Mumbai Furniture Sellers Scaled as India redecorated Homes during this festive season

 ~Amidst the fast-paced world of online businesses, Flipkart’s Furniture category proved to be a success for sellers across India during the festive season~

As customers across the country look to spruce up their homes, the growing demand for furniture online has opened up immense opportunities for sellers across the country. Flipkart's Big Billion Days enabled lakhs of sellers to make available their widest range of furniture for its millions of customers. Furniture segments including living room, bedroom, kitchen and kids’ furnishing witnessed tremendous uptick, pointing to a tremendous shift in the furniture landscape in the country.

Mumbai has a healthy base of furniture sellers who sell quality furniture items across segments. However, due to the asset heavy nature of the business, sellers have been unable to scale up and have been restricted to their own regions. Flipkart, leveraging its technology-led pan-India supply chain, is offering sourcing, delivery and installation services to sellers and consumers across the country, helping furniture manufacturers expand their customer base and tap national audiences.

Furniture manufacturers such as Furniture Kraft, Torque, Sleepycat and The Sleep Company are among the hundreds of sellers from the state of Maharashtra who have joined hands with Flipkart and are expanding their manufacturing and warehousing capacities, creating new employment opportunities in the process. An inspiring story from the city is that of Sagar Shah, a budding entrepreneur in Mumbai, who started his journey as a mechanical engineer. Coming from a business oriented family, he took the leap of faith and started his entrepreneurial journey in the relatively untapped category of furniture. Sagar started his venture, Torque with a small investment of a few lakhs.

Manufacturer delays and defaults on delivery timelines coupled with other back-end issues posed as roadblocks in his business. Driven to bring about change, Sagar made the courageous decision to switch from trading to manufacturing in the same segment. He wanted to have end-to-end control over costing, quality and delivery of the product.

 

Today, with the support of Flipkart Furniture, he has been able to scale his business across Bangalore, Jaipur and Lucknow. Apart from that, he has over 70-80 employees placed all over the country facilitating his venture.

 

“The festive season sale, especially the Big Billion Days, are a great opportunity for us to serve customers across the country and help them meet their furniture requirements via Flipkart. Since coming onboard as a seller on Flipkart, my business has soared exponentially courtesy of their sector expertise, insights and guidance. Through this journey, we have been able to build Torque upto 9X in revenue. From being a local furniture business in Mumbai, today we are proud to serve audiences from different parts of the country building on our partnership with Flipkart.  When I first began my journey with Flipkart in the month of February 2021, Torque’s monthly turnover was minimal. Starting my own business had its ups and downs, from hurdles in marketing strategies, strategic placement of warehouses and trending designs. I was faced with a multitude of roadblocks. However, with  time and with Flipkart’s reach and consistent guidance, I was able to scale my business to where it is today. It is our endeavour to expand Torque with its employment, product and design features through which we can innovate and bring about a new design each month.”

 

With his inspiring story of making it from scratch, Sagar has set an example for all budding entrepreneurs and aims to be a trailblazer in the category by establishing his own manufacturing facility in Mumbai.

 

“In recent years, customers have shown an inclined interest and awareness towards the importance of quality home furniture. Consequently, this propelled a catalysed growth for furniture businesses, big and small, across the country to address the nuanced and emerging customer needs of the contemporary customer. During this year’s Big Billion Days, Flipkart saw furniture manufacturers in a new light as buying home-goods online took centre stage not only in metros but also in Tier II & Tier III+ cities.” said Santosh Kumar Buddhiraju, Senior Director, Flipkart Furniture.

Flipkart has been one of the preferred choices for furniture sellers, who want to connect with a pan-India consumer base to meet the growing demand of consumers. With over 6,000 sellers catering to the furniture category in Mumbai, Flipkart offers easy access to quality and affordable furniture. By collaborating with local businesses, the company’s work is aligned with the ‘Vocal for Local’ vision and acts as an intermediary and support system between sellers and consumers across the country.