India’s Home Decor Industry: Retail’s Underestimated $2 Billion Opportunity

Ramanagaram, Karnataka Oct 28, 2025  – Similar to the handicraft and saree markets, the home decor segment exhibits a fundamentally fragmented structure, characterized by manual distribution, inconsistent merchandising, and widespread SKU disarray. However, these very inefficiencies present a significant opportunity for those capable of bringing order to this chaos.

Much like the saree market, the home decor market is a high-SKU category. Its demand is driven by emotion, special occasions, and regional tastes, yet it relies on unstructured supply chains for sales. Retailers frequently encounter stockouts, product duplication, and limited insight into consumer preferences, while shoppers grapple with challenges in product discovery, trust, authenticity, and quality assurance.

This is precisely where organized national players can effect substantial change. The market requires a platform-centric approach, end-to-end supply chain transparency, and curated models specifically adapted to regional specificities to meet evolving consumer demands.

Let us now delve into the points of friction across the retail value chain in this sector and explore how a meticulously researched strategy can unlock significant retail market potential.

Fragmentation as the Primary Obstacle

While India’s home decor market currently stands at approximately $2 billion and is expanding at over XX% CAGR, it offers greater opportunities than many “mainstream” retail categories. A significant portion of the market remains fragmented, primarily dominated by unbranded goods, local artisans, and regional manufacturing units.

Here’s an analysis of why the unbranded market continues to hold sway:

• Presence of numerous sub-categories and verticals 
  Home decor encompasses diverse segments like lighting, wall art, and decorative items, each featuring distinct materials, craftsmanship, and price points. This complexity hinders brand consolidation.
• Elevated customization requirements 
  Home decor is highly personalized, leading to a proliferation of SKUs that vary in material, design, and color. For instance, brass is often favored for religious idols, while marble is utilized for contemporary art pieces.
• Dynamic regional preferences 
  Consumer trends in the home decor market lean towards handcrafted, regionally inspired designs such as Rajasthan’s blue pottery, Madhubani and Warli paintings, or Pattachitra and Panjor art. This regional diversity makes standardization by national brands exceedingly difficult.

This is where the opportunity lies: Brands that can address these limitations have the potential to lead. This category offers less competition and ample scope for brand building.

Why Home Decor Is Retail’s Most Overlooked Category

The majority of demand in this category stems from artisanal, sustainable, and locally inspired decor. As aspirations and incomes increase, consumers seek authenticity combined with aesthetic appeal.

Secondly, unlike grocery or fashion, home decor provides high margins despite low purchase frequency. This alters the rules of engagement—trust, careful curation, and compelling storytelling become more crucial than discounts or delivery speed.

However, much of today’s product discovery occurs on disorganized marketplaces or through inconsistent offline stores. SKUs lack structure, storytelling is absent, and the overall purchase experience is disjointed.

Finally, with low brand loyalty and a fractured supplier base, this market is primed for platform-driven aggregation. Whether through marketplaces that categorize SKUs by theme, region, or price, or D2C brands specializing in lighting, kitchen decor, or wall art, the untapped potential is immense and ready for market ownership.

From Product to Platform: The Strategy for Expansion

To fully capitalize on this category, retailers must begin perceiving it as a design-led lifestyle segment. According to our research, the formula for success could involve:

• Regional Curation at Scale: Organize artisanal supply chains based on region, technique, and aesthetic.
• Digitized Catalogues: Effective storytelling is key to making a product desirable. Products need to be branded with their narratives—be it their artisanship, materials, sustainability quotient, or regional specialty.
• Quality Control and SKU Structuring: Introduce predictability into a category where each product is currently unique.
• Omnichannel Distribution: Integrate offline experiences with online home decor platforms and build trust through formats like pop-up stores, studios, or hybrid retail models.
• Influencer Collaboration: Consumers crave inspiration. Collaborate with influencers who can help convey your brand’s story to a wider audience.

How Redseer Can Assist You in This Endeavor

At Redseer, our mission is to ‘Solve for New and What’s Next’. We have consistently provided investors and industry players with profound insights and strategic advice on high-growth markets and emerging trends, enabling them to scale effectively with the right strategy at the opportune moment.

Historically, we have observed that early entrants gain valuable time to experiment, define their niche, and establish themselves with a superior understanding of the market and reduced competition. If you are exploring investment opportunities in home decor, aspire to introduce structure, narrative, and scale to India’s Retail Market, or manage a D2C home decor brand in India, we encourage you to connect with one of our Retail Consulting Partners, Kushal Bhatnagar, who can guide you on this journey.