Smaller towns to lead the growth of Home category for Flipkart

 New Delhi: Walmart-owned e-commerce company, Flipkart is betting big on the growth of its home category during the upcoming festive season, primarily from the smaller towns, said the executive of the company.

Introduced on the Flipkart platform in 2014, the home category has seen continuous expansion in the last few years with the aim of meeting the Indian consumers demand. The entire portfolio consists of Home Decor, Home Furnishings, Household, and Home Improvement Tools, catering to home requirement.

"The category has continued to see growth since its introduction a few years back and will continue to be robust with a new set of online consumers coming on board especially from Tier 2 & Tier 3 towns," said Nishit Garg, Vice President of Books, General Merchandise and Home at Flipkart.

"Flipkart has continuously worked towards solving for middle India or Bharat and manage the desires of consumers across every part of the country. As a valued player, we look at e-commerce as a solution to penetrate and cater to consumers from Tier 2 and 3 cities. One key driver for growth has been to cater to mid-premium selections without letting the consumers compromise on the looks and aesthetics of their desired products," the executive further said.

The majority of Flipkart’s consumers for home category come from non-metro markets like Jaipur, Chandigarh, Jodhpur, and Indore. The company has even established hubs in Panipat, Jalandhar, and Ludhiana, considering the demand and focusing on serving the local markets better.

The category has witnessed a growth of 6X since January 2017 and has continued to expand the product catalog in the home category.

As the company is gearing up for the festive season ahead, Flipkart will introduce a host of new products on the platform to make the sale season worthy and exciting for the consumers. said Garg.

"Given the affordability and design factors, we have seen good interest in the home furnishing category specifically for products such as bed sheets, pillowcases, and covers. In-home decor, items such as wall clocks and decor lighting are popular buys. Household has utility products such as cooking pans, pressure cookers, and gas stoves. There has also been a growing demand for premium lightings and house improvement tools as DIY continues to interest today’s consumers."

According to the executive, the category has not witnessed a drop in demand owing to the economic slowdown. We believe that e-commerce is an exception to this trend, he said. "The marketplace does more listings at a time when the market is a bit slow. We have taken several initiatives in recent months to make this the best festive season for Indian customers," said Garg.

Going by the opportunity the home category provides, Flipkart has also launched its own private brand called Smart Buy.

The company has recently introduced ‘Hindi’ interface on its platform to tap the next 200 million customers coming online primarily from tier-II, III cities and make them experience e-commerce in a more inclusive and seamless manner. Flipkart plans to launch this capability in few more Indian languages in the coming months to take forward its learnings of bringing more consumers online through native language interface. And to be fully prepared, the e-commerce major has on-boarded 27,000 kiranas across 700 cities to its pan-India supply chain, in order to make it reach out to millions of new consumers during the upcoming festive event, The Big Billion Days.