Changing life: Brands enter bedrooms

Impacted by the Western style of living and growing desire among the urbane to bring in designer bedrooms and bathrooms of their favourite television soap operas into their homes,bed and bath product ranges have been transformed from mere commodites to haute couture products.

From a family sharing a single towel for a year and using just a pair of bedsheets annually. . . the bed and bath soft furnishing range has a come long way in India.

"Towels and bedsheets are no longer perceived as 'commodities', they are now viewed as fashion products", said Rajiv Merchant, CEO, Domestic Division, Creative Portico, branded player in bed and bath soft furnishing.

The branded segment is growing. "Some years ago a family used one towel for a year and a bedsheet and half for a year as well. But now that is changing", says Naina from Welspun, a branded player in home furnishing.

"Out of the current estimated Rs 6,000 crore (Rs 60 billion) MRP market, Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion) is the organised one, with still a large chunk being unorganised, but slowly moving to the organised sector.

"Nowadays brands are everything. A consumer wants a brand in every segment of his life", says Rajiv.

The shift in branded products is more pronounced in metros but Tier two and three cities are catching up as well. "The consumer, who is influenced by soap operas, wants to replicate those bedrooms and bathrooms and is now looking for branded stuff even in Tier two and three cities", says Naina.

Sales are picking up in smaller cities like Coimbatore, Chandigarh, Nagpur, says Rajiv. However the price points these consumers prefer are the entry level ones.

These consumers had still to upgrade to higher price points or luxury consumer goods in this category.

The target consumer for these goods in metros are the 25-40 age group upper class urbane women, who have travelled around.

The craze to replicate those stunning bedrooms and bathrooms peeping out of glossy magazines has always been there. But now they can bring home those dream homes, using these branded accessories, says a dealer.

Instead of buying the traditional pair of bedsheets and matching pillow covers, consumers now opt for `coordinated bedding', whereby they have bedsheets, pillow covers and duvet covers that have a coordinated colour scheme, giving it a very aesthetic appeal and one that can transform a simple bedroom into a classy one.

"Now it is the geometric designs, bright vibrant colours that sell", he says, adding that the takers for ethnic design or those for those traditional floral print are smaller in number. "It is European look that is in", he says.

The growing segments in the bedding category are health products, he says, adding that Portico has planned some innovative product lines to cater to this demand. The health products account for nearly 10 per cent of sales for Portico, says Rajiv, adding that the current product line includes anti mote covers and pillows and aromatherapy pillows.

Portico also plans to introduce a revolutionary concept called the i-bedding next month to cater to the growing demand in this segment, says Rajiv.