On your fingertips

Co-live with a click

Lifestyle solutions are not just restricting themselves to smart homes. The basic framework of society is evolving towards a new genre, that of shared living in India. Co-living or communal living is the latest habitat trend transforming the norms of rented accommodation life. Co-living is an exciting experience as it has done away with the fear of nasty landlords, hefty rental deposits and setting up a new home from scratch. Co-sharing living spaces provide centralised wifi and common laundry and cooking areas. Housekeeping too, for professionals with a time crunch, is an app away, or click. These co-living start-ups are not just restricting their offerings to accommodation and amenities, but including networking, therapies, games, fitness, discounts and events geared around the requirements of their users. Some co-living hubs even provide pups for company if needed!

Furniture gets smart too!
In this journey of smart phones to smart homes, home innovation like wall solutions are creating wall TV screens to match the elegance and colour schemes of home décor. It’s no surprise that furniture enterprises are also customising retail solutions for products. As convenience becomes more and more contextual, furniture design is rewriting erstwhile ergonomic factors to stay a step ahead of the expectations of a virtually-driven world. Globally, the online home décor market is projected to have a 20 percent growth rate by 2020. Visualisation technologies are increasing pre-purchase confidence and sellers are adopting Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR and VR) in omni channel strategies of experience marketing. It is important to note that that a retail store experience remains a win-win for the furniture sector as heavy purchase decisions are based on physical experience rather than virtual.

With the festival season already under way, brands are investing heavily in consumer experience management. But in this milieu of digital marketing tactics, it still remains upto the customer to make intelligent and informed decisions to enable smart lifestyles, whether it’s in one’s personal space or a shared space, yet not all disruptors can replace intuitive and experiential buying.

— The writer started with family brand Tubestyle, and later conceptualised and built Vyom, focusing on innovative design, form and finish, delivering customised solutions.