Episode 74: Mithun Sacheti
The Jewelry District
JCK
4.9 • 50 Ratings
🗓️ 19 July 2022
⏱️ 27 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In This Episode
You’ll hear JCK editor-in-chief Victoria Gomelsky and news director Rob Bates talk with Mithun Sacheti, CEO of CaratLane.
Show Notes
00:30 Victoria and Rob introduce their guest Mithun Sacheti, CEO of CaratLane.
07:17 Mithun compares CaratLane to Blue Nile.
10:15 Victoria asks about his early business.
14:42 Mithun describes his most recent experience at the JCK show.
16:09 Mithun talks about Tanishq purchasing majority share of CaratLane.
21:00 Rob asks about CaratLane’s brick-and-mortar stores.
Episode Credits
Hosts:Â Rob Bates and Victoria Gomelsky
Producer and engineer:Â Natalie Chomet
Plugs: jckonline.com, @jckmagazine, CaratLane.com
Show Recap
Introducing Mithun Sacheti
Mithun Sacheti is the CEO of CaratLane, which is often described as the Indian version of Blue Nile. He spoke to JCK from the southeastern coast of India. His mother and father were in the jewelry business, and Mithun describes it as a “generational business,” which is how he got into it himself. Mithun studied at GIA and worked briefly in San Diego. When he returned to India, he opened his own jewelry store.
Blue Nile Inspiration
Mithun compares the Indian jewelry business model to the business in the United States. Mithun says he learned from Blue Nile that you have to find the easiest place to enter the industry. In India, while diamonds are fine to sell, its real strong point is selling jewelry as opposed to loose diamonds and engagement rings. In the early days, Mithun describes a hostility similar to what Blue Nile faced in its early days.
Building the Business
Victoria asks how Mithun coaxed people to buy originally, and he said initially consumers were resistant. CaratLane built a try-at-home model in an attempt to get people to buy their diamonds, which ended up being successful. Mithun doesn’t think this model would necessarily work in America.
The JCK Show
Mithun was just at the most recent JCK show—the first one he attended was back in 1998. Victoria asks for his take on this year’s JCK show, and Mithun said it was all about making connections.
Tanishq
In 2016, Tanishq purchased a majority share in CaratLane. Tanishq is the largest jewelry company in India and has been around for 25 years now, with a market capitalization close to $1 billion. Mithun says Tanishq has been a great partner, and CaratLane has been able to grow on a much faster scale thanks to its involvement. Victoria asked what other kinds of things CaratLane has tried as a company, and Mithun describes a virtual try-on, different from augmented reality, that didn’t pan out. One thing that worked very well was building an omnichannel network.
Brick-and-Mortar
Rob asks why CaratLane believed it needed a brick-and-mortar store when it was successful online. Mithun believes there is a need for tactile jewelry shopping, even though consumers find jewelry online.
(Photo courtesy of Mithun Sacheti)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Jewelry District, a podcast by J.C.K. |
| 0:14.0 | Today, Rob Bates and Victoria Gamalski talk with Mictun Saccetti, CEO of Carrot Lane. |
| 0:32.6 | Thank you. with MĂ©toun Saucetti, CEO of Carrot Lane. Hey everyone, welcome to the jewelry district. This is Victoria Gimelski, editor-in-chief of JCP and JCP Online.com, calling in from Los Angeles. I'm with. Rob Bates, news director of J-C-K and J-C-K Online, falling in from New York City. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I feel like we're in the thick of the summer. It's nice and hot. There's not that much going on. Yeah, yeah. And speaking of hot, we have a gentleman, I'm sure it's much hotter over there. We have a gentleman waiting in the wings, so to speak. Yes, I know. I always feel bad when I talk about being hot in L.A. I never really think about the rest of the country or in fact the rest of the world where, of course, humidity much greater role than it does here in L.A. Without beating too much further around the bush, I'll introduce |
| 1:15.6 | our guest. Mithun Satchetti, he is CEO of Carrot Lane, which has often been described as |
| 1:21.7 | India's version of Blue Nile. He's calling in from Chennai, which is on the southeastern coast of India, I believe. |
| 1:30.0 | It is. |
| 1:30.4 | You can correct me. |
| 1:31.5 | Is it the Andaman Sea or? |
| 1:33.4 | It's the Bay of Bengal. |
| 1:34.6 | The Bay of Bengal. |
| 1:35.9 | Okay. |
| 1:36.3 | How hot is it over there? |
| 1:37.8 | It's about 30 degrees Celsius, but it's raining a lot. |
| 1:41.8 | So it's nice to be here right now because it, you know, we have only three sort of seasons. It's either hot or it's hotter or it's hottest. You're nothing other than that. Which of the three is this? Is this sort of this? This is sort of hotter. Correct. You're in the middle. We're in the middle. Right. And Matun is our first guest, I believe, from India that we've had. And while we're in the middle of the day, it's actually night for him. So we appreciate you doing this. Yeah, it's a like a full day's difference, a 12 hour, 12 or maybe even a 12 and a half hour time difference. So thank you, Matun, for staying up. I feel like whenever I do speak to someone from India, |
| 2:51.1 | it's always them staying up late, which is very kind, actually, because I'm not, I don't function quite as well at 10 p.m. at 10 a.m. So no problem at all. The good part is culturally, we tend to stay up late. So I think it works better that way that we're speaking late India time rather than 6 a.m. India time. And you'd be happy to do a 6 a.m. call from there. But I can tell you that most people in India would struggle to do that. Okay. Well, good. Then this works out perfectly. Well, so before we get into Carrot Lane and how you founded it and sort of what it is today, We always start off with a very basic question, |
| 2:56.3 | which is how did you get into the industry? You know, it's a generational, sort of an introduction by generations to the industry. So mom and dad are into this. They run a mom and pop store. |
| 3:01.9 | That's the business they had. Grand uncles, etc. were also in the business. So had a lot of |
| 3:06.6 | visibility into this business from a very young age and very different also in the business. So I had a lot of visibility into this business |
| 3:08.0 | from a very young age and very different part of the business because they're an extreme high-end |
| 3:13.4 | but love the manufacturing side of the business they were in. So always enjoyed that. And where did you |
| 3:18.5 | grew up? What city? I grew up in Bombay. And are they still, are they still in it? Are they still |
| 3:22.5 | doing high-end? Yes. Still doing high-end, still successful. Still embarrass me all the time. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from JCK, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of JCK and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.