Pepperfry opens warehouse in Bengaluru to boost delivery, presence in South India

Furniture etailer Pepperfry has opened a warehouse in Bengaluru to improve delivery rates and expand presence in southern states.

The facility is the largest built-to-suit facility in the Indian furniture etailing segment, said an official statement issued by Pepperfry. 

Spread across an area of over 360,000 square feet in the Hoskote area of Bengaluru, the warehousing facility is technology-enabled and will help Pepperfry improve customer experience along with increasing the pace of delivery rates, the statement said.

The warehouse has a storage capacity of up to 30,000 units of furniture. 

The southern region contributes to over 40% of the online marketplace’s business, said the statement. 

“Pepperfry is as much a logistics company as it is a furniture marketplace. It will allow us to elevate consumer experiences through reduced transit times while growing the business through reduced overhead costs. This will also help us cater to the surge in demand during the approaching festive season,” said Ashish Shah, co-founder and chief operating officer, Pepperfry. 

Founded in January 2012 by Ambareesh Murty and Shah, Pepperfry retails furniture and home products on its online marketplace. It initially started out by retailing lifestyle and fashion products.

Mumbai-based TrendSutra Platform Services, which operates Pepperfry, claims to have been the first online furniture marketplace in India to set up its own logistics network. Today, the company claims to operate 400 trucks, 250 carpenters and 19 hubs within its ecosystem. The company caters to cover 500 cities in India and it aims to service over 1,000 cities by 2021.

Earlier this year, in an interview with TechCircle, Sanjay Netrabile, chief technology officer, Pepperfry, said the use of technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and machine learning has helped the company grow. 

In April, Pepperfry tied up with online financial marketplace BankBazaar to offer personal loans for customers visiting the furniture retailer’s brick-and-mortar stores.

In December 2018, the company rolled out its interior design solutions offering. Branded Pepperfry Bespoke, the solution allows customers to visit Pepperfry Bespoke outlets to avail free interior design solutions from experts on electricals, false ceilings and budget planning, among other things.