{FT13114 - P. ARUN KOUNDINYA } - SOUTHERN ARTS AND CRAFTS

SOUTHERN ARTS & CRAFTS

 Southern Arts and Crafts, the big and swanky arts gallery, situated in front of the Mamallapuram bus stop. As soon as I entered the shop, the shop owner, who was chatting with his friend, looked at me nonchalantly. Why the reason I will explain in one of the following paragraphs.

The shop has three big rooms and filled with aroma. There are lot of small brass sculptures present in the first room. I entered the next room filled with huge stone sculptures. I realized that they are antic sculptures. They are so amazingly beautiful that I reached my pocket to take few snaps. However, the photography is not allowed inside the shop. Lady keeper of the shop told me that the items are truly antic and the prices are to be negotiated with the shop owner. There are also many paintings for which I could flip my eyes for few minutes. The last room consisted of some antic wooden art pieces and handicrafts. They have fixed prices on them ranging from 15000 to so on... The small stone pieces in the last room, which are not antic, are priced starting from 15000.

The working lady told me that most of their customers are very rich people and foreign tourists. There are many Art galleries in Mamallapuram and this shop caters to only the high end customers who value for great artistic sense.

Here is the explanation where I have left a thread in my first paragraph why the owner was nonchalant upon me because he has the knack of differentiating the customers into curious onlookers, potential buyers and ready to buy customers. He didn’t stop us from entering the stop even though we aren’t in a position to buy because he has a slight hope that I might bring a future potential customer to his shop. Also it would not be good to restrict all curious onlookers because we can bring a negative image on the shop.

After spending some time observing his shop, I was able to get some insights. The moment you look at the shop we can see some grandiose collection of rare arts and crafts. The target market segment as said above is the creamy potential customers who have great artistic sense but not for those who keep these valuables for just decorative purposes. A customer whoever buys from this shop feels that he had possessed some valuable and his self esteem will raise.

Will update in next blog with my further observations