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After surpassing its target of ₹1,000-crore GMV in March, online furniture and home décor marketplace Pepperfry.com is planning a fresh allocation of ₹35 crore over the next 12 months.
The money will go towards adding 10 new experience centres (Studio Pepperfry), taking the total count to 22 Studios by February, and ramping up its 112-strong technology team with a 3,500-sqft technology development centre in Bengaluru, that can accommodate 40 engineers.
On Wednesday, Pepperfry opened its 12th Studio Pepperfry, its second one in Bengaluru and its largest so far, spanning 7,000 sq ft across two floors.
While most online retailers are establishing an offline presence with brick-and-mortar stores, Ashish Shah, founder and COO, Pepperfry, told BusinessLine , that has never been part of the firm’s strategy. “We are a pure-play furniture and home décor marketplace. The Studios are meant to be our customer engagement and consulting zones. Although 70 per cent of our business come from the top seven cities, we are opening new Studios in Ahmedabad, Kochi, Chandigarh and Lucknow to serve new customers.”
He said 99 per cent of the customers go wrong in selecting furniture as they don’t get the dimensions of the space right.
The new technology centre will serve as an innovation hub to provide immersive solutions to make furniture-buying much easier and accurate for customers, he said.
Sanjay Netrabile, Chief Technology Officer, Pepperfry, is scouting for Android and iOS developers to create virtual reality experiences that are a combination of software and new-age hardware devices.
“We want to launch the first solution in three months and are also building a tablet app with a magazine-like feel. Currently, only 15 per cent of our listed products are available in 3D,” said Netrabile.
On the effects of demonetisation, Shah said: “After a temporary sentiment impact that lasted 2-3 days, when cash transactions for our home décor items dipped, we bounced back to normalcy. Only 0.5 per cent of our business is in cash; nearly 14 per cent of our business comes from 3/6/9 month EMI payments. We also launched no-cost EMIs on Monday.”
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