Bengaluru-headquartered mattress maker Kurlon Enterprise has launched its e-commerce site, Kurlon.com, to offer shoppers an alternative channel for its products.

The ₹800-crore company, whose products are available in 10,000 multi-brand stores across the country, has been selling on Snapdeal, Amazon, Pepperfry, FabMart and FabFurnish, since June 2015.

“Although our website Kurlon.com has been live for seven years, it was not e-commerce enabled. We wanted to offer customers some excitement in the form of an alternative shopping channel and decided to re-launch it as an e-commerce site where our products will be offered at the same price as the stores. However, we will be introducing bundled discounted offers of mattresses with pillows, or mattress protectors or bedsheets soon,” T Sudhakar Pai, Chairman and Managing Director, told BusinessLine .

The company has set up an internal e-commerce team of five headed by Vishal Aneja, which has built the e-commerce platform with an integrated payment gateway in partnership with Axis Bank.

The website will offer 23 mattresses in different configurations of size and thickness; in foam, spring and coir variants, at prices ranging from ₹7,000 to ₹1.5 lakh.

Deliveries of regular size mattresses and non-standard size mattresses will range from 7-15 days respectively. Kurlon will introduce its range of pillows, cushions, bolsters, bedsheets and mattress protectors for sale on its website in two weeks, followed by its range of home furniture next month.

Diversification

“We are in the process of transitioning from a pure play mattress maker to a company that provides home comfort solutions, empowering customers to convert their dream houses into dream homes,” said Pai, who expects to close the current fiscal with a 12 per cent growth in revenue at ₹900 crore.

Plans are on to ramp up the number of exclusive franchisee stores – Kurlon Express, from 200 to 500 by March 2016. Kurlon has established a presence in 68 cities pan-India, including the top metros, Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns. Asked why the company had delayed its e-commerce foray, Pai said, “I feared the Indian e-commerce market would go the global way. Globally, online sales of mattresses contributes to just 0.25 per cent of overall sales. Our attempt to sell through other e-commerce sites has brought in business of just ₹1.5 crore. However, we are witnessing steady traction in mattress sales and have observed that customers prefer to shop for pillows, bolsters, cushions etc, online.”

The domestic market for mattresses stands at ₹7,000 crore, of which, only a third is organised. Kurlon dominates the organised space and competes with domestic players like Sleepwell, Nilkamal, Duroflex, Centuary and Peps and international brands like King Koil and Casper.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW