Furniture etailers to boost profits with free interior designing services

Leading home furnishing marketplaces like Urban Ladder and PepperFry have resorted to giving out free interior designing services to boost their falling profits. Urban Ladder has launched Urban Interiors that assigns its customers with a designer to decorate their home with Urban Ladder’s products.

Urban Ladder is also planning to create a network of designers across the country to aid Urban Interiors. They are also looking at launching an app. Ashish Goel, CEO and co-founder says,

“Urban Interiors is expected to drive an average order value of R600,000 and is projected to contribute 15% to the company’s revenues in FY17.”

Reeling under losses

The company recorded an income of Rs. 19 crores, but a loss of Rs. 58 crores for the year 2014-15. Similarly, PepperFry also recorded an income of Rs. 25.3 crores and a loss of Rs. 88 crores in 2014-15.

The latter is also offering free designing services. Said Sonali Mitra, head of PepperFry Bespoke, said, “We are offering free home design services to customers and are sure this would boost sales going forward.”

Experts approve of this tactic. Anurag Mathur, partner at PriceWaterhouse Cooper feels that this move will pump up average sale. He says,

“This initiative of providing free interior designing to customers will definitely help the companies improve their sales as the average ticket size would go up. If customers are buying one or two furniture now with the interior designing services they may look at purchasing furniture for entire house.”

Perhaps the idea of a free designing might do good in improving the fortunes of home stores.