M.H. Polymers and the Founder of Fresh Up
Fresh Up to establish a pan India presence with its new facility in South India
Q What made you to think about a mattress brand of your own?
Basically, we have been in the PU Foam industry for the past 30 years. And so, when I joined my family business, I decided to vertically integrate and start a mattress brand. In India, there are very few people that were sleep on a quality mattress. That gives us a huge opportunity, having more than 130 cr people. And out of it, some 55 percent of people have not been sleeping on a mattress at all. And out of the 45 percent, half the market was in the organized sector and half was in the unorganized sector. So that shows that the mattress Industry in India is still in its initial stages. To get the brand leverage, or get the leverage of building a brand, I decided to launch my mattress brand by the name of “Fresh Up”.
Q What are the challenges you faced in this journey?
As far as the challenges are concerned, I would say the biggest challenge that any mattress brand in India faces is the perceived value of a customer. So, a customer, by and large, would spend a lot of money on different things like cars, cell phones and big, lots of different products. But mattress has a very low perceived value when it comes to consumers’ minds. But that is the biggest challenge that I face, that consumers are not willing to spend that much on a mattress even though they’re spending almost one-third of their lives on a mattress.
Q Looking at the product, which market is more potential for your brand?
Tier-one markets have much higher potential, but they are much more difficult to tap into. So, I would say in my case, tier two, and tier three cities have worked wonders for us.
Q What innovations are you planning to create in your brand in the coming days?
We have already pivoted from a mattress-only brand to a home solution brand. We already expanded our portfolio from a mattress-exclusive brand to a home studio brand. So that’s what we are focusing on in terms of further growth.