Montblanc, A Partner For Its Retailers

""Faced with the sorry state of affairs, the brand's strategy was to lend a helping hand to its retailers. Its aims were to create a more effective working relationship with existing retailers, develop partnerships and provide the necessary support for their development. At the present time, it is not enough just to be a supplier. We also need to take a vested interest in our retailers' sales. We wanted to understand their concerns and help them to sell. For example, we organised launch events at our customers' sites. The climate of trust was created in no time at all. The exchange established between our analytical spirit and their customer-related knowledge has been highly rewarding and has enabled us to inject greater drive into the writing instruments market by capitalising on the strengths on both sides. We are the only ones in the French market for luxury writing instruments to have a sizeable network of internal stores generating 30% of our sales, with 11 exclusively owned stores and 4 franchised stores. This experience as a retailer has allowed us to examine the means for improving the situation, and has obviously been of benefit to other retailers.""