Section 37
How Fevicol won by selling to carpenters first
How do you get tradespeople to switch from a product they have used for generations?
- case
- Success
- years
- 1959-2004
- 75,000+
- Dealers in the network · 2026
- 1,20,000+
- Contractors in the network · 2026
- 01
The situation
In the 1950s Indian carpenters used animal glue that had to be heated before use. In 1959 Balvant Parekh and his brother Sushil, who had begun in 1954 making pigment emulsions for textile printing, developed a synthetic substitute and named it Fevicol.
- 02
The decision
Instead of selling through retail stores, as was normal then, the company promoted Fevicol directly to carpenters, the people who actually chose the glue. It opened its first factory in Kondivita, Mumbai, in 1963, and in 1970 launched pack sizes for contractors and a 30-gram tube for consumers.
- 03
The outcome
Fevicol became the name Indians use for white glue. Its first TV advertisement came only in 1997, decades after the carpenter network was built, and in 2004 it added Fevicol Marine, a waterproof variant. The company's website lists a network of more than 75,000 dealers and more than 1,20,000 contractors.