Urban Ladder moves away from stand-alone play to be on Amazon

Shifts strategy from being a pure-play online furniture store to becoming a vendor on a marketplace

Online furniture seller Urban Ladder said on Thursday that it would offer its products on Amazon, shifting its strategy from being a pure-play online furniture shop to becoming a vendor on a marketplace.

The Ratan Tata-backed firm expects three out of four products of its collection to be on Amazon, the global retailer that is becoming aggressive in India. Urban Ladder says it would not have differential pricing for consumers on Amazon, a platform which it expects to get more business.

Amazon is keen to overtake local rival Flipkart and is signing up new partners, expanding its retail base across India. Urban Ladder says delivery and assembling of products would be made by its team in around 10 cities.

Urban Ladder competes with other furniture start-ups such as Pepperfry and Livspace, while large firms such as Amazon and Flipkart have been struggling to capture a significant share of the furniture market.

“The common ground for both Urban Ladder and Amazon was the principle of customer obsession that guides both brands. Amazon.in has been seen as an online powerhouse, which shoppers have been increasingly gravitating towards, at the same time delivering customers with an ‘experience’. This platform will give us the accessibility to leverage multiple channels and offer new customers an experience of shopping for furniture online,” said Ashish Goel, CEO and co-founder, Urban Ladder.

Goel and his partner Rajiv Srivatsa have raised $77 million from investors including Sequoia Capital and TR Capital.