Siddhant Bhalinge sits in an office against a background of the bone-dry slopes of the tekdi and grey high-rises under construction. His office is more vibrant, with a scattering of plants in pots, including a peace lily at his table. Nine years ago, Bhalinge had defied sceptics by setting up an online store to supply “everything related to gardening”. ‘Ugaoo’ was born and has become one of India’s top portals for various categories pertaining to plant lifestyle, from planters to fertilizers to seeds to garden tools. Today, it is present in 16 cities and, through quick commerce alone, sells 5,000 plants every day.
“Right now, the gardening market in India is close to $9 billion (approximately Rs 78,000 crore), of which the landscaping business that comprises public infra, huge developments and gardens make up $5 billion (approx Rs 43,334 crore). The gardening market, where people are actually buying plants, fertilizers, machinery and garden tools, among others makes up $4 billion (approx Rs 34,667 crore),” Bhalinge says.
“This financial year, Ugaoo will close at close to Rs 100 crore. We see our sales growing about 40 to 50 per cent year on year. So, our plan over the next five years is to cross the Rs 500-crore mark as there is a huge market that is yet to be organised,” the founder-CEO adds.
Story continues below this ad
A few days ago, Ugaoo opened a 5,000 sq ft store in Koregaon Park, a testimony to how far the company has travelled and how much more it aims to cover.
Bhalinge comes from a family that created one of India’s oldest vegetable seed companies, the 140-year-old Namdeo Umaji Agritech India, which – with its 200 nationwide distributors – reaches a market that mostly comprises rural and commercial farmers. “I was always at the farm and was exposed to new technologies in seeds. My father had introduced hybrid papaya and hybrid chili to India,” says Bhalinge. He went to the US to study landscape architecture and “that’s where I learned the value that plants had to people’s lives”.
Bhalinge loved design and could understand plants well. So, when he returned to India, it hit him how the industry was disappointing in terms of specialised gardening stores. “Many people were going to agriculture stores and buying jugadu products. It was very unorganised. I also felt that the way the plants were presented could be better. In the West, I had seen big box stores that made it easier for people to adopt plants and select the right kind of plant. I saw that, in India, an experience had to be built,” he says.
Though the company launched in December 2015, it spent the first three years educating consumers on the right kind of indoor plants, where to keep them, which were the low-light plants, which were semi-shade plants and which flowering plants could be grown inside, rather than focus on sales. As trust built, the company noticed that millennials had begun to buy plants from them, though, today, the older generation also makes up the customer base.
Story continues below this ad
“We are now building the new-age consumer or the next generation of consumers who prefer buying plants online for the sake of convenience. I also feel the local nursery does not give them adequate knowledge and quality is not consistent,” he says.
Ugaoo’s ethos is to use science and present a finished product. The company has a 25-acre nursery in Talegaon, where they grow almost 2 lakh plants a month. But customer enquiries are coming in for more than plants. “We have launched a garden machinery segment as well at our new store. We have lawnmowers, chain saws and so on. It was for this reason that we needed a larger space and Koregaon Park was ideal. We are planning to hold a lot of workshops, at least one every week. We are going to have these plant swaps and gardening meetups. The entire third floor is reserved for events and anything related to plants,” he says.
A new challenge has come in with rising temperatures. Bhalinge points out that it is difficult to believe that we are only in March. Climate change has impacted consumer behaviour as well, especially in the north, where people stop buying indoor plants because they fear these will perish in the heat. But more people want knowledge about living with plants.
“Wherever construction is happening and new flats or offices are coming up, that is where we do well. The people, who are buying those flats, are mostly young adults and they tend to buy from Ugaoo,” says Bhalinge.
Expand
Click here to join Express Pune WhatsApp channel and get a curated list of our stories
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Comments are closed.