Incredible Stone Sculpture Market of Mamallapuram

It sure was one of the most happening days since I landed up in Chennai.  Since then Mahabalipuram or Mamallapuram(to which I can relate to more closely due to the Mamalla factor J) has been our favorite hangout place. My first visit to Mamallapuram was on the day of my registration with my parents when we visited the famous Shore Temple and the Five Rathas. Five Rathas or pancha pandava rathas ; as is evident from the name had five chariots which were beautiful sculptures carved out of stone and were erected in 7^th century. There were also some enormous stone animals, including a large elephant.This form of art really fascinated me and here I went today to learn more about it(all thanks to the marketing project which gave me a greater push to do soJ). In the Mahabalipuram main market, stone sculpture business is the source of living for many and there are a whooping 300 stone sculpture shops in Mamallapuram alone which tells us a lot about this burgeoning market :-

First, besides beaches and temples, another USP of Mamallapuram is its market for stone carvings and sculptures.

Second,  there is enormous competition among these artifact shop because everyone is making similar sculptures, has similar ways of presentation and the fact that a normal customer is not able to and more importantly , does not differentiate between subtle features that each artisan adds to the figurine . 

Third, on a lighter note, this is one business where you don’t find women sales personnel. This is yet another thing which has fascinated me about Chennai. Here you would find women running most shops and even driving autos and taxis, which I think is a trademark of a progressive community.

So here I was at the Queen’s art and craft shop for the third time since I came here. This shop predominantly had stone carvings of the various Indian Gods/Goddesses carved with perfection. Other products included decoration items like lamps, flower pots, chariots, smoke pipes and female accessories like pendants, bangles etc. Their way of presentation was to keep a smaller version of most Gods for display and stack the bigger ones inside in their godowns; although I learnt that their display items change during the peak months i.e. November, December and January. All the sculptures were made out of either marble or green granite and required a lot of craftsmanship. The shop had a wide range of products ranging from a meager Rs. 30 to a whooping Rs. 400,000. The time they devote to sculpting one product varies anywhere between 1 hour and 6 months. After talking to the sculptors I came to know that these high priced products are primarily targeted for foreign tourists who also happen to be their targeted customer group. I was lucky enough to interact with one German customer who came to this shop while I was still there admiring the beauty of various stone sculptures and wondering how far we have gone from our culture and have stopped admiring our heritage and feeling lucky about it. This lady was a German who was deeply fascinated by Indian art and wanted to buy a Lord Shiva sculpture. While the fellow was dealing with this German lady, the following were my observations about the marketing strategy that these craftsmen use to lure foreign customers:

Multilingualism: Being multilingual helped the shopkeepers accelerate the sale of merchandise to their foreign customers who are the connoisseurs of various art forms of India. The enterprising salesmen at these shops have not only learnt a little English but also French and German as majority of their customers are Europeans and this in a way develops a one-to-one rapport resulting in a sharp increase in sales.

Rich folklore/Indian mythology: These salesmen while selling the carved stone idols of Indian Gods narrate the mythological tales about the Gods to foreign tourists who get deeply fascinated and involved in the rich folklore of India. This gives a boost to the sales.

Another marketing strategy that the sculptors of Mamallapuram have adopted is that the price tags of various artifacts for Indian and foreign customers are different. I realized this when the lady went on to ask the price of a small idol of Ganeshji which I had also asked for. The price he quoted to me was Rs.150 but the price he quoted to this German lady was Rs.300. After the lady had left the shopkeeper told me that he asked for less money and that he would demand Rs.1000 for the same idol during months of December and January which is their hay season to make good profits.

Since the target customers are primarily people from the western side of the globe, these shopkeepers had special packaging provisions since most of this stuff is breakable. They used sturdy wooden cartons for packaging.

Last and also the most amazing thing that I saw next was an Irish man sitting in front of Narsimha arts shop along with the craftsmen. I came to know that this person was learning how to go about making a simple sculpture from the craftsmen and they had charged Rs.500 for one day. So this was another amazing marketing strategy to establish a rapport with the tourists and persuade them to buy stuff from their shops.

This marketing expedition also gave me an opportunity to interact with some foreign tourists passing by, some on rented mopeds which they get at a nominal price of Rs.200 and some on foot. I wanted to know if they would want to take back these stone sculptors as a souvenir. The younger part of the lot did not seem very interested in buying contrary to the middle-aged/older lot who seemed highly fascinated .

All rosy things said, the shopkeeper looked not so happy and said that increasing competition is decreasing his market share and during off season, there are some days when not even a single customer turns up. To this I suggested that he make his presentation of idols more organized and place some really wonderful work outside his shop to lure the customers and convince them to have a look. I also suggested putting some light Carnatic music to seek more attention of the passers-by. With these suggestions I walked out of the shop promising him to bring in more suggestions which will help in improving his sales and also that I will bring in some of his potential customers.

At the end of the day, I felt that I had actually observed and learnt about a real market situation and the rigors of positioning and marketing your product well to optimize sales. I hope to analyze and study my observations and come up with feasible marketing strategy which would enable the shopkeepers to increase sales and capture considerable market share.

Garima Narang

FT13423