Bissell, the leading company in homecare solutions, headquartered out of Michigan, has announced it is back to the Indian market after six long years with an entire range of vacuum cleaners. It expects India will play a major role in its future growth strategy.
Pointing to the country’s demographic structure and the rapid economic growth it has witnessed during the last decade, Max Bissell, Global Markets President, stated that although India is currently a relatively small market for floor care at an international level, the promise remains huge. “We believe that India will be a very important market in the future. If we consider the population and the opportunities ahead of us, this is indeed an investment for the future,” he remarked.
Bissell has also formed a distribution partnership with Cavitak Global Commerce to re-enter India. The company will sell portable wet and dry vacuum cleaning systems, such as ‘SpotClean Hydrosteam’ and ‘SpotClean Proheat’, which are already selling on the online portal of Amazon.
“This is an investment for the next generation, enabling us to enter the market with a viewpoint that although it may not be enormous at first, it will plant seeds that will grow into significant opportunities over time,” Bissell said.
The idea is to get our feet wet through e-commerce before we transit into offline sales. Initially, Bissell will focus on e-commerce sales through sites like Amazon and Flipkart, but once the volumes pick up, it will look offline. The company’s primary focus will be on floor care products, though it will examine contiguous segments later.
On the volume side, Bissell said the company might just wait for its own opportune moment to enter the Indian market. “We will continue to incubate for a period, knowing that as the market matures we will be well-positioned to capture growth,” he said.
Bissell had earlier piloted with Eureka Forbes in 2018 but later exited the Indian market. “We partnered with Eureka Forbes, which followed a unique door-to-door selling model. But we felt that the innovative products we were introducing to the market needed far better storytelling. The feedback received has reinforced how well placed we are for success in India,” he said.
Would you return? What’s the plan?” Bissell was asked when the firm would return. “Perhaps it’s late, but for us, this is a thoughtful decision,” he said. “We’re not here to compete on prices. We want to be on quality, not on price. We don’t want to be the cheapest in the market. We want to give substantial value to the consumer. We want to have appropriate pricing on a global scale,” he said.
The US, Europe, China, Australia, and parts of Africa are presently endowed with a strong presence of Bissell as it readies to expand further into Asia, specifically into India as a focus area.
Other than portable wet and dry vacuum cleaning systems, Bissell plans to launch cordless stick vacuums for daily use as well as deep cleaning in the next months. According to reports from Statista, the Indian market of vacuum cleaners is likely to reach USD 193.30 million, approximately Rs 1,625 crore by 2024, with an estimated annual growth rate of 9.31% CAGR during the five years till then.
It has lately become more competitive, with huge players such as Eureka Forbes, Dyson, Philips, Bosch, LG, Samsung, and Panasonic trying to cash in on the swelling demand that has been triggered by rapid urbanisation in the country.
The company was founded in 1876 by Melville Bissell and has since risen to become a market leader in North America in the floor care products space.
