Flipkart relaunches furniture category

India's largest ecommerce player Flipkart is further fueling its growth ambition by relaunching the furniture category on Wednesday.

In an interaction with DH, Flipkart Furniture Category head Nandita Sinha said furniture as a category has existed on Flipkart for the last two years and the relaunch is after the learning experience.

“The learning from the pilot were very insightful and helped us shape our category thinking and capabilities to solve some of the inherent issues in the furniture industry,” she said.

She pointed out that furniture vertical is serviced by branded furniture through large format retailers which is less than 10% overall market. “This made quality and service experience of customers very poor. Besides delivery bottlenecks, the segment is also plagued by reliable installation network,” she said.

Nandita said the company has designed a furniture specific tech enabled Ekart Logistics network. “Ekart have built a specialised logistics network for furniture deliveries, which will ensure a damage-free and hassle-free delivery at the customer’s chosen time-slot across 84 cities,” he said.

The company assures an assortment of 600 products across 22 product categories. “We have international and Indian brands like Lazy Boy, Spacewood and Royal Oak. All the products will go through the six quality checks and all sellers go through a rigorous quality checks consisting of 20 steps," she said.

Besides 10 day replacement policy, Flipkart furniture customers can also have brand warranty on furniture up to 5 years. She said the compnay has worked with Jeeves (a Flipkart company) to create a specialised in-house installation network for furniture for these 84 cities.

To attract customers, the company also unveiled its affordable and quality furniture private label Perfect Homes for 1st time home owners.

“This brand is specifically aimed at working professionals and newly married couples setting up their new homes, looking for smart, multi functional furniture that is durable, good quality and yet affordable,” Adarsh Menon, head of private labels on Flipkart said.