Decorative panels and highlighters segment has brought drastic changes in the trade in the last 10 years and the relevance of decorative panels has grown superbly. People are looking forward to more of highlighters, designer panels and they are loving it even in the pandemic just because it is a pre-finished product. In last 5 years, the showroom display trend has picked up with people investing a lot in it owing to the ample scope it presents for earning with the physical display. Because of COVID-19 several retailers were in fear assuming that customers would hesitate to come to the showrooms, but it proved to be wrong as the customers, architects and interior designers, all are still visiting the display showrooms frequently. This makes it clear that the importance of decorative retail shop will be there even after covid as it is seen after unlocking. It is found that customers visit to every showroom (footfall) is considerably good.
The retailers have a reason to be happy as their efforts from the last 10 years for serving this category in a better way and building the market as well as spending a lot in its display will not go in vain. Earlier, retailers were in fear that digital tools might emerge as their replacement in the corona period and the shopper would visit the physical stores only if there is no other choice for them.
Many of the leading retailers have experienced very good responses in terms of customer visit to their showrooms after the lockdown has been lifted. Here are the opinions by some of them during a webinar organized by the Ply Reporter on Decorative panel industry on June 28, 2020.
Mr Mahesh Punjabi, one of the leading interior designers from Mumbai stated, “With a lot of decorative panels available in the market and are so impressive and excellent that even the company management from an Interior designers’ company themselves want to visit the showroom and see them to select the product. Today, decorative panel products are so rich that these do not get differentiated with veneer without comparing them physically with lots of nitty-gritty. So, there is no way by which the luxury decorative product markets are going to lose its touch and feel tradition. It is not going to be affected by the digital medium in even COVID 19 era.”
Mr Vipul Vora of SuVeneer, Mumbai said, “People’s observation was that the work will be shifted towards the digital platform and the showroom will lose its importance. But we have seen a large number of architects and interior designers visiting the showroom and thus that observation proves totally wrong from the day 1st at our showroom. The customers were selecting their products as usual in a fearless manner. I can assure that if the train starts functioning normally as before and labour returns to the city, the demand will bounce back and we will be able to achieve our old target by the second quarter of this FY.”
Mr Pankaj Kumar of Ply Mahal, Delhi said, “We were also assuming that the customers will not come to the showroom and to serve them in a better way, we had already been prepared with e-catalogues and sample catalogues. But the scenario is totally different. Soon after unlocking, the customers started to come to the store. Interior designers and architects are regularly visiting, but their visits are getting less in number for the final selection of material. So, for them, we have a live display at showrooms. We are not getting any difficulty in sales but, if we maintain a safe atmosphere, they will feel comfortable visiting the physical store.”