Pepperfry expects to break even by 2018-19

The company will enter the furniture service business early next year & may look at acquisitions in the logistics business

Furniture and home marketplace Pepperfry.com plans to break even by the first quarter of 2018-19.

The company will enter the furniture service business early next year and may look at acquisitions in the logistics business. “We are well on our path to profitability. We would have improved our margin by 13-15 per cent in the last one year. We plan to break even by the first quarter of 2018,” said Ashish Shah, founder and chief operating officer of Pepperfry.

“Our products make a margin of 35-50 per cent. Breaking even and moving ahead will be the focus now,” he added.

He said the company had crossed Rs 1,000 crore in turnover last year. Pepperfry has been posting revenue growth of over 250 per cent in the last three years.

The company will start a furniture service business where customers buy a package in which Pepperfry representatives visit their homes every year for refurbishing furniture. Shah said Pepperfry was open to acquisitions if something interesting in the services and logistics sectors emerged.

The focus now is on setting up Pepperfry Studios experience centres in various cities and the expanding the logistics business Big Box. The company launched a Pepperfry Studio in Chennai on Thursday and plans to complete 21 such studios by January. The company has Pepperfry Bespoke to address the design needs of customers. The business, launched last November, contributed 10-12 per cent of Pepperfry’s revenues, said Shah.

Pepperfry has 17 distribution centres that can send furniture to 500 cities, besides a total reach of over 1,000 cities with its other products.