10 Age-old Pen Myths – Busted By Linc Pentonic!

The pen market has a wide range of competitors from popular brands to local manufactures. So with the ever-present constraints around price-point, market share and look and feel of pens, the industry has experienced and imbibed certain myths and conformities regarding pen manufacturing, distribution and packaging, which weren’t helping the industry grow, radically or exponentially. That’s when Linc Pens gate-crashed the market with its ground-breaking and innovative product, Pentonic.

Here are the 10 myths that Pentonic Pens have absolutely busted!

Myth 1: “Pens should not be fully black”
#BlackIsUnlucky

"Pens should not be fully black”
They told us to beware of black
That an all-black pen would be a drawback;
But we decided to dare and be plucky
To check for ourselves if black was indeed unlucky;
As it turned out, customer loved its monotone,
Its simplicity and subtlety, they proudly own!

Myth 2: A Pen is incomplete without a metal clip
#MetalIsMust

Through the industry norms prescribed a metal clip
We challenged the form and gave it a slip
Soothsayers forewarned, “Yours sales may dip”
But we believed in our look, design and grip.
The result are there for all to see
RIP the metal clip is but history!

Myth 3: A new pen must come packaged in a sleeve
#PackItInPlastic

With the world up in arms against plastic pollution
Pen makers too have been grappling for a solution,
We said enough is enough and did away with its sleeve
Selling pens straight out of a tumbler, dispensing old beliefs
This move of ours is being lauded by the industry
Save the planet and do away with what’s unnecessary!

Myth 4: Such a pen is meant only for urban markets
#ExclusivelyUrban

It has found a footing from Bangladesh to Haiti
Though initially our parents thought it was too mighty
To be accepted in areas that weren’t urban
That it was a tad too pricey to be suburban
Until we coaxed our teams to try out one carton
Now they only place orders by the dozens!

Myth 5: A new pen product is rooted in imitation
#CopyFromCompetition

The general trend in product innovation
Is to tweak a fast selling pen of the competition
But we felt this practice hurts industry profitability
Compromising its already thin margins and viability
The only brief therefore that we gave our designer..
Our pen should be unique yet emerge a winner!

Myth 6: Customer are price sensitive about pens
#DontTouchThePrice

In times when inflation has hit every pocket
And the price of everyday commodities also skyrocket
Why has the MRP of a pen not changed in years?
Was a question in our minds as much as our peers
We broke the jinx by offering value addition
Only to have customers embrace this transition!

Myth 7: Production capacity must be expanded cautiously
#BetterSafeThanSorry

Riding on the wave of our test launch
We took yet another risk, solely on our hunch.
Instead of waiting for our existing stock to reduce
We jacked up our capacity to produce
Our leap of faith did not go futile
The more we produced, the faster our pile moved!

Myth 8 : Retail sales goes by certain rules
#RulesOfRetail

Our sales team initially went by the book
Treading cautiously, only calculated risks they took
But it was only after shedding some notions
Did the sales really get set into motion?
Triumphant, that day our team was a lesson taught
That it was as important to go by the rule book as it was not!

Myth 9: Each retailer buys as per its size
#FixedAppetites

All retailer were informally categorized
Bracketed into small, medium or a large size
Each category has fixed appetite of purchase
Such was our understanding of the retail maze
How wrong we were, we realized
When each category bought many times over its ordained size!

Myth 10: Do not put your eggs in one basket
#OfferAWideRange

We were always advised to maintain a range
Which is yet another practice we endeavoured to change
Instead of spreading our resources thin
We discontinued products with low margins
Focusing instead on the with most potential
We achieved both glory and exponential growth.