Survey on Home Improvement Marketplace in India with squareO.in
                     
Everyone agrees that Home Renovation is not an easy job and comes with a wide range of 
experiences. There has been many instances where the overall experience has left both 
the Designer and the Customer deeply frustrated and disappointed. It’s one thing to say 
that the market is unorganized and fragmented which leads to such experiences, but as a 
young startup with great aspirations to change the overall working dynamics, we wanted 
to get to the bottom of this. 
We have recently conducted a detailed survey asking relevant questions to both Designers 
and Homeowners, to understand the root cause of such discomfort. Our survey revealed 
many interesting aspects regarding the overall working dynamics and helped us pave way 
to various solutions that we intent to provide on our platform.
Some key takeaways from the survey are provided below:
Designers’ Current source to find Where do Designers’ typically Extent of Work Scope 
work operate from? Designer’s typically take
Why doesn’t Designer’s take up larger What is the most Common source Source of latest technology trends and 
role in Home Improvement? of Conflict with Homeowners other information 
What the survey said?
While we sent out a detailed questionnaire seeking information regarding the entire working model, some key 
takeaways that we could infer are as follows:
 72% of the Designers from our survey are freelancers who directly engage with Homeowners. Only 16% of 
the Designers we spoke to prefer engaging with a Contractor instead.
 
 64% of the Designers still use offline reference to win new work. Only 12% of the Designers use online lead 
generating platforms such as Houzz and Homify. With 14%, Facebook is also a major lead generating source.
 
 Designers’ have no specific working model and equally prefer Turnkey and Design + Supervision methods. 
 
 When we asked, what stops Designer from taking up larger roles, 48% says it’s due to the fact that 
Homeowners engage a Contractor first and another 26% says homeowner doesn’t see Designer’s 
requirement as critical.
 
 47% Designers feel the biggest source of conflict with Homeowners is in price escalation. 
The Home Improvement Experience – From Homeowner’s Perspective
While our primary focus of the survey was to understand the home improvement 
dynamics from a Designer’s perspective, we identified a select few Homeowners who 
recently renovated their home and discussed with them to understand their 
perspectives as well. 
Key takeaways from our discussion with Homeowners are provided below:
Whom did Homeowner engage for their Home 
Improvements? Source of conflict with Contractor while undertaking Home 
Improvements
Did contractor's knowledge and ability helped 
you make right decisions?
What the survey said?
Our discussion with the Homeowners who has recently undertaken Home Improvements provided an 
interesting insight into their perception about what they feel could be improved. We will try to cover these in 
detail in our next Blog, but in the meanwhile, here are some key takeaways from those discussions:
 Large percentage of homeowners still prefer to go with a Contractor as this is a standard practice prevailing 
around them. 
 They also typically feel hiring an Interior Designer is expensive.
 Contractor appointed Designer didn’t provide much of a value add.
 However, 66% of them felt the contractor’s knowledge did not help them make right decisions.
 Price variation and not adhering to timelines and commitments were primary source of conflict with 
contractors.
 None of the projects we surveyed completed within committed budget and timelines.
Conclusion
While there could be many inferences that could be drawn from the study but few findings such as 
Homeowner’s preference to use a contractor, their opinion on Designers, and overall lack of 
accountability towards committed timelines and budget cannot be argued. 
We will dig a bit deeper about these findings in our next blog and identify few solutions which could 
help improve the overall Home Improvement experience.
We hope you find the contents in this article helpful and would be glad to hear about your 
experiences as well. You may write to us at [email protected] in case if you would like to reach out to 
use. 
 
Regards,
squareO.in 
Feel free to get in touch with us, in case if you need help find your right Home Interior Partner!
Visit us at https://squareo.in/
+91-90000 08837
facebook.com/squareO.in
www.squareO.in
linkedin.com/company/squareo-in
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