About
Urban Ladder is a curated online furniture seller in Bangalore, India. The company offers a range of products such as beds, sofas, wardrobes, and dining among other furniture categories. Urban Ladder is present in 12 cities across India. The company handles delivery and installation of all the products it offers.
Business Objectives
Their vision is to set global benchmarks for distinctive products, consumer experiences and honest best practices.
To become a consumer-centric venture with emphasis on delighting the consumers through their pre- and post-sell processes
Approach / Strategy adopted by Urban Ladder
Urban Ladder is a popular name in the startup space. Cofounded in July 2012 by Ashish Goel and Rajiv Srivatsa. Similar to most of the ecommerce companies Urbanladder started with pan-India delivery promise, however the company revisited its strategy & later limited to three cities Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai as their supply chain was not mature enough to serve the entire country and decided to take step by step approach.
Traction and evolution
Currently, Urbanladder facilitates delivery in five cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune and Chennai.
As a start up they did not spent much on marketing initially. They started with social media promotion on facebook & twitter using which word of mouth played strong in bringing more customers. For instance Urban ladder encouraged its customers to use their Facebook page to upload pictures & write their feeback which UL team also regularly posted on their websites. Urbanladder marketing budget allocates very little fund to Google AdWords, as founders believe organic growth coupled with social media marketing and positive word-of-mouth are sufficient.
Urbanladder didn’t run contests or give away freebies; instead of these, it focused on consistent effort to fuel engagement on social networks. As per Rajiv Srivastava being honest and transparent has helped tem have loyal consumer base. They let the customers speak on the products and used that not only to market the products but also develop a better connect with their customers.
Unlike other ecommerce companies, Urban ladder sends newsletters only twice a week. They ensured to have a very attractive Visual effect and are consistently putting effort to optimize that. The emails are planned and occasion specific.
#ULStory Video Strategy
UL is building its brand with the help of user video stories called ‘Urban Stories’The videos are relatively shorter in duration, making them crispier and easier to consume. The campaign features stories of how the brand helped people in designing their homes with the right type of furniture and decor that matched with their personality. #ULStory has its own visual identity and the focus is still the customers’ experience with Urban Ladder . This again has set the stage for a closer bonding on the online space.
Urban Ladder’s mobile strategy
Urban Ladder has three consumer facing apps.
1) Core Catalogue app : The main app for UrbanLadder which has wide range of Furniture and home decors.
It has interactive facility where the customer can create looks with UL products before placing his orders.
2) Living spaces app : This app lets users virtually place multiple models of UL sofas in a living room. One can change sofa models, fabric colours, etc.
3) Urban Storage app : Urban Storage is a modular wardrobe builder to help users plan a wardrobe for homes.
For Urban Ladder, 3 different app is more useful as apart from the main Catalog app, the other two have a stronger use case for the consultancy that goes alongside in delivering an order. And also they do not need to drive massive downloads.
Results achieved by Urban ladder
The company has continued to scale up with a cautious, efficient use of capital.
And today Urban ladder is ahead of their competitors in online business. Urban Ladder is playing well to the new age consumers’ aspirations with its contemporary & space centric range.
Learnings
- Define a clear vision
- Take a step by step approach
- Use digital media wisely & effectively for marketing
- Email clients timely with only what would interest them
- Pay attention to Visual appeal be it products or email designs
- Website should be mobile friendly too.
Image Credits: Urban Ladder