India’s largest online furniture retailer, Mumbai-based Pepperfry is aggressively targeting offline customers with an initiative christened ‘Pepperfry Live’.
On track to hit a ₹1,000 crore run rate by December 31 this year, Pepperfry has partnered with HomeStop, a premium home concept store chain from the Shoppers Stop group, to showcase and sell its furniture in a shop-in-shop format spanning 800 sq ft in 15 HomeStop stores across India.
The initiative, which is an aggressive move by the company to reach customers offline, will now make its furniture physically accessible for customers to buy from HomeStop stores in Ahmedabad and Chennai to begin with, and will soon reach out to HomeStop stores in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad.
“HomeStop is a complete home solutions chain that sells a number of national and international brands such as @Home by Nilkamal, Evok, Corelle, Magppie, Oxo, Bombay Dyeing, Welspun, Phillips, and Portico; just like Pepperfry which is a marketplace offering over 80,000 products from national and international brands.
They recognised that we are a big name in furniture and home décor and offered to partner with us, wherein they will select and hold an inventory of 80-85 of our products and display them in a shop-in-shop format in their stores that typically span 25,000 - 100,000 sq ft,” Ashish Shah, co-founder and COO, Pepperfry, told BusinessLine .
“With this model, we get free shelf space, and are able to reach out to a larger customer base as these stores receive between 600 – 900 footfalls on average every day. Here, customers can experience and buy our products, adding to our overall reach and sales” said Shah.
Experience centres Pepperfry opened its first experience centre, ‘Studio Pepperfry’ in Mumbai last December, followed by one in Bengaluru this May with plans to open another in Gurgaon next month. “Before Diwali we will have 20 Studios spanning 2,500 – 3,000 sq feet each, in 14 cities, where 50-60 pieces of furniture will be displayed. Customers can interact and consult our architects and designers to arrive at what is best for their homes,” said Shah.
Airport pop-up lounges The company has also set up three Airport pop-up lounges in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi, where Pepperfry furniture is on display.
Furniture and home décor is a ₹1,20,000 crore opportunity. Of this, furniture accounts for ₹55,000 crore, and is growing at 10-15 per cent per annum. Online sale of furniture constitutes less than 1 per cent of total furniture sales in the country; however it is growing at 300-400 per cent year-on-year.
Revamped smartphone app Pepperfry’s 3D augmented reality app for iOS and Android, which has already seen 30,000 downloads in its beta mode, will go live tonight.
The app also hosts the Pepperfry Design Gurus community, through which users can initiate discussions by sharing images and queries with Pepperfry’s registered user base and interior design experts.
Sanjay Netrabile, CTO, Pepperfry said, “The app empowers users to shop on the go, and share their shopping list with friends and family on Twitter, Facebook, and Whatsapp, directly from the product display page.”