Linc Pen & Plastics beefs up advertising, distribution and production to push sales through new retail outlets. | |
| If you haven't heard of Linc Pen & Plastics, you soon will. Looking at what aggressive advertising can do to sales (think Parker and Amitabh), the Kolkata based manufacturer and exporter of pens intends to be more visible as it revamps market strategy to put a bad year (with lower profits) behind. |
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| But first, a little more about its visibility plank. It has signed on Rediffusion DY&R , which has already come up with an outdoor and print campaign for one of its new products. The campaign will hit Tv screen by August. |
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| For those who get inspired to buy Linc pens, retail outlets dubbed Just Linc are in the offing which would also stock products from the company's strategic alliance-partners "" Japan's Mitsubishi Pencil, Bensia and Josef Lamy. |
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| About 11 such outlets are planned initially. Meanwhile, the company has already introduced an Office Linc outlet in Kolkata, which caters to a wider range of office-stationery needs. |
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| Linc, of course, is not the only writing instruments company to get into stationery retail. GM Pens, the Chennai-based company which has the licence to sell Reynolds pens in India, has Writesite, while Luxor has recently floated a separate company, Luxor Retail, for the purpose. |
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| For Linc, its stationery retail business is still very small, contributing less than Rs 5 crore to its sales of about Rs 140 crore last year (2005-06) but that would change shortly. |
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| Besides the retail thrust, Linc is also fine-tuning its distribution. It is adding 300 new distributors, mainly in the south and west, where it doesn't have much of a presence. |
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| It is also hiking manufacturing capacity in its two facilities "" at Kolkata and Goa "" to increase production from the 1.2 million pens a day now to 1.5 million. |
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| As for the products, Linc claims to have a 10 per cent share in the sub-Rs 10 category, a segment estimated at about Rs 1,000 crore. In a bid to break-into a higher price (and higher margin) segment, it has just launched Safron, a gel pen priced at Rs 15. |
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| "Income levels are rising and buying behaviour is changing. People these days also do not mind paying Rs 15-Rs 20, and we need to cater to the market in this segment even though it is far smaller at around Rs 200 crore," says managing director Deepak Jalan. He promises a few more innovations in the Rs 20-25 bracket. Can competitors be far behind? |
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