Looking for volumes

Size matters. At least Mumbai-based Farhan Furniturewalla believes so. His first furniture store in Delhi "" sixth nationally "" is spread over 30,000 sq ft and takes up four floors of a building on Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road.

"Delhi is an important market for me and I want people here to see the full range," he says. His store, called Furniturewalla, will open on April 5.

Besides Mumbai, he has stores in Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. He opened his first store in Mumbai in October, 1999. Why did he take so long to start his Delhi operations?

"There is a huge amount of logistics involved in retailing furniture. I wanted to make a big splash in Delhi and wanted to be sure that I had the right amount of investment and human resources to tackle the market," he explains.

Talking of investments, Furniturewalla is loathe to divulge details on the amount he is spending on his Delhi shop or on future expansions. He is also tight-lipped about the company's turnover. "Tax problems, you know," is all he is willing to say.

Yet, Furniturewalla has grandiose plans. Next in line is a showroom in Kolkata, followed by Jaipur, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Indore, Ahmedabad, Surat, Panaji, Cochin and Coimbatore.

"I'm looking at opening 20 stores in the next couple of years. The plan is to have 100 stores in five years time," he says.

His target group is the rich and the upper middle class. "I'm not targeting the super rich," says Furniturewalla.

"That's too niche a market. I'm looking at volumes," he adds. The company orders in bulk and offers quality products at lower price points, he claims.

Furniturewalla says that he's not competing with Interiors Espania or Renaissance Homes. "I'm here to target customers who buy their furniture from Durian's, Trousseau and similar stores," he adds.

In the next two years he also plans to start a chain of low-priced stores that will cater to the middle class.

To begin with, Furniturewalla is looking at 100 buying customers a month. His stores stock only home furniture and these are sourced from South-east Asia, China, Italy and Spain.

The Delhi outlet, when fully operational, will have a wide range of models ranging from faux ethnic to contemporary. The prices of products at Furniturewalla range from Rs 4,000 (for a lamp) to around Rs 2 lakh (for a bedroom set).