Home ingredients for success

The Indian Home Décor market, which stood at $13 billion in 2010, is expected to touch $20 billion this year, as per retail consultancy firm Technopak.

The shopping trend in this space is witnessing a shift from consumers investing only in furniture to growing interest in home decorative products including trendy lighting, bed linen and other accessories.
The category is becoming more of an impulsive buying like apparels. Arun Sirdeshmukh, founder of Fashionara, says, “Consumers are quite often changing the décor of their houses and buying it for gifting purposes. While it is still largely an urban phenomenon but smaller town consumers are also catching up.”

“This category has higher average ticket size and profit margins at 50-60 per cent compared to others which make it more lucrative for online retailers,” highlights Sirdeshmukh.

Franchising opportunity

This model helps the franchisee to rise in every aspect of business. “Our model attracts no royalty, franchisee fee or renewal fees. However, exclusivity is the central pillar of the franchisee model to ensure focus. Investments into the franchisee ranges from Rs 10 to 13 lakhs,” says George Thomas, Director, Beth Lifestyle.

“With 43 per cent margins on purchase, the ROI is around 45 to 55 per cent and the payback period would be anywhere between 18 to 24 months,” he adds.

What do brands look for while selecting the right partner? Talking about the same, GSS Jagannath, Sales and Marketing Manager - Sealy India, says, “We follow a simple process of selecting our brand partners. Anyone who is interested should have a high street/good location for the store, should have dealt with premium furniture/furnishing/home appliances brand and interest in taking the business to the next level.” He further adds, “We work with the franchise partner to ensure that he grows with us. We give product training to every sales person in the store. We also support with a lot of POS materials to the dealer also with promotional schemes. We believe in cooperative advertisement wherein we share the cost as well.”

The franchisors’ support doesn’t end here. Kumar Varma, Founder, Super Surfaces, shares, “We help the franchisee in monitoring the franchise and b2b interaction session with the selected associates to facilitate the use of product in the market.”