William Penn rewrites growth plan with focus on Chennai, Kovai

With a new look and logo, the brand plans on retaining its leadership status by appealing to the youth with smart pens and corporate accessories. The firm is also making a foray into Coimbatore as part of its South India focus. 

William Penn, a retailer of fine writing instruments and premium stationery is turning 15 this year. As part of this makeover, the company will rearrange and restock its merchandise. While its focus will still be fine writing instruments, about 40 per cent of the products on sale will include business lifestyle accessories, travel accessories and men’s accessories like cuff-links, wallets, belts, bracelets, laptop bags and more. 

Founder and MD Nikhil Ranjan tells us, “We completed 15 years of operations last month and it seemed like a good occasion to train our focus on the younger, modern and discerning customers. We have grown significantly from 2002 when we started off as a destination for writing instruments. The store in Express Avenue is the first store with the new typeface and logo, which marks the beginning of our next phase of growth. We are looking at replicating this model going forward. As of now, we have about 30 stores across nine cities in India. We will be eyeing more cities this year, and Coimbatore is one of them in Tamil Nadu. We will be scaling up this year.” 

The national market for premium writing instruments constitutes about 15 per cent of the overall market for writing instruments which is estimated to be worth about Rs 3,0003, 500 cr. The team behind the store which houses international brands under its umbrella such as Sheaffer, Cross, Lamy, Mont Blanc, Lapis Bard and Waterman believe Chennai as a market is vital for business. Nikhil says, “People in Chennai are very fond of using fountain pens. Of our total writing instrument sales, 25 per cent comes from fountain pen users, which is higher than the national average in the same category. 

The maximum sales across the board takes place in Mumbai. In the organised segment, it would be fair to say that we have the highest share. But it would be hard to put a figure to the unorganised market for premium writing instruments.” 

As part of its focus on Gen Next, Nikhil says, “Through our new look store, we are transcending the domain of writing instruments and concentrating on business lifestyle accessories as well – like desk, travel, gift, personal accessories, like tiepins, cuff links, belts, wallets, leather bags, classy power banks, and such items. Today, youngsters carry more credit cards than cash, so we are banking on the premium card holders segment to drive demand. Also, for the tech-savvy generation, we have introduced a smart pen enabled by an app, which can be used to write on a conventional notebook, and anything one writes on gets reproduced on the phone, ready to be shared or transcribed as needed.”

The team is also keen on strengthening its online presence, which is of course the gateway to the entire product portfolio, including models that are not on display in the store. The company is privately held  and growth has been through internal accruals.