Ashish Goel has the perfect getaway tucked in his Bengaluru home. His third-floor balcony overlooks the tennis court of the apartment complex. It’s a great spot for people-watching, for a shout-out to building friends and for breakfast with his wife Sonika. The balcony doubles up as an after-work reading nook and a weekend workplace for the couple. “That space is super powerful. I actually think the quality of my relationship with my wife has gone up as a result of the time we are able to spend there,” says Goel, the co-founder of Urban Ladder, who adds that we are increasingly realizing the power of that one special place in the house where we can tune out the daily slog. Maybe it’s his three-year-old online furniture company or maybe he’s always analysed the way people sit differently on the same chairs in a meeting (and wondered how he could turn this into a future of furniture concept note), but Goel has several theories about the way we live.
Like the way our living rooms are no longer heavy, curtained spaces that stand aloof; those touch-me-not rooms where sofas are uncovered only for guests. We are spending more time than we ever have in this room. It’s now the space we think about the most. If you’re a couple-with-one-child household, dining tables become a family hangout only during those long semi-annual visits from parents; at other times they multitask as display spaces or work areas. The latter is true especially in Bengaluru where, apparently, I’m not the only one who’s discovered the joys of working from home.
If you’re connected, the future looks privacy-free. Many e-commerce start-ups have already upped their use of intelligent technology to understand us. Myntra’s algorithms can figure out your fashion sense from your purchase and browsing history. “We can almost draw a pen portrait of each user’s taste,” says Prasad Kompalli, head of e-commerce at the online fashion store. Myntra knows where you stand on the conservative-edgy dresser continuum; how price-conscious you are; how occasion-led your purchases are; whether you’re one of those types who just hangs out (the real-world equivalent is window shopping) or actually shops; and if you’re a ditherer seeking inspiration/guidance or the type who knows exactly what you want.
I know I’ve often found books on my Kindle based on my reading history but a fortnight back when e-commerce firm Amazon announced that self-published authors would be paid on the number of pages people read rather than the number of books downloaded, it was obvious the company knows much more about us than the last title we read.
So really, these guys can tell a lot about your life.
Pizza is the most commonly ordered dish in the evening, as restaurant-search portal Zomato has found (maybe that’s why we don’t use our dining tables and why online grocer BigBasket now stocks a frozen pizza—with a multigrain base since we’ve rediscovered millets). North India still rules the food game (although Chinese and Asian food is not far behind). While we are experimenting with healthier food and non-traditional dishes, the ordering in staples haven’t really evolved. No newer dish has come close to the platinum status of dal makhani, butter chicken, chicken biryani, paneer butter masala and good old hakka noodles, according to Zomato data.
Lots of us order in from our workplaces. “Most of our users eat out anywhere between three and four times a week; a significant increase from when we started back in 2008,” says Durga Raghunath, senior vice-president of growth at Zomato.
On Myntra, men shop more, and the majority of credit cards used belong to men. More window shoppers are women. Men take less time buying, women want to explore before taking a decision. “They log in almost every day and want to see something new,” says Kompalli. Men head straight for that Nike Air Max shoe. Myntra’s core users are between 18 and 27 years old and almost evenly split between big cities and smaller cities/towns so the company has a unique understanding of the youth. “They believe they can get anything, they deserve everything,” says Kompalli.
In connected India, technology is for all, not just the urban educated, he adds. Technology is a relatively new entrant in the lives of many people—they are familiar with WhatsApp but they may never have used email. It doesn’t matter that they didn’t grow up with technology, they understand it better than their fancy, big city counterparts.
Fashion is more about identity than vanity. “It’s not a competition, it’s about the self. ‘I want to look good and I don’t shy away from whatever makes me look good’. It’s the democratization of looking good,” adds Kompalli. Women are experimenting more with Western clothes.
Hari Menon, co-founder and chief executive officer of e-grocer BigBasket, has seen a different side of us. “Time has become a big constraint at every phase,” he says. Dual-working families are the norm. Even when the children grow up, we want to keep occupied. When we have time, we want to utilize it to go on holiday, and not to do chores. Our needs are increasing. We want more variety. “Merchandisers are always on their toes for the next new thing,” says Menon. Health-consciousness is big. Wholewheat bread sells more than white bread on BigBasket. We are shifting to the organic, even in staples.
We’ve all been eating mangoes these past months so which is our favourite variety? In Mumbai and Pune the Alphonso mango will always be king but others prefer the Banganpalli. Sob. Not counting the potato-tomato-onion trio, our vegetable consumption index is as follows: cauliflower, cabbage, cucumber, bottle gourd, ladies finger, brinjal, carrot, peas and radish.
Senior citizens now constitute 10-12% of BigBasket’s consumers, up from 1-2% a couple of years ago. We’ve encouraged our parents to order groceries online too. Many were online anyway to stay in touch with their grandchildren.
At Urban Ladder, they want to know even more.
Goel and designer Vikram Viswanath, who is currently running a multi-city consumer survey that aims to dig deeper into our stories, spend a lot of time thinking about why we do things the way we do.
They already know that many of our children still sleep in our beds even though they may have their own nicely decorated rooms. Bengaluru is going the Mumbai way in its quest for clever, foldable, space-saving furniture. We still believe wood is the best material for furniture. Currently we’re going through a mid-century modern phase. We’re sentimental, we can’t let go of dad’s desk. Technology influences how we live.
Though we have moved towards the nuclear family set-up, the “pseudo joint family” remains popular, says Viswanath. We live in close proximity with parents. The two households are intertwined yet have their privacy. We make the most of our balconies—every bit of greenery counts.
We are moving away from ornate, handcrafted furniture to contemporary minimalism (not counting Delhi and Hyderabad, of course). Are we following a global trend or could it be because we are visually crowded once we step out of our homes, wonders Goel. Urban Ladder’s dining chairs are rarely taller than 34 inches because the company believes taller chairs interfere with your line of sight and make the room look crowded. “We don’t know if the theory is right or wrong but it is our theory,” says Goel.
Serial entrepreneur K. Ganesh, who has been involved in setting up eight start-ups in the past five years (with four more in the pipeline) besides being an angel investor in nearly 25 more start-ups, has three key observations about the way we have changed in the past five years. Our aspiration levels are up so our willingness and the desire to pay for quality is very high, he says. We buy more and we certainly want to know much more about what we are buying. Whether it’s Snapdeal or Olacabs or the slew of other start-ups providing instant services, we place a lot of emphasis on convenience. When Ganesh and his wife Meena launched Portea Medical, now India’s largest home healthcare company, they were expecting the demand for doctors and physiotherapists. But the demand for diagnostics on call surprised them. Who wants to go to a laboratory for a blood test when you can call someone home, right?
The only thing that hasn’t changed is how price-sensitive we are. “We want the best value for money. We negotiate on everything possible,” says Ganesh. Which gives me an idea: I propose we ask these firms for regular freebies in exchange for mining all these pieces of our lives.
Priya Ramani will share what’s making her feel angsty/agreeable every fortnight.
Read Priya Ramani’s previous Lounge columns here.
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