Pre Covid, the biggest beneficiary of display and show room culture has been Decorative Veneers segment. It attracted people and designers to retail counters because veneers are natural material and each group hold unique aesthetics and hence it led retailers to earn better profit, respect and goodwill if their counters held good displays. Many retailers have become popular only after Veneer selling on their counters in their respective city. But after pandemic Covid, these showrooms have started focusing more on prefinished materials, decorative laminates, highlighters and other maintenance free decorative panels reflect the recent survey conducted by ply Reporter and Surfaces team.
Showroom owners located in Mumbai, Pune, Surat, Bangalore, Hyderabad etc view that customers are looking more of readymade kind of decorative panels because they don’t want give much time in their interior works, hence they prefer to buy premium quality laminates and other highlighters. Interior Designers and architects are also willing to use such kind of materials, hence they have been maintaining their sales volume of last 3 months (Sept to November) with the support of Laminates, Acrylic Sheets, Charco Panels, Louvers and other decorative highlighters.
During last 5 years, Wood and Decorative Panel trade have invested a lot of money in making showrooms and display centers to attract buyers. There have been around 1500 showrooms opened in India with an average of 800 sq ft and above size with whole focus on decorative surface display and retail market. These showrooms emerged as major drivers for the growth of Decorative Veneers, Laminates, PVC and Acrylic Panels, Charcol Panels and other highlighters.
The growth of decorative industry largely relies upon showroom displays and their methods of personalized selling. Post covid, the customers footfall have re-tuned to almost 60 % of their pre covid levels but the trend for readymade materials visibly evident as of now. The showrooms owners have also asserted that on decorative surface materials for home building, personalized visits have only performed. The digital PDF’s are not working nor do customers enjoy the online design paste formats. 94% of the showroom owners’ respondents have expressed no impact from digital tools on physical displays and customer satisfaction. The only change that too may be temporary is preference of readymade surface materials that involves less time and low price. With the positive response to visit the showrooms by the customers, architects and interiors designers, many of the showroom owners have actually started planning a bigger display areas spread over 4000 square feet and above.