BENGALURU : The crowds that thronged the launch of Swedish furniture provider IKEA’s first store in Hyderabad in August this year may not be a one-off craze, but reflective of a trend. Indian customer appetite for premium products is increasing. Competitive furniture and home solutions companies are cashing in on this with new products, attractive schemes and easy credit access. According to TechSci Research report India Furniture Market Forecast and Opportunities 2019, India’s furniture market is poised to cross $32 billion by 2019.
Similar to IKEA, Reliance Brands has tied up with American furniture and kitchenware retail company Williams-Sonoma and plans its first India store in Mumbai by 2020. Reliance will sell Williams-Sonoma brands such Pottery Barn and West Elm both online and offline.
Not to be left behind are Indian players: Mumbai-headquartered Pepperfry, with the launch of Pepperfry Bespoke stores, has entered end-to-end home interior design solutions just a few days ago. These stores — currently present in Mumbai, Gurgaon and Bengaluru — offer interior solutions by experts, 3D visualisation, budget planning and a variety of other options.
Ashish Shah, COO and founder, Pepperfry, says an important factor in entering this space is the increase in Average Order Value (AOV). “The AOV for a furniture product is `20,000, but the AOV for a Bespoke order is `5 lakh,” said Shah, adding, “We plan to expand to other cities as well, with a target of opening 17 Bespoke studios in 10 cities and achieving a business of `350 crore Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) by March 2020.”
IKEA’s Hyderabad store sees about 10,000-15,000 footfalls on a weekday and 20,000-25,000 on a weekend. It plans to open a 5,00,000 square feet store in Bengaluru by 2020, which will be the company’s third store in India. Its second offline store will be opened in Mumbai during the early part of next year. Also in the pipeline are more stores in Gurgaon, Pune and Ahmedabad, among other cities. The company is planning a strategy that will help create 25 customer touchpoints by 2025.
“In India, the important thing for us is to meet customers’ demands. Previously, we used to meet customers only at the store. With the digital platform, we will be able to interact with them for longer,” said Patrik Antoni, deputy county manager, IKEA India, recently.
Impact on existing players
Has the India entry of these big names affected the existing big players in the country? Shah does not think so. “With IKEA coming in, more people are now talking about the furniture space, which is highly unorganised with local players are still in demand. With more companies coming up, the market is getting more and more organised. For example, when the IKEA store opened in Hyderabad, the footfalls in Pepperfry stores in the city increased as well,” Shah said.
To seize the opportunities, e-commerce bigshot Flipkart is also investing heavily in the sector. Godrej Interio has launched its space-saving furniture range ‘Transpose’ to cater to the rising number of small living spaces. It is expecting `100 crore from Transpose next year. Bengaluru-based Urban Ladder has decided to lower the price range of its products, gauging the competition.