Rytol, the hand-crafted luxury pen brand by an Indo-British technology joint venture, has opened its first exclusive store in Oberon Mall here on Friday.
Sreenath Vishnu, founder and creator of Rytol, said the decision to start a chain of exclusive stores was inspired by the encouraging success the brand has been receiving at its online store www.rytol.shop despite the challenging market conditions.
“Currently, the new store has an exquisite range of Rytol pens with price tags ranging from ₹6,500 to ₹1.87 lakh. Once the Covid-related restrictions are over, we would be opening such stores in Bengaluru, Chennai and Mumbai and would be expanding nationwide in two year time,” he said.
Hexagon Insights, the company set up by Vishnu for making Rytol pens, has manufacturing units in Jaipur, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kochi, with the one at Hyderabad looks after designing while Mumbai and Jaipur units produce jewellery pens with 18 ct gold for metallic parts and the pen lathe at Kochi shapes barrels and tops.
"At present, we produce three pens a day, from 100 per cent imported materials but create 40 per cent value addition from the unique craftsmanship here," Vishnu said.
The market for luxury pens in India is worth ₹1,500 crore, which is growing at a fast pace as it was worth ₹700 crore only in 2013-14. Considering the potential, Rytol plans to achieve a sales revenue of ₹50 crore by 2024, he added.