DEAR HOUZZ, COME TO INDIA. WE ARE WAITING…

When it comes to companies expanding into foreign markets for the first time, there is no such thing as “too big to fail.” Instead, what we found is that this old adage instead holds true: the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

In this way, an American company, such as Houzz, can severely underestimate a new market, and when that new market is India, such a mistake can be both costly and humiliating. This has led our dear competitor to lay back and wait for its foreign competitors in India to clear all the hassles for them even before they enter the market. Dear HOUZZ, show some audacity to show up in India to build your own empire rather than waiting for someone to serve it on your plate.

History tells us that around the mid-2000s many Internet-based sales companies started eyeing China as the big economic prize. With a rapidly expanding middle class and over one billion people, the country had — and still has — enormous purchasing power. eBay, the San Jose, California-based online consumer-to-consumer corporation (or simply an e-commerce site), nearing its 10th birthday at the time, entered the country in 2004 with hopes of beating competitors to the reward. Two short years later, then Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman flew to Shanghai to announce the company’s exit from China’s online auction market.

Houzz for Indian market is just an online world of good photographs. It looks all gold and glittery unless someone wants the look to be implemented in their abode. In countries like India, their services fail miserably when it comes down to ground reality. To sum it up, following are the core problems that any client would face while trying to avail services from Houzz in India:

• There are hardly any local interior designers listed on Houzz. How feasible is it to trust someone you contacted over a mere social platform and, then, paying for a design made for them by a virtual designer (from someone they haven’t met and discussed their ideas!)?
  
• Although people in India love the designs on Houzz, what shall they do with it when they are far from being implemented?
  
• Let’s assume, if the client takes up all the hassle to find a contractor who claims he could replicate a design, then where is the GLOBAL hassle free process that Houzz claims about??

Similar situation was encounter by Hemant Singh, an IIT-B alumnus, when he tried looking for practical solutions in India. He came across websites like Homelane, Livspace, Urbanladder etc., but the services that they offered were nowhere near to what he was looking for.  He, then, founded Houssup Services Pvt. Ltd., in January 2016, along with Devendra Baghel, an IIT-B alumnus, and decided to organize the existing clutter in the home furnishing market and transform the conventional approach of interior designing throughout nation. They wanted Houssup to become a global solution, and therefore, adopted the community approach from the very first day. They started spreading their ideas among their friends and families through social media, gathered an enthusiastic team of people to work with and soon formed a social network of creative and talented group of interior designers from all over the country! Today, Houssup has a vision to make the most transparent, cost effective, time effective and creative process for end-to-end interior designing.

Simlutaneously, what Houzz expects to do is to have more traffic from India than existing market players, with virtually no marketing efforts which could evidently be seen on their facebook page @HouzzIndia.

The only thing we are left to say with is, DEAR HOUZZ, COME TO INDIA.

INDIA IS WAITING… You, my Goliath counterpart are equipped with the wrong set of tools to face this market.

Now the ball is in your court. The proverbial clock of doom is ticking. Tick-tock! Tick-tock!