How Design Cafe helping people transform their house into dream home

Home interior design company, Design Cafe is rapidly expanding to ensure every Indian middle class has the luxury to use Design Cafe's expert interior design services close to home in one stop, under one roof. It currently has operations in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Thane and Chennai. More experience centers are in the offing for cities like Mysore, Pune and Hyderabad. Design Cafe's CEO & Co-Founder, Gita Ramanan in an exclusive interview with Bizz Buzz talks about building an enterprise that can have the most profound impact in the interior design segment of India

The interior design industry is growing rapidly in India and interestingly, according to CAGR - the modular kitchen market growth is predicted to grow by 27% between 2019 and 2024. And it's true, we're witnessing it - there's a great demand for modular kitchens, because a consumer today is keen to upgrade their old fashioned kitchen with a modular kitchen that gives a homemaker an array of space-saving options for storage and utility

The company is seeing a boom in real estate across India (mainly in tier-2 cities). This, in turn, is fueling the demand for home interiors to spruce up a home

What is the size of the interior design industry?

The interior design industry is growing rapidly in India and interestingly, according to CAGR - the modular kitchen market growth is predicted to grow by 27 per cent between 2019 and 2024. And it's true, we're witnessing it - there's a great demand for modular kitchens, because a consumer today is keen to upgrade their old fashioned kitchen with a modular kitchen that gives a homemaker an array of space-saving options for storage and utility.

Do you also do outdoor design projects?

We are not doing outdoor projects as of now. We've seen a strong appetite in India for affordable interiors solutions and innovative designs, especially amongst first-time homebuyers, and we believe that we are now positioned to offer them our best-in-class design and space saving solutions.

How has your company evolved over the years?

The fact that our customers are able to interact with different vendors, in addition to the designers executing their project, and that they get to see all the products (including furnishings) all in one place has been the evolution that Design cafe has gone through.

For us, the ability to offer connected solutions to customers has always been a priority. Design Cafe has been completely customer driven since we launched in 2015. This has been the top most priority for us as a company and the reason why we set up a customer happiness team right in the beginning. Sometimes Shezaan and I get on a call with our customers to understand their likes and dislikes. The evolution of the company has charted this role. And, with the help of technology we want to ensure that we are at the forefront of innovative home interior solutions for the Indian homeowner - with the best price, fastest project delivery and in the most convenient way possible.

What is the key USP of the company?

When we started Design Cafe back in 2015, it was the result of a decade of research and understanding of the Indian home owner. Both Shezaan and I came with over a decade of experience as architects and designers having executed over 300 home interior design projects. This is when we realised there is a huge market for the aspiring middle class in India - that's the genesis of Design Cafe. Our USP is that we are a full-service, tech-enabled, modular home interiors' solution brand aspiring to provide affordable designer homes to every India.

What is the minimum budget that your company works with?

In the first couple of years we were offering complete home interior design solutions for a 2BHK home starting at about Rs 6 lakh. With more experience under our belt working with clients across large Indian cities we're working on offering even more competitive solutions without compromising on the quality of the product in cities like Mumbai, Chennai and others. And we've brought an entire line where a homeowner, with a 2BHK home can get their interiors done for just Rs 3 lakh. And this has been over 18 months of work in prototyping, testing, and working with the machine operators and supervisors at our factory. So yes, the past couple of years we've witnessed structural evolution in the budget as well - our starting budget earlier was Rs 6 lakh for a 2BHK and now it's only Rs 3 lakh. We also offer full modular kitchen solutions today starting at Rs 90,000.

What new product lines are there in the pipe line?

The pandemic accelerated our investment in technology to ensure that customers are able to experience our connected solution from the comfort of their home. While we always had tie-ups with different product vendors in order to be a one-stop-solution for the customer. However, we always had customers visit our EC, meet our designer and probably even go out with them to select decors, light fittings and accessories. Now all of that is available online via the launch of our e-commerce store, which has been a huge success. Our consumers are happy that they are able to furnish the entire home via the online store.

But our effort has always been on catering to new product lines for the emerging affordable housing segments. There's been a huge increase in the number of units sales in the affordable home segment and we do not see enough players offering quality solutions like we do. There are several product lines in the pipeline that we're working on for this consumer segment and we're looking forward to launching it by Diwali this year.

Post Covid do you see the market growing quickly?

Obviously, the first wave caused a lot of uncertainty, but I think by October - November 2021-2022 we saw an early rise. Post the second wave, that hit India badly, we've seen the resilience of the Indian middle class come to the fore. We now see a clear sense of 'stay calm and go on' (which is not just a Mumbaiker spirit). We've seen this across the board in the country. And Indians are going all out to live everyday to the maximum they can, improve their lives and to a large part of that is the home that they live in. So, people are investing in a house and we've seen a huge update in the number of sales in 2021-2022. This was a great bonanza for the real estate industry, and in turn for players like us. We are looking forward to growing and increasing our footprint across the country, because the Indian homeowner has left uncertainty behind to a large degree.

How important is the Indian market and is there scope for exports?

We've recently launched our new experience centre in Thane and our market research revealed that - Thane supports a 1500 crore market in modular furniture and the real estate market sees sales of between 20000 to 25,000 new units every year. Similarly, we're seeing a boom in real estate across India (mainly in tier 2 cities). This, in turn, is fueling the demand for home interiors to spruce up a home.

Tell us about Design Cafe

Design Cafe is a home interiors brand that exemplifies the artistry of two creative people whose collaboration manifested the idea of "democratizing design"- bringing the best designs and quality to all. It was started in 2015 by award-winning architects and designers – Shezaan Bhojani & Gita Ramanan. The duo worked tirelessly for two decades with their national and international design experience to develop over 5500 affordable designer homes and more. Today, Design Cafe is one of the leading home interiors brand in the country.