Automating Gold & Diamond Jewelry Pricing in Shopify - A Smarter Approach for Indian Retailers

Problem Statement for Gold & Diamond Jewelry Retailers in India

Gold and diamond jewelry retailers in India face a recurring challenge: daily price fluctuations in raw materials like gold, silver, and diamonds. Traditional jewelry businesses usually compute the final price using:

• Gold/Silver rate (22ct, 24ct, etc.)
• Weight in grams
• Wastage %
• Making charges (flat or percentage-based)
• Category-specific discounts (e.g., bangles vs. necklaces)

Shopify by default does not support:

• Fetching real-time gold and silver rates in INR
• Applying complex pricing formulas
• Managing custom discounts and offers per category

This leads to manual work for Indian jewelry retailers and risks inaccurate pricing in a highly competitive online jewelry market.

Existing Third-Party Shopify Tools

Several Shopify apps help automate jewelry pricing, but they come with limitations.

🔎 Comparison of Popular Shopify Apps

Issues:

• High recurring costs ($500–$1,500 per year).
• Most are built for US/EU markets, not India-specific workflows.
• Lack of flexibility in regional business models (like 22ct vs 24ct pricing, GST handling, multiple making charge rules).

Our Smarter Solution (India-Focused)

Instead of relying on expensive third-party apps, we built a lightweight, customizable solution using:

• Google Sheets: as a central interface to manage product data and offers.
• Google Apps Script: automation and integration engine.
• MetalAPI (or GoldAPI.io): to fetch real-time gold/silver prices in INR.
• Shopify Admin GraphQL API: to update prices directly in Shopify.

✅ Hosting & Features

• Hosted entirely on Google Sheets + Apps Script (zero server cost).
• Localized for Indian jewelry retailers — supports 22ct/24ct gold, silver, diamonds.
• Fully customizable pricing formulas — add wastage %, making charges, flat charges.
• Category-based discount rules — e.g., 5% off necklaces, 3% off bangles.
• Automation triggers — daily at 9 AM or manual button click.

Cost savings of >80% compared to commercial Shopify apps.

Implementation Details

Fetching Real-Time Gold/Silver Prices with MetalAPI

function fetchMetalRates() {
  const url = "https://metals-api.com/api/latest?access_key=YOUR_KEY&base=INR&symbols=XAU,XAG";
  const response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url);
  const data = JSON.parse(response.getContentText());

  const goldRate = data.rates.XAU; // Gold price in INR per ounce
  const silverRate = data.rates.XAG; // Silver price in INR per ounce

  return { goldRate, silverRate };
}

(Note: Conversion from ounce → gram can be done: 1 troy ounce = 31.1035 grams)

Shopify GraphQL Integration

  const url = 'https://yourstore.myshopify.com/admin/api/2025-01/graphql.json';
  function updateShopifyProductPrice(productId, newPrice) {
  const payload = {
    query: `mutation productVariantUpdate($input: ProductVariantInput!) {
      productVariantUpdate(input: $input) {
        productVariant { id price }
      }
    }`,
    variables: { input: { id: productId, price: newPrice } }
  };

  const options = {
    method: 'post',
    contentType: 'application/json',
    payload: JSON.stringify(payload),
    headers: { 'X-Shopify-Access-Token': 'YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN' }
  };

  UrlFetchApp.fetch(url, options);
}

Product Data Structure in Google Sheets

| SKU | Category | Metal | Purity | Weight (g) | Wastage % | Making % | Flat Charge | Offer % |

Completely customizable and this acts as the master control panel for your entire jewelry store.

Price Computation with Offers

function calculateFinalPrice(weight, ratePerGram, wastagePct, makingPct, flatCharge, discount) {
  const base = weight * ratePerGram;
  const wastageVal = base * (wastagePct / 100);
  const makingVal = makingPct ? base * (makingPct / 100) : flatCharge;
  const grossPrice = base + wastageVal + makingVal;
  return grossPrice - (grossPrice * (discount / 100));
}

Again completely customizable as per your store stragegy.

Category-Based Offer Rules (Google Sheets)

const offerList = offerData.slice(1).map(row => ({
  category: row[0]?.toLowerCase(),
  metal: row[1]?.toLowerCase(),
  purity: row[2]?.toLowerCase(),
  minWeight: Number(row[3]),
  discount: Number(row[4])
}));

This structure makes it easy to apply rules such as:

• 5% discount for necklaces above 5g, 22ct gold.
• 3% discount for bangles above 3g, 22ct gold.

Conclusion

By replacing costly Shopify jewelry pricing apps with a Google Sheets + MetalAPI + Shopify GraphQL approach, Indian jewelry retailers gain:

• 80% cost savings over 3 years (no monthly app subscriptions).

• Real-time INR-based pricing that updates daily.
• Support for Indian jewelry practices like wastage %, making charges, and 22ct/24ct gold rates.
• Full customization — controlled directly by retailers without vendor lock-in.
• Ease of adoption — retailers and staff can manage everything via Google Sheets.

👉 For Indian jewelers, this solution is cost-effective, flexible, and future-ready, enabling them to compete with both offline and online jewelry businesses while maintaining transparent and accurate pricing.