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November 27, 2025
Viveat Susan Pinto, Financial Express
November 27, 2025
Several of the country’s top retailers, malls and brands have kicked off a shopping extravaganza on the occasion of Black Friday, offering steep discounts across product categories.
A Western import, the day which symbolises the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the US, the UK and Europe, gained popularity in India over the past two years as a crucial sale window after Diwali.
Domestic retailers, say experts, are using this period to exhaust existing inventory at steep discounts as they gear up for the winter season.
This year, discounts are up to 60-80% across fashion, lifestyle, electronics and cosmetics, higher than the 50% seen last year. E-tailers such as Ajio have pushed the pedal even harder, offering as much as 85-90% on denims, jackets and select products during the sale this year.
Bigger Deals, Longer Duration
“Retailers in India are building Black Friday as an important off-season peak. The participation of brands is growing, deals are getting bigger and the sale days are more,” Devangshu Dutta, founder and chief executive of Third Eyesight, a Gurugram-based retail consultancy, said. That is visible from the intense promotional activity this year. What began as a flash sale event a couple of years ago has now extended to a week-long sale period this year, experts said.
Pushpa Bector, senior executive director and business head, DLF Retail, said that brands this year are ready with strong offers, driven in part by GST cuts and a stable economic outlook. “Early trends show healthy interest across categories by consumers. We expect a strong double-digit uplift over the Black Friday period, setting us up for a strong close to the year,” she said.
Retailer Strategies
While Black Friday typically falls on the last Friday of November, some retailers such as Flipkart, Croma, Vijay Sales, Nykaa and Tata Cliq have kicked off their Black Friday sales last week itself to build on the excitement. For electronic retailers, said Nilesh Gupta, director, Vijay Sales, Black Friday will extend into Cyber Monday next week (falling on December 1), making it even more relevant for them to focus on the occasion.
“We’ve been building Black Friday as a retail property in the last few of years as it fills the post-Diwali void quite well. Black Friday also extends well into Cyber Monday which comes immediately after. While we started with a few categories in the initial years, we now have offers across all our segments. Discounts are up to 45-50% this year in line with last year,” he said.
Rival Croma is also offering up to 50% discount on products this year, executives said.
“Black Friday has become one of India’s most anticipated shopping moments. At Croma, we are focused on delivering value across categories with steal deals, bundled savings, and limited-time offers,” Croma’s CEO & MD Shibashish Roy said.
Croma will also introduce a special late-night shopping window on November 28 at select stores across India. For two hours—from 10 pm to 11:59 pm —these stores will remain open with exclusive additional discounts on some of the season’s most in-demand products.
Nishank Joshi, chief marketing officer, Nexus Select Malls, said it is elevating the Black Friday experience with bigger assured gifts, giveaways and reward points if consumers upload their bills on their Nexus One apps.
Mayank Lalpuria, director, marketing (north, central & west) at Phoenix Mills, which operates Phoenix malls, said that it was expecting double-digit year-on-year growth and strong footfalls during the Black Friday period.
Tanu Prasad, CEO – Malls, Oberoi Realty, said that the firm was seeing far more planned purchases towards premium products and a rise in family-oriented outings. “We are anticipating an encouraging response at the (Black Friday) weekend resulting in a strong kick-off to the (December) shopping season,” Prasad said.
Direct-to-consumer brands such as Inc.5 footwear and NEWME said that they have rolled out big deals for Black Friday. “We’re looking at a 30x surge in orders across both offline and online for Black Friday,” NEWME Co-founder & CEO Sumit Jasoria said.
“Our customers look forward to Black Friday, and this year, we’re excited to bring fresh new launches, curated edits, and our widest range yet,” Rajesh Kadam, CEO, Inc.5 Footwear, said.
(Published in Financial Express)
admin
September 24, 2025
Shabori Das & Sagar Malviya, Economic Times
Bengaluru/Mumbai, 24 September 2025
Chinese fast-fashion platform Shein plans to triple the number of launches in India and shrink its design-to-launch timeline by a third to deepen its push into an increasingly competitive market, a top official said.
The company, which re-entered India through a partnership with Reliance Retail in February this year, said it is overhauling its supply chain to enable faster turnaround times. To achieve this, it has moved away from large-scale manufacturing hubs to smaller production lines with each line focused on creating a single new design daily.
“Our current timelines, measured from ‘thought to site’, stand at 46 days. We are targeting 30 days,” said Vineeth Nair, chief executive of Reliance’s fashion platform Ajio that steers Shein in India. “We currently deliver 320 styles a day – about 10,000 a month – and plan to scale that to over 30,000 styles monthly in the coming months,” he told ET.
Speaking about the speed of manufacturing, Nair said, “We quantify our options in terms of production lines, with each line optimised to deliver one design option per day, rather than factories. Some of our large production units have been repurposed into multiple lines.”
Shein first launched in India in 2018 with its own online shop. However, the app was banned by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) along with TikTok, WeChat and over 55 other Chinese apps.
One of the primary issues and controversies surrounding Shein’s India operations was the use of the consumer data by the Chinese apparel retailer.
Under the current partnership model, Reliance Retail is operating Shein under licensing agreement and ensures complete customer data ownership as per the company.
Unlike international markets, Shein India products are made in India.
“It’s still early days – just about three months since we introduced Shein to the India Gen Z,” Nair said. “And we are still in the process of adding multiple products, which we intend to do in the next few months.”
He said the brand is witnessing two million daily average users, dominated by 21-year-old women who account for 62% of the traffic.
Shein, the world’s biggest ecommerce-centred fashion retailer, however, may find it hard to replicate its global success in India, according to Devangshu Dutta, founder of retail consulting firm Third Eyesight.
“Shein’s edge internationally has been its speed of dropping its products, and the width of its product category. The India model is not the same. The India model of fashion is slower, and the product category width is not as large,” he noted. “Hence, the brand will in all probability end up competing with the already established market like Myntra, Zudio and the likes.”
(Published in Economic Times)
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August 31, 2024
MG Arun, India Today
Aug 31, 2024
Nearly five years after the Centre brought in norms to rein in multinational e-commerce companies operating in India, Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal sparked fresh controversy by raising concerns over the rapid expansion of e-commerce. He also drew attention to the pricing strategies used by some e-commerce firms, questioning what he termed “predatory pricing”.
“Are we going to cause huge, social disruption with this massive growth of e-commerce? I don’t see it as a matter of pride that half our market may become part of the e-commerce network 10 years from now; it is a matter of concern,” Goyal said at an event in New Delhi last week.
His comments come at a time when the ecommerce business in India is growing exponentially. Estimated at $83 billion (around Rs 7 lakh crore) as of FY22, the market is expected to grow to $150 billion (Rs 12.6 lakh crore) by FY26. The growth will be due to multiple levers: a growing middle class, rising internet penetration, the proliferation of smartphones, convenience of online shopping and increasing digitisation of payments. The overall Indian retail market was pegged at $820 billion (Rs 69 lakh crore) in 2023, according to a report published by the Boston Consulting Group and the Retailers Association of India. E-commerce still comprises only about 7 per cent of that, as per Invest India.
The Indian e-commerce market is dominated by global giants, including Amazon and Walmart (which took over Flipkart in 2018). They, along with domestic players, offer huge discounted prices compared to retail prices, which drives online sales significantly. In FY23, Amazon Seller Services and Flipkart posted Rs 4,854 crore and Rs 4,891 crore losses, respectively. Goyal’s argument is that these losses are due to their predatory pricing.
“Is predatory pricing policy good for the country?” Goyal asked, while stressing the need for a balanced evaluation of e-commerce’s effects, particularly on traditional retailers such as restaurants, pharmacies and local stores. “I’m not wishing away ecommerce—it’s there to stay,” he said. Later, he said e-commerce uses technology that aids convenience. But there are 100 million small retailers whose livelihood depends on their businesses.
The Centre has specific laws that permit foreign direct investment (FDI) in e-commerce exclusively for business-to-business (B2B) transactions. However, according to Goyal, these laws have not been followed entirely in letter and spirit. Currently, India does not allow FDI in the inventory-based model of e-commerce, where e-commerce entities own and directly sell goods and services to consumers (B2C). FDI is permitted only in firms operating through a marketplace model, where an e-commerce entity provides a platform on a digital or electronic network to facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers (B2B).
The country’s laws also stipulate that in marketplace models, e-commerce entities cannot ‘directly or indirectly influence the sale price of goods or services’ and must maintain a ‘level playing field’. Entities in the marketplace model re allowed to transact with sellers registered on their platform on a B2B basis. However, each seller or its group company is not permitted to sell more than 25 per cent of the total sales of the marketplace model entity.
Goyal said certain structures have been created to suit large e-commerce players with “deep pockets”. Algorithms have been used to drive consumer choice and preference. For instance, several pharmacies have disappeared, he said, and a few large chains are dominating the retail space. He invoked the importance of platforms like the Open Network for Digital Commerce where small businesses can sell their products.
E-commerce firms counter the argument on predatory pricing. “It is the sellers’ discretion as to what price they should sell at,” says an industry source. The e-commerce player who provides the platform seldom has a role in it, he explains. “Sellers could be doing clearance sales or liquidation of old products at cheaper prices. Some sellers also source products at manufacturing cost and park it with e-commerce firms instead of involving warehousing agents. This helps cut their overhead costs and allows them to offer lower prices on the platform,” he adds.
Some experts are of the view that the government should not step in with controls and allow the market forces to play their role in determining prices. Price controls may lead to shortages, inferior product quality and the rise of illegal markets. Moreover, the Competition Commission of India (CCI), which is mandated to act against monopolies, may be given more teeth. It is ironical that, on the one hand, the Centre wants more FDI to flow in, but places more and more controls on foreign players on the other hand. At the core are the interests of small traders and retailers, a key section of the electorate.
Others argue that the government has a role to ensure that there is fair competition. “It is not just small retailers the government would be speaking for, but for large domestic players too,” says Devangshu Dutta, founder of consultancy firm Third Eyesight, emphasising that the government’s role should be to establish laws and practices that promote fairness.
According to him, it is no secret that e-commerce has grown through discounts. “For large e-commerce firms, market acquisition happens by acquiring a share of the consumer’s mind and through pricing. When a large sum is spent on advertisements, it is for acquiring the mind share of the consumer,” he says. “Pricing matters in a big way too. Whether you call it predatory pricing or market acquisition pricing depends on which side of the fence you are.”
(This article was originally published in the India Today edition dated September 9, 2024)
admin
July 25, 2023
Suprita Anupam, Inc42
Jul 25, 2023
– Following a stock downgrade, Nykaa might lose some visibility among public market investors at a time when competition in the beauty ecommerce space is intensifying
– Nykaa, which has been the most popular beauty marketplace, has had to fight off Reliance Tira, Flipkart-owned Myntra, Tata CLiQ and others but has to invest heavily in omnichannel and private label expansion
– As its profitability and traction have declined, Nykaa needs to fix things for the long run without losing too much money as it does not have the capital reserves similar to its rivals
In the first week of July, the Nykaa stock took a significant hit, falling 42% from its 52-week high. Further, the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) downgraded the stock, dropping it from the top 100 listed companies in the country. As of now, the company is ranked somewhere between 101 and 250 on the market capitalisation threshold.
From a near monopoly in the beauty ecommerce space, Nykaa has lost its top spot. Not to mention, new competition, in the form of D2C brands and behemoths such as Tata and Reliance, has complicated the situation even more.
The downgrade by the AMFI means that Nykaa is no longer an attractive largecap stock in India, and this could have an impact on the company’s visibility in the near future.
So, what exactly triggered this collapse?
It was only in November 2021 that Nykaa’s INR 5,352 Cr IPO saw 82x subscription, the highest among large startup IPOs in India. Having withstood competition from marketplaces such as Amazon India and Walmart-backed Flipkart and Myntra, Nykaa seemingly set a new benchmark for Indian ecommerce startups with its blockbuster IPO.
But the last 20 months have been nothing short of disruptive. Reliance-backed AJIO has grown in stature, and the Indian conglomerate has also launched Tira in the beauty ecommerce space.
Meanwhile, Tata has also bolstered its beauty and personal care product assortment on its platform Tata CLiQ. Furthermore, the Tatas have added 20 beauty tech stores across the country, aligned with its ecommerce operations, while Myntra Beauty has registered 2X-3X growth in recent months and expanded its brand collection. Therefore, Nykaa needs to come up with something exceptional to compete with the aforementioned well-funded BPC contenders.
Adding to the company’s woes was the announcement of the issue of bonus shares in a 5:1 ratio and changes in key management personnel after a successful IPO. This did not go down well with investors. Bonus shares announcement was largely perceived as a way to keep the company’s anchor investors from offloading shares at the end of their IPO lock-in period.
Experts believe that amid declining year-on-year profitability, Nykaa could see a cash crunch as it prepares to combat with deep-pocketed corporations. For now, it will be interesting to see if Nykaa can hold onto its market share?
Nykaa’s Losing Its Footfall To AJIO & Myntra
First, let’s look at the bread-and-butter for ecommerce platforms such as Nykaa — that is visits, page views, engagement and repeat orders.
It must be noted that Nykaa has separate properties for fashion (Nykaafashion.com) and beauty (nykaa.com). If we look at the performance over the last 3-4 months, the fashion vertical has definitely seen some gains, but Nykaa.com itself has experienced negative growth in total visits.
The flagship property is bleeding users due to an ever-intensifying competition, which is quite clear in the graph given below.
Further, Nykaa, Nykaa Man and Nykaa Fashion have the lowest numbers when it comes to average visit durations.
On the ecommerce front, Nykaa has a lot of catching up to do against its competitors. Some of Nykaa’s private labels — take Dot&Key for instance — have become popular discounted items on Myntra, AJIO, Amazon India and other marketplaces, which shows that the company is forced to use its competition to sell its products.
In contrast, Myntra, AJIO, Tira and Amazon’s private labels are largely walled inside their respective marketplaces. To beat the competition and stay in the public spotlight, Nykaa has opted for the omnichannel strategy, and it is looking to add brand-owned stores on the retail front. But here too, the competition is stiff.
Nykaa Faces Challenges With Its Online-To-Offline Strategy
When we look at the omnichannel operations, Nykaa has 145 physical stores, 38 fulfilment centres, and 2,749 stores of its owned brands. The company plans to open more physical stores this year, according the announcements made in its last earnings call.
Nykaa’s founder and CEO Falguni Nayar had earlier said, “Physical retail is a necessary investment that we need to make, even if it adversely affects overall profitability. So, we are aiming for the optimal mix of online, offline, and duty.”
This is where the situation becomes more complicated. Being primarily an online platform, Nykaa has managed to stay lean and achieve profits thus far. However, opening more stores means more investments and a significant increase in operational expenditure, including higher employee expenses.
Plus, this entails entering into fierce competition with Tata and Reliance.
Reliance Retail alone has launched over 3,300 new stores in FY23 under its various brands, including Tira Beauty, Trends, and others.
Similarly, Tata has been a well-known name in the BPC and fashion industry. It introduced the first-ever cosmetics brand, Lakme Cosmetics, to India (later sold to Unilever). Tata has over 22 in-house labels for its Westside brand, which operates over 200 stores across the country.
While Tata plans to open 20 beauty tech stores, equipped with AI and VR, it already has 391 Zudio stores nationwide.
For Tata and Reliance, it is relatively easier to build an online business backed by their offline stores compared to Nykaa’s strategy of building an offline presence backed by online operations. These large conglomerates have years of experience in building retail brands in the offline space.
So, essentially, Nykaa seems to have lost ground in its strength areas of ecommerce and offline retail, as it is not as experienced as its rivals.
Speaking to Inc42, Devangshu Dutta, the founder and CEO of Third Eyesight, a boutique management consulting firm explained, “Apart from the impact of Covid, in the last 3-4 years, many brands have started moving offline because that’s where the bulk of the business happens. But moving offline means entering a completely different business. You’re not able to centralise inventory as much, and you may not be able to respond to market-specific segments as quickly.”
He also believes, like any other offline retail business, Nykaa will face high operational costs, but it has an advantage in the fact that it may be able to use data more effectively from its online operations. Nevertheless, this is a minor advantage.
“Your store locations have to be correct, and self-sustaining quickly, at least on a cash operating basis. At the business level you may look at profitability in a longer term,” Dutta added.
Profits Plummet: Nykaa’s Other Big Worry
India’s beauty and personal care market, presently valued at $16.8 Bn, is poised to grow at a compound annual rate of 11%, with cosmetics and perfumes categories growing at a faster clip.
According to a joint report by international beauty brand Estée Lauder and Gurugram-based business insights firm 1Lattice, a substantial portion of sales worth about $1.3 Bn are through ecommerce channels. This is expected to grow at a CAGR of 30% during FY22-27, followed by companies that retail beauty products in health and beauty stores and modern retail shops.
With 30% of India’s BPC market share, Nykaa has so far managed to stay ahead in the race. Nykaa’s beauty category (55% of the broad BPC category) saw 33% full-year growth with a GMV of INR 6,649 Cr. On the fashion side, the GMV grew 47% for the full year at INR 2,570 Cr.
BPC and fashion are the two mainstays of Nykaa’s business, even though fashion is a relatively new vertical for the Mumbai-based company. The company had earlier launched Nykaa Man, a separate platform for men’s grooming, beauty and fashion, but with less than 1 Mn visits, it has failed to grow over the last few years while AJIO has grown from 0-37 Mn users, as per analysts.
“At one end, Nykaa’s online PAT has been going down for the last two years, while Nykaa Fashion’s loss for the year has grown consecutively, putting Nykaa business in a fix,” said an analyst from PwC.
Nykaa needs to bring a balance between short-term losses and long-term profits. However, the company’s current strategy fails to show a way out, the analyst added.
The Balancing Act For Nykaa
As per the analyst quoted above, the company’s BPC products have so far had lower prices than Myntra and AJIO, where discounts are typically lower.
However, when compared to Amazon India and its long list of D2C brands and private labels, Nykaa products were slightly more expensive. Amazon also scored over Nykaa with its better supply chain and distribution.
Nykaa banked on product assortment, the assurance of quality and authenticity of products, but as more and more brands join Tira, AJIO and Tata CLiQ, this is also fast eroding.
Access to international brands is no longer exclusive to Nykaa, so it needs to tackle distribution and supply chain, where its rivals score heavily.
Giving Nykaa the benefit of the doubt, a consultant from brokerage firm Motilal Oswal recently said, “There is no clear playbook for these businesses. When Nykaa entered the segment, it was pioneering many aspects in India.”
However, now the company needs to exercise extreme caution regarding expenses and investments because of heavyweight competition with deeper pockets.
P Ganesh, chief financial officer at Nykaa, highlighted that the company still has funds remaining from the IPO, which will be utilised to secure future capital needs.
Ganesh added, “It’s worth noting that while we have observed a considerable increase in working capital as the company scales up, the number of working capital days is expected to stabilise. This means that the amount of funding allocated to working capital should moderate in the future.”
But analysts also believed that Nykaa cannot afford to sacrifice its market share in India’s rapidly growing beauty, personal care, and wellness segment. One thing that is advantageous for Nykaa is that Reliance-owned Tira is still new in the market and will take some time to get to critical mass adoption.
This is a window of opportunity for Nykaa to stretch its lead and fight off its rivals. Nykaa’s brand value primarily comes from its online business, so it must not let offline expenses hinder its online growth plans. However, given the competition, Nykaa is in a Catch-22 situation.
In the BPC segment, owned and private label brands play a vital role in increasing long-term profitability and repeat purchases. All of this will require extensive investment from Nykaa’s leadership — there are segments in BPC where Nykaa has no private label or owned brands.
As of now, the question remains: Can Nykaa maintain its dominance in the online market while facing fierce competition on multiple fronts?
(Published on Inc42)
