In an interview, Rajneesh Bhatia says that the company expects to cross the Rs 1,000 crore revenue milestone next year
Indian home furnishings market is witnessing a shift towards premium offerings as competition intensifies at lower price points, with new brands entering the value segment regularly, said Rajneesh Bhatia, Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO), MyTrident. Positioning itself to capitalise on this trend, MyTrident is strengthening its focus on the premium and upper-luxury segments.
In an interview with BW Retail World, Bhatia said the company has expanded its retail footprint to nearly 7,000 touchpoints and is aiming to reach 10,000 by the end of this year. He also said the company expects to cross the Rs 1,000 crore revenue milestone next year. Highlighting quick commerce as one of its fastest-growing channels, Bhatia said it has evolved from an experiment into a key growth driver and is expected to account for an increasingly larger share of the company’s ecommerce business over the next few years. Edited Excerpts:
Last year, you identified horeca and institutional sales as one of myTrident’s next growth pillars. How large is that business today and where do you see it over the next three to five years?
If you go to hotels, there is a probability that out of ten hotels, in eight hotels you will find our linen. Testimony is in seeing when you visit different properties. We have grown around 50 per cent in terms of revenue year on year over last year and that growth still on that same level. In this segment, I can very confidently say that we are number one when it comes to our market share and our reach in the horeca segment.
Despite initially being skeptical about selling home furnishings in a ten-minute delivery model, you earlier said that quick commerce was one of your fastest-growing channels. As the channel matures, where does it stand today in terms of revenue contribution?
Many a times you also tend to go wrong in life. First time when I was approached by one of the channels, they were the early starters, they do not exist now and they changed their name, my reaction was that vegetables are needed in ten minutes, not textiles. That was my reaction. But I have been, over a period, totally proven wrong. Not even 300 to 400 per cent growth, I cannot even assign percentage in terms of the growth because the numbers were so small.
For example, if you grow from Rs 5 crore to Rs 100 crore, it is around 1,900 per cent growth. There were three to four players who started quick commerce and they are very big for us. Now, Amazon or other ecommerce players are also forced to build their quick commerce channel. I expect this kind of growth to continue at least for the next two to three years.
I will give you an idea around my ecommerce percentage to the business and then quick commerce percentage to ecommerce. Quick commerce to ecommerce was 1 to 2 per cent but this year it is going to reach 50 per cent. In the coming years or maybe in a year or two, this should be 75 per cent. Quick commerce is going to become very big share of ecommerce. If I look at the overall business and look at ecommerce, quick commerce, it used to be just 5 per cent. This year, these channels would be around 30 per cent of my total business and around 50 per cent in the coming years.
The home furnishings industry has been navigating fluctuating cotton prices, rising input costs and an increasingly promotional retail environment. At the same time, brands are pushing premium products to protect margins. Which of these is proving to be the bigger challenge today, is it managing costs or convincing consumers to trade up?
There is a problem of plenty. What I mean by this is that this market is very unorganised. If you tend to visit any of the ecommerce portal, every month you will see a new name trending. And every month there is a new, in one year there are at least 10 to 12 parties who have come big. So, the problem here is not of the market share because as per me there is no brand in the country. Why I say so? For me, for anyone to become a brand, there should be at least 5 to 6 per cent of the market. Not even 1 per cent here is 1 per cent of the market.
The market size is Rs 60,000 crore. And the biggest player, whether it is me or someone else who claims to be number one, would be in points, 0.2 to 0.3 per cent. If you are holding 0.3 to 0.4 per cent of the market, for me you are not a brand. Because you are one in so many.
Somebody one day will find the right boxes ticked. When we were young, flour was also unbranded. Today we have all the brands. The market is very big and we need competition. We need more players to come and build it. Consolidation will happen. This has started happening. If you would have asked me 3 years back, I would not have had such collaborations which you are seeing today. I would not have dared to get a bed sheet of Rs 14,000 or a box of Rs 39,000.
Today I can dream of it. I am being demanded by premium retail to get something like this. Obviously the market is changing. There is a need for premiumness because the lower price point is now absolutely crowded. Every month a new person is coming in. But we are backed with the highest level of quality. We are known for bringing quality across the globe, across the world. With our backing of technology, the right place for us is premium and upper luxury class. That is the place where people will struggle to match us.
You have collaborated with designers, including Shivan & Narresh and Karan Torani. What is the idea behind it and can we expect more such partnerships going ahead?
Obviously yes. Last year, we had Shivan and Naresh. We did one version of that. This year we are getting version 2.0. Along with that, we got an opportunity to get Karan Torani. Somebody was asking me, will they cannibalize each other? My answer is no. Because the shop is going to find a space and if a retailer is going to take one in this kind of space, he is going to take both. Wherever Shivan and Naresh gets placed, Turani will find its place and vice versa.
They are going to supplement each other and not cannibalize each other. The way people are liking it and people are appreciating this, it is just the beginning of one of the associations and we may see many more in the coming years.
In your earlier interviews, you had spoken about crossing the Rs 1,000 crore revenue milestone while expanding to 10,000 retail touchpoints. Since we are now well into FY27, how much progress have you made against those milestones?
We are close. When I gave this statement, we were around 4,000 to 5,000. We are now around 7,000. The way things are moving and the kind of category and products we have this time, we should be close to 10,000 this year.
We will cross Rs 1,000 crore in revenue next year. I had earlier commented that it would happen in three years but maybe we would finally achieve it in four years.
How are you approaching manufacturing as you scale?
Manufacturing is not a constraint because we are actually very big in terms of capacity. If you look at our overall capacity, we are hardly 7 to 8 per cent of the group capacity. Anyone would want to increase their capacity when it comes to brand over what we do for others. It is just shifting of capacities that we have to do.
Whatever we are doing for someone else and their label, we have the scope to go up to 100 per cent from 8 to 9 per cent. Whenever we get a chance, we can increase our brand by reducing someone else’s. That is not a constraint for us.
