Soaring gold prices push Indian households to sell old jewellery

Record gold prices this month are driving a marked increase in household gold sales across India, according to the Economic Times Luxury desk. Consumers are liquidating old jewellery both to lock in gains on an asset that has appreciated sharply and to offset rising living costs, a dual motive that is reshaping how Indians interact with a metal long treated as a store of family wealth rather than a tradeable asset.

The trend is notable for pulling a previously informal, unregulated trade, selling old gold to local jewellers or pawnbrokers, into the organised retail sector. Major chains including Kalyan Jewellers and Tanishq are expanding formal cash-for-gold services, positioning themselves as trusted intermediaries for recycled gold sourcing. This gives large retailers a new supply channel for gold used in new jewellery manufacturing, while offering consumers better transparency and pricing than informal buyers typically provide.

The shift matters for India's jewellery sector, one of the largest globally by volume, because it signals changing consumer behaviour around gold: increasingly treated as a liquid financial asset to be actively managed rather than a static heirloom. For organised jewellers, formalising cash-for-gold operations offers a way to secure raw material supply and deepen customer relationships at a time of high input costs. What to watch is whether this recycled gold channel becomes a durable structural feature of Indian jewellery retail, or recedes if and when gold prices ease.

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