“You can buy products such as a mobile phone, dress material, fruits, grocery or even shoes online , but for a sanitaryware, bathroom accessories or tile - people still prefer to visit a showroom before taking the call,” observed KE Ranganathan, Managing Director, Roca Bathroom Products Pvt Ltd.

Ranganathan was here to inaugurate “Presencia” - a showroom to display the complete bathroom solution of the group’s leading brands — Roca (the MNC brand) and Parryware — India’s flagship brand.

Speaking on the sidelines of this launch, Ranganathan told BusinessLine that the concept of a showroom for bathroom products has been on the rise, particularly in the last 10 years. Earlier, customers would visit a hardware store to buy the sanitaryware and pipe, or worse still, leave it to the plumber to source the material.

“This outlook is changing and the market is also growing. The market size for sanitaryware is still small in India as only 60 per cent of the houses have toilets. It is growing nevertheless at 10-12 per cent. We have surpassed the industry growth to touch 15 per cent,” he said.

To strengthen its position, the company has introduced newer products and chalked out various initiatives to fuel growth. “Parryware’s sanitaryware products are available in 22 colours, design is exclusive, helps conserve water and above all is hygienic. Our strategy is to continuously add newer range of products every year and penetrate into C category towns,” he said.

The company is looking at expanding its retail format store. “There are five Parryware display studio in the country at present. We want to add 15 such studios over the next three to five years; exclusive brand outlets (EBO) are about a dozen at present. We intend to add five such EBOs every year in collaboration with our partner.

“There are 500 Single Brand Outlets (SBOs) now; we will be adding 30 to 40 SBOs every year and we will be adding 200 Parryware Priority Retail outlets every year to strengthen our network from 300 as on date,” he said.

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