You recently opened your new concept gallery at Gachibowli, Hyderabad. Can you tell us more about the concept?

The newly designed gallery is not just a conventional showroom, but a captivating destination that offers customers a truly immersive and interactive shopping experience. The gallery allows customers to use Augmented Reality (AR) with render concepts, enabling shoppers to visualize their selected home decor products within their own living spaces, thus incorporating latest technology seamlessly to enhance customer experience. 

Could you explain further how technology is integrated with key consumer touchpoints to enhance the shopping experience? 

The gallery showcases a carefully curated collection of furniture, ranging from chic sofas to sophisticated dining sets, providing customers with a first-hand experience to appreciate the quality and craftsmanship synonymous with Bay Window. The AR dimension allows customers to go beyond conventional browsing enabling them to visualize the curated selection of furniture in their homes. This transformative approach ensures a quick and effective decision-making process, wherein customers can make informed choices about their home decor.

How challenging was it to seamlessly balance design aesthetics and technology in the store space? Any takeaways that you’d like to share?

A transparent pricing experience is made possible for customers by allowing them to rapidly verify prices through the QR code found on product price tags. The whole idea like I said was to blend technology and design, providing customers with an immersive and cutting-edge shopping experience.

Was there a specific brief that you had for the tech and design teams? 

We did the design and tech integration ourselves because we believe in giving a differentiated experience and controlling the entire customer journey online, and offline. We don't look at them as two different elements but as a seamless whole, which is made possible only when the design team and tech team work hand-in-hand. The fact is that it is not a one-time activity, but a continuous initiative. 

But overall, as a retailer do you face any challenges in finding the right tech partner? Do you think there is a need for more tech players in this ecosystem?

There is no dearth of tech players in the ecosystem. There are indeed a lot of tech players who understand business as consumers. The companies that balance consumer behavior and technology are the ones that succeed and that's how we have been able to build a platform that is tech-enabled yet consumer-friendly. 

Any new plans this financial year? Are you planning more rollouts of the Concept Gallery? And any new markets you are looking at?

We intend to open additional retail locations in Hyderabad and two more cities across India. We will make an official announcement shortly.