"The furniture market is hardly 3% organized": Angad Singg Puri

Avian, a luxury furniture retailer represents repository of International brands for India. In addition to its indoor and outdoor furniture and lifestyle offerings, Avian offers tailor-made projects, crafted according to consumers specific needs, making it the ideal partner in projects for private dwellings as well as luxury contract proposals. Avian recently have provided Franchisee as a form of "Brand Partner" to a company called "Above And Beyond" to 75 stores. Angad Sing Puri shares more details on same.

Tell us about Avian, how did the brand start and how’s the journey so far?

Avian as a group is a 30 year old company where we were earlier in the pharmaceutical business, and we saw a very good opening and a really good opportunity in the booming business of furniture and interiors; We first entered the business in 2010 where we started off with a 15,000 sq feet High street retail space for furniture enthusiasts who looked forward for a different designing in Scandinavian and ultra-modern designs for “Super Premium” range of customers that looked beyond the cliché designs which were flooded in the market.

I would describe Avian as a self-inspired design organization which innovates in par excellence; which inputs zeal of inspiration and enthusiasm which not only strives the company to move forward but helps us discover our new breath line in the field mixed with optimum creation.

We are currently Equipped with imports of 52 different companies from all around the world, and the excellence of the quality of manufacturing in India which results in a creation that remains unparallelly unmatched for a long time.

The journey hasn’t always been uphill for us but a roller-coaster for us that has helped us stay on our toes with our eyes wide open. As a business we have faced a lot of external and internal challenges right from Government sudden “Demon-etization” rules which forced our premium customers to fall back and to a sudden implementation of GST with a 28 Percent slab from the previous 12.5 percent slab radically decreased the customer’s confidence to buy new products which caused radically decreased the current growth of the company, but the company has also seen a lot of sweet successes where we have started giving out our franchisees where we have increased our nation-wide presence.

What is your assessment about luxury furniture market in India.  According to you, what are the factors propelling growth in this segment?

  I believe that the furniture market in India not completely evolved and thus only 3% of the total market is what I would say “Organized”, in that 3% organized market, the luxury segment holds a very minor market of 20-30% hence it is more of a niche market where only a limited clientele is there but with a very good demand and a lot of opportunities.,

Kindly shed light on your retail distribution including online and offline channels . Going forward, what are the plans to scale up the distribution? What was the rationale behind foraying into franchise model, what are the immediate plans to achieve from this strategy?

Our retail distribution is divided into three parts, the first being the most evident which is selling through “Owned and Operated” Store which is located in Delhi in the heart of the furniture market on Sultanpur, MG Road; we are making 85% of our total revenue from our owned and operated stores; this is the store which are owned properly and operated by the company and all first launches and exclusive products are displayed in the store.

The second the distribution method is through our “Franchisee Brand Partner” procedure, where we are active in supplying our products which are selling in our brand name; we are currently active over 5 locations in a “Shop-In-Shop” concept.

The third distribution method and the most emerging concept that we believe is the concept of “Pre-Booking”, this concept is a very technological driven concept where a customer can choose the products from our online catalogue which is supported with high-definition pictures and we help the customer design and change it’s sizes, colours, fabric quality according to their likeness and we portray the same in their bedroom drawings where they can feel the same if displayed In their bedroom; the real catch which causes the customer to buy from it is that we offer higher pre-booking discounts that eliminates the cost to store the product and all the inclusive costs that is carried forward to the customer. This concept is the one we are banking and investing a lot in.

Other than all these distribution methods we also tend to wholesale a lot of products throughout India and helping new players in the market to emerge into this concept.

Kindly shed light on brands which are retailed under the umbrella of Avian? Kindly shed light on your best performing brand and category?

We as a company have established our products into many categories and sub-categories, right from wall solutions to furniture and that to in every category of the furniture; we take pride in providing all round solution to the customers where they have solutions to every aspect of their homes.

We currently equipped with 56 companies from all over the world with an addition of Indian customized manufacturing we are currently serving our customers from every aspect of their homes. To every category, there are at least 5 serving sub-categories in it with an average of 50-80 designs in every sub-category.

Every brand partner that we have introduced in our market has a different detailing aspect and a different selling point that intrigues the customer where every brand partner has a different specialization in every sub-category.

 Kindly highlight your Omni-channel strategy?

Our Omni-channel has one approach to make the product more engaging and more customer friendly and hassle free to anyone who is “experiencing” the product. In the age where a person tends to spend time on their phone/computer it greatly affects their subconscious mind in a very large scale, so our first and foremost goal is to be available and user-friendly in any way the customer sees fit to either view or buy the product.

As shared before, our most emerging concept of “Pre-Selling” is our biggest bank to our increased sale percentage where we are involving technology in every way possible from highly user-friendly online catalogues where we are proud to say that our most of the sales are done through online where customers from all over the country experience the product online and place orders for the same. We are also planning to ease it for the customer by opening our online store or “E-retailing” concept where the customer can place the order online through our portal and the product will be automatically delivered in the promised time frame where the customer can first come and experience the product in our stores.

With our aggressive on-going campaigns and very interactive product details that is displayed on our various social media profiles, we target just not to sell the product online but to attract the customer to our brand value and ethos so that the customer makes the decision on buying the product with a large influence of brand name on it.