/)

ENTREPRENEUR (/CATEGORY/YS-ENTREPRENEUR)

‘Great people working together can achieve

great things,’ says Pepperfry CEO
Ambareesh Murty
Athira A Nair (/author/athira-nair)     posted on 5th January 2018

Ambareesh Murty, Co-founder and CEO, Pepperfry.

Ambareesh Murty co-founded online home and furniture marketplace Pepperfry with
Ashish Shah in 2012 – a time when buying furniture online was unheard of. He had
ample work experience prior to that – he was the Country Manager of eBay India,
Philippines, and Malaysia, while serving as the Vice Chairman of the Internet and
Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). An MBA graduate from IIM-C, he has also worked
with Cadbury, ICICI Prudential, and Britannia.
 
(/search)
/) But entrepreneurship is a whole new ball game. Backed by investors including
Bertelsmann, Norwest Venture Partners, and Zodius Technology Fund, among others,
Mumbai-based Pepperfry has bagged $159 million in funding (/2016/09/pepperfry-
funding/). With o ine presence along with 50 manufacturers and 10,500 sellers on its
online platforms, six-year-old Pepperfry has become the market leader.

Ambareesh was our rst guest at YourStory’s

Conversations@YS segment this year, on January 3. He
interacted with our readers on entrepreneurship, startup
game, and more.

A notable excerpt: Furniture is not a ‘glamorous’ sector. What made him decide to sell
furniture? Ambareesh coyly responds that he is not a glamorous guy. “I am a
homebody and my best memories are of time spent with a book on the couch at
home. I therefore decided to be in a business that I intrinsically love and Pepperfry
happened,” he adds.

Being the market leader

Pepperfry claims to have over 2,500 orders a day, over 60 percent market share and
an average order value of Rs 18,000. So what is the secret behind becoming the
market leader? Ambareesh’s response: The people at Pepperfry.
/) “Great people working together can achieve great things, and I guess I have been
fortunate that some of the best people I have ever met chose to work with us,” he
says.

A scene from Pepperfry Studio.

/) But nobody becomes a leader without customer loyalty. Which is a bigger factor in
extending brand loyalties of customers in the sector — discounts, or product quality?
Ambareesh believes there is no choice.

“Customers should get great products at great value. Somebody way more
accomplished than me once said that no customer will ever blame you for selling
them something at a low price. (/2017/11/tokopedia-indonesia/)The goal of a
business should be to build core processes and a business model that enables value,
variety and quality rather than dipping into the balance sheet to give discounts,” he
says.

Pepperfry aims to achieve pro tability in the next 12-18 months.

Omnichannel is the way

Pepperfry was the rst furniture marketplace to build its own logistics network rather
than depend on third party players. This has helped them save costs and time.
Ambareesh elaborates on the challenges which the sector faces,

“Large item movements are surface-based and the challenges therefore relate to the
road infrastructure, inter-state border crossings and the sheer dimensional
irregularities that you'd need to cope with. This becomes even more complicated
when the end-recipient is a consumer as opposed to bulk B2B movements.”
/) In fact,
expanding its
services
beyond
metros,
Pepperfry's Big
Box Supply
Chain reaches
customers in
over 500 cities
in India. “As
part of our
plans for 2018,
we are also
looking to
expand our
omnichannel
network to
cities beyond
the metros; we
are already in
12 cities today
and will
expand to
many more
through a mix
of franchisee
and company-owned studios in the years to come,” Ambareesh added.

Ambareesh is a strong supporter of Omnichannel retail. (/2017/02/furniture-startup-

homefuly/)“To my mind, the same customer could be online, o ine, and on mobile.
Therefore, all businesses need to think omnichannel,” he says.

No peer pressures 
/)

Online retail is constantly competing with o ine retail which is more unorganised but
has larger reach. But Ambareesh has a di erent perspective on this. “Today, only
about 10 percent of the furniture and decor market in India is organised, and we
believe that exponential growth for businesses like ours will come from developing
and expanding the market and not just through share gain. As a marketplace, we work
with traditional furniture and home decor businesses to provide tons of choice for our
customers, therefore we do well if they do well.”

Ambareesh is not worried about the impending entry of Swedish furniture giant IKEA
into Indian market (/2017/11/opening-experience-centre-hyderabad-ikea-plans-
india/). When asked about this, he says, “I am future positive. More choices for us
Indian customers will result in greater interest in the furniture category and bene t the
entire ecosystem,” he says.

Also read: How Swedish furniture giant IKEA is empowering women in an Indian
village (/2017/12/women-empowerment-ikeas-code-business-little-village/)

He also looks up to the US-based storage products’ chain Container Store. He claims
he can spend hours strolling down its aisles. “What impresses me most is the degree
of di erentiation and specialisation that company has been able to bring to the way it
operates.” He adds that di erentiation is core to the success of any business, and
higher di erentiation results in a strong customer franchise and better margins.

As part of its unique strategy of di erentiation, Pepperfry also launched rental

services recently. According to Ambareesh, it has been receiving great response from
all the eight cities where they o er this service. He believes that this success is a
result of customers’ evolution. He explains,
/)
“There comes a time when you want your home to re ect
your personality and yourself — furniture and decor chosen
by you helps you achieve that. Our goal is to provide
customers with choices across each life stage and therefore
we not only sell but also rent.”

Ambareesh strongly believes that India will be amongst the largest e-commerce
markets in the world. “This will be driven by access, mobility, and consumption
growth,” he concludes.

Report any Issues (/support/great-people-working-together-can-achieve-great-things-says-pepperfry-ceo-

ambareesh-murty)

Attention student entrepreneurs! Dell presents The Big Idea – a

platform for students to turn their ideas into real businesses. Pitch
your idea for a chance to win a paid internship with YourStory.
Submit your Big Idea here!
(http://www.dellcampassador.com/big-idea.aspx)

Author

Athira A Nair
(/author/athira-nair)
/)
Nothing makes Athira happier than writing stories and being appreciated for it. An ardent lover of
co ee, books, and pen, she believes that intellect is sexy and kindness is sexier. Athira can be
reached at athira.nair@yourstory.com. She tweets as @aiharla

(/author/athira-nair)

Related Topics
ENTREPRENEURSHIP (/TAG/ENTREPRENEURSHIP) ENTREPRENEUR (/TAG/ENTREPRENEUR)

NORWEST VENTURE PARTNERS (/TAG/NORWEST-VENTURE-PARTNERS)

E - COMMERCE (/TAG/E-COMMERCE) IKEA (/TAG/IKEA) ASHISH SHAH (/TAG/ASHISH-SHAH)

PEPPERFRY (/TAG/PEPPERFRY) OMNICHANNEL (/TAG/OMNICHANNEL) RETAIL (/TAG/RETAIL)

STARTUP (/TAG/STARTUP) BERTELSMANN (/TAG/BERTELSMANN)

AMBAREESH MURTY (/TAG/AMBAREESH-MURTY) PEPPERFRY STUDIO (/TAG/PEPPERFRY-STUDIO)

OMNICHANNEL NETWORK (/TAG/OMNICHANNEL-NETWORK)

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