Urban Ladder expanding offline stores

Furniture retailer Urban Ladder, future growth seems to be in the realm of traditional brick-and-mortar stores. After securing a single-brand-retail trade licence last year, Urban Ladder opened six large-format stores in Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR that now contribute more than one-third of its overall revenue. The company now wants to raise $35-40 million to expand its offline presence, adding stores in Mumbai, Chennai and Pune by January next year. Urban Ladder’s aggressive offline ramp-up plan comes as Swedish furniture retailer Ikea launched its first Indian store in Hyderabad last month. On other hand, Pepperfry, too, is aggressively expanding offline. Such aggressive expansion plan of Urban Ladder is an added business opportunity for the signage companies whose activities engaging in in-store branding and graphic printing projects.