A CASE STUDY ON MARKETING OF THROW-

AWAY BALLPOINT PENS

SUMMARY
The Plastic Production Limited is of the pre-eminent manufacturer of
consumer durable plastic products as well as a number of items of packaging
material which is owned by a promethean technician Mr . Navneebhai Shah. He
designed various products in his field. Last year, he attempted to manufacture
throw-away ballpoint pens.

ANALYSIS
Price is one of the important aspects to be examined while selling a
commodity. It has to be properly worked out for an apt price fixation. After
working out the costs of manufacturing, Mr.Shah decided to fix the factory
price of throw away ballpoint pen to 60 paise and selling price to Re.1. Cost
wise the product will have a higher reach but there are some setbacks in this
case which are listed below:
1. Mr.Shah is lacking out of marketing and advertising strategies.
2. Whether he should make the necessary investment for producing a
few millions of pens per year or not.
3. He did not know as to what would lead to larger acceptance of his
pens by the traders in readiness to stock and sell it.

RECOMMENDATIONS
From the given analysis, each setback can be sorted out by following the
list of methodologies given below.
1. The primary key to solve Mr. Shah’s advertising issues is to identify the
Unique Selling Point (USP) ( https://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-
marketing/5-ways-to-develop-a-unique-selling-proposition/ August 10,2020).
Unique Selling Point is a feature of a particular product/service that make it
stand out compared with the other competitors in the market.
 According to given report, there are such low-cost pens which are
available in the market at the rates varying from Rs.1.50 – Rs.6 but such
pen’s refills has to be changed occasionally. While comparing with
Mr.Shah’s pen, this ordinary ball-point pen would require at least 3 refills
for the same life or amount of writing. On calculating the average price of
the low-cost pens,
 Ordinary pen one time cost = 1 x Rs. 3 (avg)

Refills 3 times = 3 x Rs. 2

Rs. 9.

Shah's pen lasts for 3 refills so an equivalent to the above will be

available at Re. 1 to 1.25.

This is roughly 1/10 th of ordinary pen. This is the USP on his pen.

 So he can promote his product by using this USP and emphasize this
feature using Market Positioning
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positioning_%28marketing%29?
wprov=sfla1 August 10,2020 ). Positioning of a brand or product is a
strategic process that involves marketing the brand or product in a certain
way to create and establish an image or identity within the minds of the
consumers in the target market. So Mr.Shah can set a tagline to his
product which should register in his customer’s minds. He can position it
as "One pen worth 10 others". After that, He can target different markets
using Market Segmentation method
(https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketsegmentation.asp
August 10,2020).
 Market segmentation involves dividing a large homogenous market of
potential customers into clearly identifiable segments. Customers are
divided based on meeting certain criteria or having similar characteristics
that lead to them having the same product needs. Demographic
Segmentation is one among them. The target audience is divided based on
qualities such as, age, gender, occupation, education, income and
nationality.
 In Mr.Shah’s case, the market can be segregated under occupation
categories as follows,
a. School going students – Pens are available in distinguished form
for boys and girls. Attracting tiny-tots is not a rocket science. Girls
prefer pink and red stuff while boys want sporty writing
accessories with blue and darker shades. Mr.Shah can also launch
wide range of pens which includes ‘one-in-four’ pens ,shining pens
etc.,
b. Graduates and Professionals – they can be provided with corporate
and general pens which are long lasting.
2. The next stumbling block in Mr.Shah’s case is whether he should make the
necessary investment for producing a few millions of pens per year or not. This
complication can be solved if Mr.Shah conducts a Break Even Analysis. It tells
you at what level an investment must reach to recover your initial outlay and it
is considered as a margin of safety measure.
 Mr.Shah can compare the total variable and fixed costs with sales revenue
in order to determine the level of sales volume, sales value or production
at which the business makes neither a profit nor a loss (the "break-even
point").
 If the sales revenue of the throw away ballpoint pens is greater than the
break even point, Mr.Shah can experience profit. If the sales revenue is
lesser than the break even point, he will face loss.
3. The way out to larger acceptance of his pens by the traders in readiness to
stock and sell it which is his next complication can be sorted out by doing
SWOT Analysis (https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_05.htm
August 10,2020). It identifies the internal strengths and weaknesses as well as
the external opportunities and threats. In Mr.Shah’s case,
S (Strength) – 1) His Unique Selling Point, that is the price of his
pen is 1/10 th of his competitors. 2) As he is already manufacturing plastic
products, he can reduce the raw material cost for his ballpoint pens.
W (Weakness) – Currently Mr.Shah's pen doesn't have a brand
and market share. He needs to do market positioning and branding afresh. His
company has to carve out a separate unit to cater to the new product which
could increase his operational costs.
O (Opportunity) – By following market segment strategy, Mr.
Shah can reach out various kinds of customers in the market. He also has an
idea to bring down the usage of pencils.
T (Threats) – 1) Already well established and popular brands may
create a competitive product. 2) Established brands may be able to give greater
margins to stockists/distributors thereby decreasing sales of Shah's pen. 3) Other
pens may reduce their price for a short period to thwart Mr.Shah from
establishing his brand.
After undergoing SWOT analysis, Mr.Shah can implement Market Penetration
(https://www.educba.com/market-penetration/ August 10,2020) which is a
measure of how much a product or service is being used by customers
compared to the total estimated market for that product or service. Market
penetration can be done by developing strategies to increase the market share of
a particular product or service. As a part of Market Penetration, Mr.Shah can
conduct social media campaign and start advertising his products to the market.
a. He can use direct sales techniques to sell the pen to school
students and offices. Also, he can offer higher commissions to
shopkeepers or stockists for every carton sold.
b. He can provide offers to customers in various ways to attract
them.
IMPLICATIONS
To implement the above-mentioned recommendations, several factors
have to be included/ changed in his production of throw away ballpoint pens
and they are listed below.
 In order procure the raw material (plastic) to manufacture the barrels of
the ballpoint from plastic production unit, a team/ department has to be
formed.
 They should place the orders to plastic production unit and must give
priority to those orders.
 The Plastic Production unit and the Pen Manufacturing unit should be
separate entities so that the profit for the both the units will also be
separate.
 A separate Procurement Management division and Marketing Division
to supply the products to the distributors has to be maintained.
 An Operations Manager has to be assigned to manage and tune the
processes periodically in every divisions to achieve CMMI/ISO
standard maturity. This will also increase his brand value.
 Automation in areas such as inventory management and supplier
selection etc will reduce the need to employ manual labour and increase
the profit.