The D2C home furnishing brand is already present in countries such as US, UK, UAE, Germany, France, Canada, Italy and Spain
Bengaluru: Encasa XO is working towards becoming one of the most trusted brands in home furnishings essentials. While the likes of Ikea and H&M/Uniqlo are established brands for furniture and clothing essentials, no trusted brand exists in the home furnishings space internationally, so Encasa is looking to disrupt and win this space with its high-quality home furnishings. The brand uses customer search data in a way that has never been possible in the past to identify customer pain points and address them through thoughtfully-designed products.
Experimenting for impact
Varun Jain, who is the founder of the home furnishings brand Encasa XO, says that his brand began its journey a couple of decades before it sold its first product. “Before starting Encasa XO, we were contract manufacturers for some of the world’s best retailers in the home furnishings category across Europe and the US.
By working with them, we learned what quality standards need to be maintained to ensure a satisfied customer who keeps returning to the same product year after year. Having sold millions of products under this model, we felt we had developed several customer insights across different product ranges. This was coupled with the fact that we could now go directly to customers through new online channels including e-marketplaces,” shares Jain. Jain started Encasa XO as a small experiment with similar products that he was already selling B2B.
“One of the main reasons for starting Encasa XO was because we felt we had customer insights that we were not able to act on in a B2B model. However, Encasa XO took off at such a rapid pace that we saw ourselves pivoting the overall business model towards D2C,” adds Jain. Many of the customer insights that Jain had have been validated since he launched Encasa XO.
One step at a time
Encasa XO is a vertically integrated business, where the team takes care of the entire chain, from manufacturing the product to selling it to the customer. “Our manufacturing background allows us to have a much deeper insight into how to produce the best quality products at an affordable price point,” says Jain. One of the other areas where Encasa XO uses the online medium to its full potential is by offering a very wide range of variants in each of its product lines. “For example, our range of canvas products typically has greater than 25 colours available in multiple sizes depending on the product line. This is something that provides customers with a lot of options to choose from and match with their existing home décor,” explains Jain.
However, the brand is using customer search data in a way that has never been possible in the past to identify customer pain points and address them through thoughtfully-designed products. “Our focus has remained on finding customer pain points across home furnishings products and providing a product differentiated on quality. Our manufacturing base allows us natural price competitiveness,” says Jain.
However, Encasa XO does not aim to be the cheapest in the market, as Jain believes that this can lead to sub-standard products that price-conscious customers might use, but are never happy with. “We think a lot about what the product needs to be to provide great customer experience while still being cost-effective,” conveys Jain.
Over the years, Encasa XO has developed a very detailed launch playbook that helps it turn a product launch from art to science. “As obvious as it sounds, this starts from the point of correctly identifying the niche to enter into with a great quality product. In hindsight, most of the products out there that have not grown well have been due to not doing this right. But we go into a much more detailed process post launch to ensure that we give our product the maximum chance of success,” adds Jain.
Over the next couple of years, Jain expects the pace of product launches at Encasa XO to go up, as he aims to target several more categories within the sector. “We are already present in the US, UK, several European countries, and Japan, and will launch in the UAE soon,” shares Jain. The end goal, he continues, is to build the most trusted home furnishings brand, not just for India, but from India and for the world.
Brownie Points
- Encasa XO is a vertically integrated business, where the team takes care of the entire chain, from manufacturing the product to selling it to the customer.
- Encasa XO is one of the success stories of building for the world, from India. It is present internationally and has seen success in several countries including the US, UK, Germany, France, Canada, Italy, and Spain. It has recently launched in Japan and will expand to the Middle East soon.
- It has a very deep focus on data and technology. It uses its proprietary forecasting models to maintain optimal inventory levels across the multiple geographies.
First appeared in The India D2C Yearbook 2022
