How Urban Company went Native for its smart RO water purifiers

Urban Company, a leading home services platform, has forayed into branded consumer products with its sub-brand, Native, by introducing smart RO water purifiers. This foray into consumer products aligns with its vision for innovation and improving user experiences. Native by Urban Company is the first range of water purifiers, which need no servicing for 2 years and are capable of giving an output of 12,000 liters of pure water without needing their filters changed.

In an exclusive interview with Adgully, Smit Shukla, Vice - President, Marketing, Urban Company, shares a lot of insights about the Native smart RO water purifiers, how they have managed to keep the pricing within affordable limits, offering more smart solutions in the times ahead and more.

Urban Company is known for its excellent home services, be it salon services, appliances repair, cleaning, etc. Why did you think of foraying into consumer products with your sub-brand Native?

We have always strived to make the lives of our customers easier. Over the past few years, we have repaired and serviced over a million water purifiers. One pain point we constantly heard from customers is why water purifiers need filter changes and servicing every few months. We decided to address this problem head-on with our new range of Native water purifiers. The Native water purifiers perform flawlessly for 2 years without needing any service, giving customers safe and clean drinking water. Thereafter, they only need servicing once in 2 years. We are backing our claim with a comprehensive zero cost warranty for 2 years, which includes all filters, membranes and spare parts. The purifiers are designed with a lot of thought, and the M2 device is fully integrated into the UC app, giving customers a real-time picture of water quality, consumption and filter life. We are very excited and hope customers will love the product.

What would be the marketing strategies that you would be running across for the RO water purifiers by Native?

First thing is to make consumers aware of the water purifiers by Native that we have launched. We have been primarily a service dominant company. Consumers know us and resonate with us. So, now we are all set to take our product and make it visible to consumers, in a wave after wave way of marketing.  

I feel happy to share that we have already started it with ICC World Cup 2023. We have our spots on TV, while broadcasting of cricket matches. We will also be putting up our hoarders in all the top 4 cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata. We will be playing with our USP that in spite of being so effective and smart, our M1 and M2 RO water purifiers, need no servicing for two years.

We will also be very aggressive on social media platforms, be it Instagram, Facebook etc to make people more aware of our product. More so, looking at the trend of Influencer Marketing, we will be using social Influencers as well. We will show Influencers using it, talk about it, comparing it with our competitors etc. Therefore, I can say we will be adopting 360 degrees marketing strategies, including all other traditional and normal advertising campaigns.

The USP of your RO water purifier is that it requires no services for 2 years. How is that possible as we all know RO filters need to be changed regularly?

The Native water purifiers are made in India and come with state-of-the-art filters, ‘rapid reverse rinse’ technology, and multi-micron filter surfaces that enable filters to last for two years, reducing the overall ownership costs for consumers. Additionally, the IoT feature available in the M2 version of the RO device can help users track real-time TDS levels, water consumption and filter life status on their Urban Company app. Further, Urban Company is offering a ‘zero-cost’ warranty that includes filters, membranes and all other spare parts for the two year period.

Other brands that have been in the market since long, could have developed this, but they did not as majority of the revenue streams comes from the service industry only. Our USP, ‘No service for 2 years’, is not because of competition, but because consumers want it. They are tired of servicing of their ROs every 6-7 months. Sometimes, it is filter change, other times it is membrane change and so on.  According to data, that we collected, people have spent more on maintaining their RO water purifiers than purchasing it. I can say it is 3x the cost of buying a new one.

The M1 and M2 RO water purifiers by Native, which have been launched, look very effective and durable. Would pricing be a ‘pain point’ for consumers? 

Native M1 and M2 models are engineered to deliver clean and safe drinking water for households, equipped with cutting-edge technology and superior-quality filters that sets them apart. They are available at introductory prices of Rs 13,499 and Rs 17,499, respectively. These products can be purchased through the Urban Company app, website, and Amazon, with availability in Croma stores coming soon.

That is very reasonable as compared to the other reputed brands. How did you manage to keep the prices so affordable?

We have developed the product and the pricing keeping in mind the consumers’ perspective.  The consumers have to feel that for these benefits, pricing should not be inappropriate. The competitors are banking on products whose features are significantly less than this, and are keeping it above Rs 20 000. Therefore, we wanted to develop such a product, which is better and doesn’t really pinch the consumer’s pocket. We have really worked hard since the last two years to keep the features more effective and prices very reasonable.

With the launch of Native, what other forthcoming home appliances should we look forward to from Urban Company?

As of now, I cannot really reveal what all is in the pipeline. But what I am sure is that we will be launching Smart door locks in a few months. We have already launched pilot products on our app for consumers. We will continue to see what consumers want. As and when we learn more about the pain points of consumers, we will be launching our home appliances and home solutions.