Our strategy is to open concept show rooms across major cities in India: Ayesha Khan

Following the Swach Bharat Abhiyan initiated by the Indian Government, the home cleaning industry is all set to witness a whopping 30 per cent growth. As per Ken Research’s India Toiletries and household cleansing market outlook to 2019, the toiletries and household cleaning market is expected to nab a CAGR of approx 17 percent between 2014-2019.

With westernizing lifestyle, Indian consumers are constantly looking for convenient solutions to improve their quality of life. Today a customer doesn’t mind spending a little extra if he get quality and convenience and this is what drive brands to innovate and evolve the ecosystem.

Tapping on this phenomenal opportunity, iRobot, with its intention to revolutionise the way people clean, has come up with its iconic Roomba 980 vacuuming robot in India. Retailer Media caught up with Ayesha Khan, Marketing Manager, Puresight Systems Pvt. Ltd to know more about the brand and how the company plans to disrupt the home cleaning market.

Talk to us about the newly launched next-gen home cleaning technology?
The Roomba 980 is the latest in iRobot’s range of robotic floor cleaners. With intelligent visual navigation, the Adaptive Navigation and Visual Localisation technology, and with the help of the sensors and the built-in camera, it maps and gradually builds up a picture-based map of its environment as it cleans, keeping track of its location until it has cleaned an entire level. It has the ability to run continuously for up to two hours then automatically recharges and resumes cleaning to complete the entire job.

Additionally, the AeroForce technology with Carpet Boost helps it to clean carpets better with an increase of power up to 10X. Dirt doesn’t stand a chance against the Roomba 980, which is smart enough to detect different floor surfaces and optimize its cleaning power based on the type of floor it’s cleaning.

In addition, the Home app enables you to control and schedule the robot from anywhere even when you are not at home.

Who is your target consumer? Could you please share how you have detailed your consumer?
Our target consumers can be everyone who wants/needs to ease his life. Now days when people spend more time at work building their careers and when nuclear families with dual income households when both husband and wife are working, don't really have the time to clean due to their busy life, so the robotic floor cleaner is a helpful and easy cleaning solution for these families. Our products are for all those individuals who seek to ease their domestic work.

How have you planned to retail the product?
Our strategy is to open concept show rooms across major cities in India in order to enable the customer product experience and combine the show rooms with service centers. We believe that a good and trustworthy service is valuable to the Indian costumer so, for us it is strategic asset.

Currently there are two showrooms in Bangalore – one in Phoenix market city mall and second in Queens’s road that also houses the service centre.

To meet the rapid development of the online market, we are also expanding sales through our website. Furthermore the operation is also expanding favorably via Amazon and Flipkart.

What potential do you see in the online format of retailing for a product like yours?
The number of online shoppers is increasing globally, having a presence on E-tailing (online retail sales) thus helping us to reach more customers within India and increase sales.

Most of our customers are tech-friendly having no psychological barriers to purchase our products on line.

Free shipping has a significant impact on E-tailing, since we value and prioritize customer service, we offer free shipping of our products which is a main incentive that make our customers to shop online.

India is surely a price sensitive market. Keeping that in mind, how have you planned your pricing strategy?
Our products are competitively priced based on the technology and the features involved. We have an array of products that range between Rs. 24,900 - and Rs. 69,900, it enables each costumer to purchase a product he can afford, as the range of price fits most budgets.

The provision of EMI scheme encourages purchases and available in our show rooms to facilitate our customers.

When international prices are converted into dollars, the Roomba 980 does not vary significantly in price from USA or Europe, it is perhaps a relief, especially when customer’s pre-booking the Roomba 980 can avail Rs. 5,000 off till September 30th as special offer for Roomba 980.

What potential do you see in tier II and III cities of the country? Do you think the market is ready for a product like this?There is a growing trend with the way households across the country are moving towards the nuclear family setups with both the Husband and Wife working, this new family form encourages also new patterns such as an aid and support with the household chores because of the busy life pattern, therefore robotics vacuum cleaner would be a good product for this market as it will help by saving time which will become a scarce commodity.

Where do you see the industry 3-5 years down the line and how iRobot will play an integral role in disrupting it?
iRobot continuously creates and develops new technology and products which could facilitate ease in daily use and routine for our customers. We believe that with the development of new technology in our products, we could greatly help families and individuals to enhance their quality of life much within their natural environment.