How furniture rental startups are exploding in India

Buying things the conventional way will be less popular in the future. Tech in Asia explores

Ownership is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Customers are now demanding business models that help them interact with products in different ways.

This has led to the birth of a new economy - the rental economy, a world that involves everything from secondhand clothes to furniture. These startups involve things that can be used for a certain period of time for a cheaper cost than owning them. Then, these items can be returned to the owner, who will refurbish and put them back on the market.

Ajith Karimpana, CEO and founder of Furlenco, a furniture and appliance rental startup believes that buying things the conventional way will be less popular in the future. “When you look at the behavior of millennials, you see that they move around often,” he explains. “Furniture is an interesting market because the value of a piece is rarely known. The value of furniture sinks the more you use it.”

In the rental world, inventory, logistics, payments come with a slightly different tinge to them. Firstly, because returns are the norm for these startups, they require a different type of inventory.

Furlenco employs a “full stack” model, which means that it houses all of its inventory and distributes it as need be. Flatfurnish, a recently launched home furnishings rental startup, on the other hand, employs a “marketplace” model, where a piece of furniture is sourced from manufacturers when it’s needed.

Between the rental model and furniture, any startup in the industry will face challenges. Rapid scaling is tough because of the human-intensive labor that furniture requires. However, both companies seem to be standing strong in the market.

This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.