In expectation of its furniture category sales to be the best ever this festival season, Flipkart has doubled the number of furniture sellers on its platform to 10,000 and increased its furniture selection to over 3.5 lakh products to cater to strong customer demand. Flipkart re-launched its furniture category and unveiled its house brand for furniture — Perfect Homes — in 2017.
“Furniture was one of the categories that was paused in the initial phase of the lockdown when we were unsure how the pandemic will play out for the category, especially since its a high ASP (average selling price) category. But, when we started opening up, we were pleasantly surprised with the demand that we saw — WFH (work from home) furniture was the biggest segment that emerged, registering 3X growth and baby/kids furniture grew 4X times compared to pre-Covid-19 times. Thankfully, we had anticipated this. In February/March, while we were looking at the pandemic panning out across the world, we realised people will prefer to work from home and started working with our sellers/suppliers to build out these sub-categories, and therefore, were well prepared to meet customer demand,” said Nishant Gupta, Senior Director, BGMH and Furniture, at Flipkart.
Sofas, beds, mattresses, and dining tables are among the other top sellers on Flipkart, which delivers to 100 per cent of the serviceable pin codes across the country with installation services in over 9,000 major pincodes. This is further complemented by affordable payment options like Flipkart Pay Later, No Cost EMI and Debit card EMI. The e-tailer has also launched its ‘India Ka Furniture Studio’ campaign to assist consumers to access a wide selection of quality furniture at affordable prices.
Flipkart has onboarded 70 micro, small and medium sellers across seven-eight furniture clusters in four states across the country to connect them with customers across the rest of the country ahead of the Big Billion Days. These clusters are spread across Churu (Rajasthan), Saharanpur (UP), Jabalpur and Indore (MP), and Surat (Gujarat), specialising in wood, metal and plastic furniture. As part of the process, Flipkart has established small pick-up hubs across these clusters to connect their sellers to its large supply chain, thereby giving them access to a pan-India consumer base. These sellers will be able to leverage Flipkart’s onboarding support, technical expertise, consumer insights and marketplace constructs for enhanced business growth and continuity.
“We have put in a lot of work amidst Covid-19 over the last six months. The kind of searches and wishlists created by customers are very encouraging signs. This festival season will be the best ever furniture sale for Flipkart,” said Gupta.