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Archana Venkat

Chennai March 8 Spiritual jewellery manufacturer Hammer Plus Jewellery is planning an aggressive foray into the eastern Indian market next fiscal (2007-08). The business-to-business (B2B) company plans to tie up with at least 50 retail jewellers in Kolkata and its outskirts to sell its products.

"We are seeing a lot of enquiries from eastern India. Our only retailer in Ranchi caters to this market and has re-ordered our product lines," says Ms Sucheta Khandwala, Managing Director, Hammer Plus, which has a 400-strong retail network across 18 States.

Spiritual jewellery is different from religious jewellery.

It does not merely depict deities in gold or silver, Ms Khandwala told Business Line in a telephone conversation.

"We rely on various scriptures to find associations between elements in nature (metals and stones) and scripture concepts such as meditation and relaxation. A new jewellery line is planned about six months after analysing a concept, its meaning and benefits to a wearer," she says.

Spiritual range

The company's eight spiritual lines include karma range of charm pendants, `Divya Vinayak' range of 12 manifestations of Lord Ganesha, seven pendant collection depicting each day of the week, a line based on Christianity representing the holy cross and the scared Icthus symbol and the recently launched `Divvya Mantra' collection of pendants inscribed with ancient mantras.

Hammer Plus has also made exact replicas of deities at popular religious shrines in India such as the Siddhivinayak deity in Mumbai.

The company is relying on this line of creation to tap the Eastern market.

"We have tied up with a Kali temple in Kolkata to make the exact replica of the deity there. We will begin manufacturing the same shortly," says Ms Khandwala, whose 20,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility at Mumbai houses all resources required for conceptualising, design development, manufacture and management of jewellery.

The company also plans to introduce some of its spiritual jewellery lines to the market. "In the past, we have tried entering this market but found it to be price conscious. West Bengal is dominated by local jewellers and the public was hesitant to pay our price. But now they seem willing to understand how our jewellery is different," she says. Hammer Plus products are priced starting from a few thousand rupees to over Rs 10,000.

The company is also the Indian distribution arm of Hammer & Sohne of Germany and offers complete retail solutions, including packaging, visual merchandising, PR & training.

More Stories on : Retailing | Gems & Jewellery | West Bengal

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