MUMBAI, Jan 8: Pepperfry, the largest online furniture and home product marketplace, has set a target of achieving breakeven over the next three years when the five- year-old startup expects a GMV of around Rs 3,500 crore.
The city-based marketplace, which has so far raised USD 160 million from a clutch of global investors like Goldman Sachs, Norwest Venture Partners, Bertelsmann India Investments and Zodius Technology Fund, will be looking for more funds again over the next six months for expansion.
“Having already achieved our December 2016 GMV (gross merchandise value) of Rs 1,000 crore as early as October, we are hopeful of reaching the Rs 3,500 crore-GMV milestone over the next three years and also turn profitable,” Pepperfry co- founder and chief executive Ambareesh Murthy told PTI.
Set up in January 2012, Pepperfry had Rs 700 crore GMV in 2015 and expects to grow at much faster clip going forward.
The city-based startup’s co-founder and chief operating officer Ashish Shah chipped in saying earlier in the year, they had set a target of clocking Rs 80 crore in GMV every month which has already been crossed.
The company that employs around 2,000 people, out of which half in the supply-chain side alone also, have plans to grow the customer base five-fold to 20 million by 2020 from the present 4 million, Shah said.
Murthy said the higher growth in the recent months was aided by the interest-free, with no processing fee EMI option launched recently, which effectively offers 12-15 per cent savings on their purchases. The company has tie-ups with close to a dozen credit-card issuers for this scheme.
On expansion plans, Murthy said they will be nearly trebling physical presence through Brand Studios to 36 by the end of this year from 13 at present. Excluding the rentals, each studio involves around Rs 40 lakh investment, he added.
When asked about sales conversion from studio visits to actual buying, Murthy said the basic purpose of studios is to offer a touch-n-feel to customers and no sales happen at the studios and it has done really good for them with almost 25 per cent of visitors end up ordering online.
Also, close to half of their customers are repeat buyers, Shah added.
Since inception, Pepperfry has built a market leadership as the largest furniture marketplace by offering great value, a large variety of curated merchandise with a over 1 lakh items from over 10,000 merchants. (PTI)
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