Pepperfry.com hopes to turn profitable by early 2018 through a combination of increasing efficiency to bring down logistics costs, value-added services and pay-off from its brand building.

Ashish Shah, founder and COO, Pepperfry, the ₹1,000-crore online home furniture and housing interior products retailer, said it does not believe in huge discounts or expensive offline marketing and is a “frugal company with deep pockets”, with $100-million funding from investors raised last year. The company focusses on distribution, convenience and brand building for customer awareness — buyers should come to its website directly rather than through a search engine, he said.

He was interacting with BusinessLine at the launch of Studio Pepperfry — an experiential centre to showcase its furniture range — its first in Chennai, with a second in the pipeline by the end of the month. He said this is the firm’s Studio with a dozen more planned in more cities.

A design firm

The objective of Studio is to not just offer online customers a touch and feel of products, but also to support them in putting together a package for their homes, he said. Pepperfry is increasingly becoming a design company, he said. Also, the rent for a studio in a high-street location is less than that for a large hoarding, he added.

Shah said the Studios do not have a sales team, and products do not sport a price tag. But architects and designers will sit with customers to design the layout of their homes, even create 3D drawings, all for free.

With its own logistics for delivery, Shah says Pepperfry has cut down on damages and returns to less than 1 per cent from a high of 15-20 per cent while using a third-party carrier. It will extend this service to its 150 partner-retailers, he said.

It is also keen on expanding its furniture supplier base which is now concentrated in Rajasthan, apart from imports from Malaysia. It is planning to tap the North East for rattan and cane furniture and South for rosewood furniture.

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