With the onset of the wedding season, usually witnessed from December to March, an increasing number of consumers across the country are looking for their furniture essentials online. With COVID necessitating staying indoors coupled with the inherent benefits of shopping online including the availability of a large selection of products and home delivery services, there has been a significant surge in searches of beds, sofas and dining tables to name a few.
Flipkart, India’s homegrown e-commerce marketplace, has witnessed an increase of 1.5x-2x in search of furniture items across verticals during the past few months as against the same period last year. This indicates a growing consumer appetite for purchasing furniture online in the run up to the wedding season. While the searches from metros and tier-I cities have jumped by 1.5x and 1.7x respectively,it is the tier-III cities which are leading the search trends with over 2x jump over last year. While beds and sofas are the most searched items for wedding shopping across cities, there is a growing demand for affordable and multi-functional furniture such as sofa-cum-beds etc., which ensure better utilisation of space.
To meet this growing demand, Flipkart is working with its large pool of over 10,000 onboarded sellers to make various types of furniture available during the upcoming season. The company is providing them with consumer insights on the kinds of furniture being preferred and the price points to meet consumers’ demand.
Nishant Gupta, Senior Director, Furniture and BGMH, Flipkart said, “A large number of consumers are looking to set up their homes during the upcoming wedding season due to which we are witnessing heightened search trends across various furniture verticals such as beds and sofas. While this trend is visible across cities, tier-III cities are witnessing over 2x jump in searches over last year, in continuation of a trend seen post COVID as an increasing number of consumers from smaller cities shop online. We, at Flipkart, have created a special store online to help wedding shoppers get a curated shopping experience and are working with our large number of sellers in making available the widest selection of furniture items ahead of the wedding season”.
This year, Flipkart has expanded its furniture portfolio and has onboarded sellers from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, who specialize in authentic, indigenous designs and materials. With a selection of about 3.5 lakh furniture products by almost 10,000 sellers across the country, coupled with delivery in 100 percent of the serviceable pin codes and installation services at all major pin codes, Flipkart is enabling customers to set up their new homes with great ease and convenience. Flipkart’s affordability constructs like “No Cost EMI” and “Pay Later” are extremely popular, with almost 50 percent of customers choosing these options while paying.
