“We will be Harnessing The Power of IoT for Inventory Management”

“We will be Harnessing The Power of IoT for Inventory Management”

The organized furniture rental industry has evolved in the last 5 years. The entry of many new players in the industry over the past few years reflects how lucrative this segment has become. CityFurnish is one of the market players in the furniture rental industry that provides high quality furniture with excellent service support. In a recent interaction with DT, Neerav Jain, Founder & CEO of CityFurnish unveils their business plans, challenges they faced in establishing CityFurnish and their future aspirations. Read below the excerpts:

DT: What was the basic idea behind starting CityFurnish?

Mr. Neerav: The idea of CityFurnish came through a series of personal experiences. From lack of budget-friendly furniture options available to below par experience with pop-up rental stores, the experience of using rented furniture during my graduation days at Delhi University followed by a summer stay in Holland incepted the seed. The entire process of procuring furniture for a brief period of time was painful and time consuming. It was a simple observation- People do not prefer investing in cost-heavy possessions such as furniture due to various reasons including frequent mobility, lesser re-sale value of products and so on, when they are moving places for a brief period. That’s when I identified the problem and was able to connect the dots.I decided to bridge this gap by providing a platform where people can rather rent cost-effective, high quality furniture along with appliances and furnishing free of hassles. So, what began as a pain during my college days has finally come to shape with CityFurnish.

DT: What are the latest technology solutions/advancement you are opting to gain momentum in this business?

Mr. Neerav: CityFurnish is an amalgamation of technology and products combined to fulfil customer needs. The significant advantage is our ability to manufacture and design our furniture at our own facility in Jodhpur providing tremendous advantage over our competitors. By controlling our quality and cost of products, our in house technology stack enables us to manage inventory at more than 95% efficiency than our competitor and enables faster collection of payments.We will be further harnessing the power of IoT for inventory management and financial control.We are also planning to launch smart furniture with integrated technology. We are building up our technology to improve product management and financial control. Along with that, we are launching additional modular and space saving furniture in our key markets including Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

DT: Tell us about the major problems that you faced in the inception of CityFurnish.

Mr. Neerav:: There is no success without challenges. For us, the biggest challenge was to develop a tech enabled model to optimize product management and deployment based on minimum unit costing. With limited funds, motivating and hiring is a key challenge for any startup. CityFurnish overcame most of the challenges as a team; with the help of the mentors who guided us to stay focused on the business model and not deviating to every market shift and competitor movement. Being focused and determined has helped us in growing and creating a brand that we are today.

DT: Who are your targeted audience?

Mr. Neerav: At CityFurnish, our service is essentially targeted towards the millennial who do not believe in investing in cost heavy possessions or want any liability by carrying the burden of purchases. With CityFurnish, consumers are not only free to explore from our range of high quality sheesham wood furniture but they can also save a lot of money by renting furniture, consumer appliances and complete furnishing products instead of investing in expensive assets whose value is bound to depreciate over time.

DT: How do you assure excellent service support for your customer?

Mr. Neerav: We control the process of Manufacturing, Storing and Delivery for the customers enabling to provide an unmatched user experience and reducing friction for the customer. Best example for the same is our Delivery period which is less than 72 hours.City Furnish has a revenue model based on subscription and tenure and charge a monthly rent from its users with a minimum lock in period of 3 months. This fee includes Asset Warranty, Free Pickup and Free Delivery along with Free Relocation as well. With our convenient payment mode, the customers pay the booking amount and the subsequent rentals could be paid by cash, cheque or card. Besides, we would be launching India’s first furniture rent and change model with no commitment and 0 Lock In i.e. the customers would be able to change packages as per their need without any extra cost.

DT: How CityFurnish is different from other e-rental players?

Mr. Neerav: The organized furniture rental industry has evolved in the last 5 years. The entry of many new players in the industry over the past few years reflects how lucrative this segment has become. In the times when even the most established brands were still struggling to catch the customer’s attention, what CityFurnish brought to the table was a new way of renting which was far more efficient and customer driven. The furniture is produced using high-quality Sheesham wood to guarantee durability, and is carved with beautiful designs. CityFurnish designs furniture from scratch and with our own fulfilment centre across India we control the entire user experience for the user, providing them utmost quality and superb customer experience.

The major difference between CityFurnish and other industry player is our Full Stack Model where we control the process of Manufacturing, Storing and Delivery for the customers enabling us to provide an unmatched user experience and reducing friction for the customer. City Furnish has a revenue model based on subscription and tenure and charge a monthly rent from its users with a minimum lock in period of 3 months. This fee includes Asset Warranty, Free Pickup and Free Delivery along with Free Relocation as well. The customers pay the booking amount and the subsequent rentals could be paid by cash, cheque or card. There is very convenient payment mode that we have provided to our customers, NACH, being one of the few players in the market to make this available for their user.

DT: What are your future plans to expand your reach across country?

Mr. Neerav: CityFurnish has recently started its operations in Mumbai and is planning to expand to 9 more cities by the end of 2018 and expand our operational areas, taking the total cities to 15. Besides, we would be launching India’s first furniture rent and change model with no commitment and 0 Lock In i.e. the customers would be able to change packages as per their need without any extra cost. We have a plan to launch smart furniture with technological enabled furniture. We will also be harnessing the power of IoT for inventory management and financial control.

Buoyed by the growth in the last two years, we are targeting renting 1 lac asset a month by 2020. We are also targeting an annual GMV of INR 100 Cr by 2020.

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