Penning a Success Story for LAMY in South Korea

DKSH was honored with the esteemed Best Distributor of the Year 2023 award in South Korea from LAMY, a testament to our successful collaborative initiatives.

LAMY is a high-quality designer writing instruments brand founded in 1930 in Germany. Today this company from Heidelberg produces more than eight million exclusive writing instruments and distributes them to more than 80 markets with over 15,600 point-of-sales all over the world. DKSH is the sole and exclusive distributor of LAMY in South Korea.

Challenge

We contributed to the growth of LAMY’s products by expanding its market reach, boosting sales, enhancing retail presence, and ensuring broad distribution across various channels such as retail, wholesale, online, and B2B. However, there was a need for the brand to transcend the stationery category and capture a larger share of the expanding lifestyle brands market.

Given that LAMY was catering to a smaller but loyal customer base with a strong tendency to purchase, the brand's growth was likely fueled by sophisticated marketing strategies, particularly through collaborations with other brands to increase market penetration.

Approach

In 2023, we strategically collaborated with Starbucks to revitalize LAMY's presence in the lifestyle product category, aligning with our shared target consumer group in South Korea.

Each winter, Starbucks in South Korea launches a seasonal promotion, offering limited-edition merchandise as a reward to customers who complete their reward program by purchasing 17 drinks in approximately 1,800 stores in the market.

Throughout the year, we worked diligently to bring together these two brands, collaborating on developing new limited writing products. Ultimately, we successfully delivered exclusive pieces of LAMY Safari ballpoint pens to Starbucks by carefully aligning and coordinating the demands and feasibility of both companies.

Result

LAMY achieved a new record year in the market. The collaboration with Starbucks accounted for 22% of the total net sales.

The partnership between LAMY and Starbucks leveraged the strengths of both companies, resulting in extraordinary customer experiences. It was mutually beneficial, as Starbucks gained brand credibility among its customers, while the client increased awareness through its presence in Starbucks stores.

This collaboration is expected to drive incremental sales of refills, as evidenced by a previous over 50% increase in annual unit sales following the initial collaboration in 2019. Moreover, it has the potential to establish new distribution channels and expand market share by increasing brand reach. Additionally, it signals to consumers that the brand can be trusted, potentially leading to more opportunities for B2B partnerships and collaborations with other brands.

As a result of these achievements, we were honored with the 2023 Best Distributor of the Year Award from LAMY.

Thanks to our partnership with Starbucks, LAMY has just closed the biggest deal in our company’s history. This success wouldn't have been possible without the incredible efforts of the team at DKSH Korea. We are immensely grateful for their dedication and hard work in making this project successful.

Steffen Rübke, CEO, C. Josef Lamy