Depends on

Let us be straight: a better alloy does not fix everything.

If your casting process has temperature control issues, even the best master alloy will give inconsistent colour. If your finishing and polishing steps are rough, the final appearance will suffer regardless. The alloy gives you the raw material advantage but your process has to meet it halfway.

Par agar aapka casting process already solid hai, and you are just battling the colour problem in lower caratage this changes the game. It is the difference between jewellery that sits in the case and jewellery that walks out on someone’s wrist.

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‍The Affordable Luxury Play

Here is the bigger picture. The Indian jewellery market is not shrinking it is repricing. Customers still want gold. They still want that rich yellow. They are just not willing (or able) to pay 22KT prices for it.

The manufacturers who figure out how to give them the 22KT experience at a 14KT price point are the ones who will own this next phase. That is not a colour problem it is a market positioning opportunity. And the right alloy is what makes it possible.

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Seeing the Same Walk-Aways?

If your retailers are telling you the colour is not converting, or your export buyers are asking for deeper yellow in lower caratage this is worth a conversation.

Request the alloy code. Run a small trial batch. Place it next to your current 14KT output and see the difference under showroom lighting. That is all we would ask.

Reach out: help@preciousalloy.com  |  +91 22 6101 4444‍