Honing your hobbies

For over 50 years, Pidilite Industries has been serving the nation with its diverse array of products including adhesives and sealants, construction and paint chemicals, automotive chemicals, industrial adhesives, textile resins and organic pigments. A few years back, Pidilite Industries had taken a new initiative with Hobby Ideas, India’s first craft and hobby store, offering a miscellaneous and inclusive range of merchandise from more than 20 countries.

Customer & product profiles

Hobby Ideas’s basic mantra is to enhance and help in developing the creative talents of its target customers like housewives, kids, young adults and amateur hobbyists across all the age groups. Its products are for those enthusiasts who take pleasure in structuring pieces with their own hands. It presents hobby workshops that are conducted by experts from India and abroad.

Hobby Ideas, being headed by President Mr Dhaval Nanavati, offers numerous services and products. It houses over 2,500 kinds of trendy merchandise such as home craft (candle making, soap making, gilding), fabric craft (fabric painting, silk making), glass craft, moulding craft (pottery), kids craft (painting kits), boys craft, floral craft, paper craft, calligraphy, magic sets, glass craft, scrapbooking, découpage, bead craft, books craft, games, fine art, craft accessories, birthday party products, etc. There are lots of mechanical toy kits specially for making aeroplanes, racing cars, bulldozers, dinosaurs, etc. Roughly 50 per cent of the merchandise is prepared from domestic raw materials and is usually priced above Rs 150. The remaining is imported from other countries. The educational toy kits here educate kids about solar energy, power or the solar system, in an entertaining way. Hobby Ideas also has a good collection of affordable magic sets. There are also clay modelling sets, calligraphy sets, DIY decoupage (a design technique where paper cut-outs are pasted onto a surface), sun catcher kits, origami sets and so on. In fact, parents can plan birthday parties for their kids and even hire magicians and artists from Hobby Ideas to instill more fun. Hobby Ideas runs Creative Club (for above 15 years) and Kid’s Club (below 15 years) which not only inspire, but also recognise the artworks of the patrons. New hobby categories with exciting products supported by the display of finished products, live demonstrations, teaching videos, interactive kiosks and creative idea sheets are some of the unique offerings at the store. Hobby Ideas’ parent company, Pidilite, already has exclusive tie-ups with a German clay manufacturer, Eberhard Faber, and a Korean accessories manufacturer, Amos, from where it sources the products.

The innovative stores have also brought out novel marketing strategies, one such being a tie-up with electronic channel Colors for Big Boss, where residents crafted products provided by Hobby Ideas.

Store facts

Hobby Ideas stores are located in shopping plazas, high-streets and malls and have an inherent quality of triggering impulse purchase. Hobby Ideas has three stores in Ahmedabad, two in Mumbai and one each in Bengaluru, Pune and Surat. The stores are usually spread over an area ranging 5,000-6,000 sq.ft and are all company-owned. The stores look gorgeous with the summation of varied merchandise kept on wooden shelves, under strong fluorescent light. Presently, the company is trying to expand its presence in Delhi and other metros.