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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)
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September 5, 2025
Shalinee Mishra, Exchange4Media
5 September 2025
Retailers in India are waking up to a hard truth: customer acquisition can no longer ride on advertising alone. Digital ad spends grew by 14-17% in 2024, touching nearly ₹50,000 crore (as per Pitch Madison report) and accounting for 46% of India’s total ad market. But with customer acquisition costs (CAC) rising 30-35% year-on-year and consumer attention fragmented across platforms, the ad-first growth engine is showing strain. What is emerging instead is an ecosystem where content in the form of video, celebrity-led storytelling, or creator-driven engagement is becoming the direct funnel to commerce.
Flipkart for instance is building influencer production hubs and embedding shoppable videos, Myntra has rolled out its video-first Glamstream, and Amazon has long blurred the line between streaming and shopping through Prime Video and Fire TV. From short videos to celebrity gossip, from beauty blogs to shoppable livestreams, e-commerce giants are no longer just marketplaces; they are evolving into media houses and the trend is only growing.
According to Mindshare’s latest Content Trend Report, India’s branded content marketing industry is now worth ₹10,000 crore, growing at nearly 20% annually, with video formats making up almost half of all spends.
India already has over 270 million online shoppers, a number that Bain projects will rise to 350 million by 2027, making it the world’s second largest e-retail user base. That scale is creating fertile ground for shoppable video and live commerce to take off.
Globally, branded content spend is projected to cross $500 bn by 2027. As per PwC estimates, India’s share is still <2% but among the fastest growing.
Video commerce today largely follows two prominent models. The first is driven by social platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, where shoppable posts allow users to move directly from content to purchase. The second is led by e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Myntra, Nykaa, and Flipkart and others which have added video sections to create immersive shopping experiences within their apps.
Within this, live commerce has emerged as a high-potential format. Meesho and Flipkart, for example, are leading the charge with 2-3% conversion rates, generating an estimated $150-200 million in GMV during festive 2024. Events like Flipkart’s Big Billion Days show how timed livestreams can capture active, purchase-ready audiences.
Meanwhile, influencer-led short videos are driving conversion rates as high as 63%, with beauty and personal care (BPC) and food & beverages (F&B) among the top categories benefiting from this shift. Redseer projects India’s live commerce market could touch $4-5 bn GMV by 2027, up from less than $300 mn today. This surge in shoppable video and live commerce is only the surface of a deeper structural change, one where content itself is becoming the moat that protects brands from rising ad costs, fragmented attention, and fickle consumer loyalty.
Beyond ads: Why content has become retail’s strongest defence
Chirag Taneja, co-founder of e-commerce enablement company GoKwik, framed the trend as a fundamental shift in ownership.
“It’s not just about enhancing top-of-funnel reach, it’s about owning demand, connection, and the touchpoint with end shoppers. For years, brands relied on ads to bring traffic. But acquisition costs have been rising, attention is fragmented, and privacy shifts have made targeting difficult. That’s why content is now the moat. When companies acquire content firms, they’re not just buying eyeballs, they’re securing access to communities that trust and engage with that content.”
According to him, content is collapsing the traditional funnel. “One short video or livestream can take a consumer from awareness to purchase in under a minute. That’s why we see D2C brands treating content as a compounding asset, not just an expense,” he added.
Devangshu Dutta, founder and CEO of management consulting firm Third Eyesight, echoed the sentiment.
“Large companies are buying or partnering with content-driven platforms to capture attention beyond transactional touch points. Short video, regional language content, and influencer-driven discovery are embedding commerce within entertainment. If you want to sell more than a commodity, storytelling is critical. Content builds credibility, differentiation, and trust in a cluttered and price-sensitive market.”
Flipkart bets big on media and creators
The shift is already reshaping strategy at India’s biggest retailers, and Flipkart has moved fastest. Its move to acquire a majority stake in Pinkvilla, a platform built on entertainment and celebrity news signals a clear push to deepen ties with Gen Z and millennials, a cohort that consumes content first and shops later.
“Our acquisition of a majority stake in Pinkvilla is a critical step in our mission to deepen our engagement with Gen Z. Pinkvilla’s robust content IPs and strong connection with its loyal audience base are assets that will accelerate our efforts to leverage content as a key driver of growth,” said Ravi Iyer, Senior Vice President, Corporate at Flipkart.
Flipkart in the last year has exited investments in companies like Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail, where it sold its 7.5% stake in the owner of Pantaloons, Van Heusen, Louis Philippe and Forever 21, as well as BlackBuck, the trucking marketplace that powers India’s mid-mile logistics.
At the same time, the company has doubled down on content and creators. Its Pinkvilla acquisition gives it access to a platform reaching over 60 million monthly users, while in-house features like Flipkart Feed already clock 5–6 million daily video views, highlighting how commerce and content are converging at scale.
Alongside this, Flipkart has launched Creator Cities in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gurgaon, production hubs designed for influencers to shoot and scale shoppable content.
It has also introduced Flipkart Feed, a TikTok-style vertical video feature embedded in its app, offering bite-sized, influencer-led, fully shoppable videos. Myntra, its fashion arm, has developed Glamstream, with more than 500 hours of video-first shopping content across music, beauty, travel and weddings, featuring stars like Badshah, Tabu, Zeenat Aman and Vijay Deverakonda.
Flipkart has also partnered with YouTube Shopping, allowing creators with over 10,000 subscribers to tag Flipkart products in videos, Shorts and livestreams, enabling viewers to buy directly while creators earn commissions.
Amazon’s head start in content-commerce convergence Flipkart is not alone. Its biggest rival Amazon has long understood this convergence. Through Prime Video and its original programming slate, Amazon has built an entertainment ecosystem that doubles as a commerce funnel. The shows and films on Prime do not merely entertain; they drive shopping behaviour, influence trends, and lock audiences into Amazon’s larger universe of services. With Fire TV and Alexa integrations, the company has blurred the line between watching and buying, a model others are now racing to replicate.
D2C brands treat content as growth engine
Closer home, the Good Glamm Group, now closed, had pioneered a content-led commerce ecosystem in beauty and personal care. Through acquisitions like ScoopWhoop and MissMalini Entertainment, the group stitched together a portfolio where content platforms brought in audiences, who were then nudged towards its direct-to-consumer brands.
This “editorial-to-checkout” model demonstrated how cultural capital could be translated into purchase pathways. Alibaba has taken the strategy global. With stakes in Youku, a leading video-streaming platform, and Alibaba Pictures, the e-commerce titan integrates entertainment with retail operations. Taobao Live has shown how livestream shopping can dominate consumer behavior, particularly inAsia, creating billion-dollar shopping events entirely dependent on
entertainment-driven discovery.
Shopify, meanwhile, has invested in tools that empower merchants to become content creators themselves. Its partnerships with agencies like Sanity and investments in platforms such as Billo reflect a clear intent to enable retailers to embed storytelling, gamification, and user-generated content into their selling journey. Unlike large marketplaces, Shopify’s vision is not to own the content but to democratize access to it for small and mid-sized businesses.
From content to commerce
This content includes newsletters, creator partnerships, branded podcasts, and niche communities on social media. The idea, as industry experts note, is to treat content as an asset that compounds, not just as a cost.
Unlike ads, content continues to generate discovery and engagement long after it’s published. That’s why more D2C brands are making content central to their growth strategies.
Several big names are experimenting in this space. Durex, Plum, Mother Dairy, and HDFC Bank have launched their own podcasts where celebrities share stories along their brand journey. Founder-led podcasts too are on the rise on YouTube, with voices like Nitin Kamath and Deepinder Goyal drawing large audiences in India.
The big question, however, is whether content consumption can effectively be converted into product discovery and purchase pathways. “It’s already happening at scale,” said Taneja. “Content is redefining every aspect of the traditional funnel. In the past, you had awareness at the top, intent in the middle, and purchase at the bottom. Today, one short video or live stream can take a consumer through that entire journey in under a minute.
“From a D2C lens, this convergence is even more critical. D2C brands thrive on agility, the ability to turn trends, storytelling, and community engagement directly into sales. Platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and even WhatsApp have embedded shoppable features, which means the content is no longer just ‘top-of-funnel.’ It’s the storefront. But the magic lies in authenticity and design. Consumers don’t want to feel ‘sold to’, they want to feel entertained, inspired, or educated. If the content does that well, conversion becomes a natural byproduct. For example, an athleisure brand showing a workout routine isn’t just demonstrating leggings, it’s giving value. The leggings purchase becomes an easy next step, not a forced pitch.”
The big question: Will content sustain sales at scale?
Taneja further reveals how content is driving sales and long-term growth. “The smartest brands, especially in D2C, have realized that high-quality
content is their most defensible growth engine. Performance marketing will continue to play a role, but the real long-term moat is the kind of content that builds relationships, trust, and recall. Consumers today are spoiled for choice. They don’t buy just products, they buy stories, values, and communities.
“High-quality content allows a brand to consistently show up in ways that feel relevant and credible. And from a business lens, it directly impacts unit economics: it reduces CAC because organic discovery compounds over time, improves LTV because content nurtures loyalty and repeat purchases, and builds resilience because brands with strong content ecosystems are less dependent on fluctuating ad platforms.”
The D2C ecosystem in India is already proving this point. Beauty and personal care brands now run editorial-led platforms alongside commerce, while fashion labels thrive on creator collaborations and storytelling-driven product drops. Their growth is not accidental but built on content strategies that treat every piece not just as a post, but as a business driver.
As an enabler, Taneja adds, the results are visible across platforms. “Brands that invest in content see better conversions on our checkout stack, lower cart drops, and stronger repeat cohorts. Content doesn’t just spark sales it sustains them.”
For all the optimism, the test for content-driven commerce will lie in scale and sustainability. Rising conversions in beauty, fashion, and food show the model works, but questions remain on whether every category can replicate that success, or whether consumers will tire of content-heavy shopping pitches.
(Published in Exchange4Media)
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July 28, 2025
Ananditha Anand, Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad Chronicle)
Hyderabad, 28 July 2025
Beauty is borrowing from the bakery. Be it glazed donut skin, popularised by Hailey Bieber, jam lips, or strawberry freckles – food related makeup looks, as well as cosmetic marketing trends have been at an all-time high. In June 2025, around 2 lakh users looked up latte makeup on the image-based social media platform, Pinterest.
The Novelty Value
According to social-media-influencer Yashvi Bhaia, these trends bring a sense of novelty to cosmetic products. “Take a look at one of the body washes called Whipped Lush. It feels exactly like whipped cream – fluffy, foamy and sweet. This visual being attached to the product brings a pleasant connection,” she says.
Devangshu Dutta, founder of Third Eyesight, a management consulting firm, says, “Terms like choco mousse blush or berry lip tint evokes indulgence, comfort, and a sense of reward, transforming cosmetics into emotional experiences rather than just functional items.” Dutta likened these products to comforting treats, exuding warmth and a nostalgia for food they have consumed before, bottled in these makeup products.
Dhanashree Kavitkar is an avid follower of makeup trends on platforms like Instagram, as well as Chinese sites like Douyin and Red Note. She observes that the melding of the sensory elements of food and makeup “satisfied” the consumer.
“It works almost the same way ASMR does. When I think of jelly lips, I think edible, with a plump and glossy texture. And it just hits the right spot in my brain,” she says.
She also believes that many of these beauty trends, under the guise of novelty, are repackaging pre-existing makeup trends to make it appealing again. “Take strawberry freckle makeup for example, it is literally just drawing freckles on your face, but they gave it a new name to intrigue people,” she says.
Bina Punjani, owner of Bina Punjani Hair Studio says, “These are all marketing buzz-words created by online makeup companies, who wish to advertise to a younger audience.” She explains that food related nomenclature has existed forever in the realm of hair care products, with wines, chocolates, and caramels dominating the hair colour market.
“Sensory feelings have been a huge part of marketing and communication, be it on television, or anywhere else,” said Bhaia. “Now that marketing is so video-forward online, brands will create visuals associated with food,” she says.
Dutta adds that rather than a new concept, the increased intensity and consistency of these beauty brands employing food-related marketing on social media platforms differentiate it from their marketing in the 1980s – when it was first popularised.
Cultural Adaptation
Talking about the virality aspect of these makeup trends, Kavitkar points out how the looks trending in India (and around the world right now), were popular in East Asian countries like China and South Korea a year ago.
“Thanks to the matcha wave now, strawberry matcha makeup is popular. More East Asian food items like mochi and tanghulu have also picked up steam in the makeup space, and have gotten popular globally. But they can feel a bit alien to Indian consumers who don’t know these trends beforehand,” she says. Bhaia talks about how Indian cosmetic products adapted these trends to cater to the Indian “taste.” A leading brand has come up with lip products named masala chai, and jalebi glaze.
“These are such Indian terms, and they’ve been marketed so well. When you think of jalebi, you think of this shiny, orange-ish kind of thing, and you have a very clear visual of it.”
Just Another Trend
What keeps the novelty of these trends alive? Punjani thinks that it is the familiarity that we as humans draw towards nature and ourselves. “Suppose you look at your skin tone, and you see that exact shade in a pear – you end up drawing a psychological connection between the two,” she says.
Kavitkar thinks that they bring in a new wave of experimentation. She says, “Look at tangerine dream makeup. It is a mix of yellow and orange blush on your face, which looks so weird. If you saw someone wearing yellow blush outside, you’d be like, what the hell is she wearing? But that’s the beauty of this look, it’s so out of the box.”
Dutta notes that the frequency of usage of any imagery in the industry ebbs and flows with fashions. “Food, however, consistently provides an intuitive, emotional, and relatable entry point for consumers to engage with beauty, and will remain a versatile tool for building stories around pleasure, nostalgia, authenticity, and self-care,” he says.
While the world goes ‘bananas’ over ‘latte makeup’ and ‘gingerbread nails’ you can try the silent power of ‘smokey eyes’ and nude lips!
(Published in Deccan Chronicle)
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March 20, 2025
Sagar Malviya, Economic Times
Mumbai, 20 March 2025
Established beauty product makers such as Forest Essentials, Colorbar, Kama Ayurveda, Body Shop, VLCC Personal Care and Lotus Herbals saw a slowdown in sales growth in FY24, according to the latest Registrar of Companies filings. Consumers favoured new-age rivals such as Minimalist and Pilgrim, specialised derma brands, as well as global labels Shiseido, Innisfree and Eucerin.
Sales growth of established brands mostly in the natural skincare segment, more than halved to single digits during the previous financial year amid a broader economic slump.
In contrast, companies such as L’Oreal, Nykaa and Sephora continued to grow at 12-34% on a significantly bigger base, even as they lost pace.
Direct-to-consumer brand Pilgrim more than doubled its sales, Minimalist’s revenue increased 80% and Foxtale’s sales surged 500% on a lower base.
“With most consumers tightening their budget on discretionary spends in FY24, they seem to have opted for brands that give instant benefits compared to natural products, which take time to be effective,” said Devangshu Dutta, founder of retail consulting firm Third Eyesight.
Over the past few years, there has been a flurry of beauty product launches, which have depended on platforms such as Nykaa and Tira for sales.
In the past two years, Nykaa has launched more than 350 brands, or In the past two years, or nearly one new label every alternate day on average.
This includes international brands such as CeraVe, Uriage and Versed, as well as home-grown brands such as Foxtale and Hyphen.
Reliance Retail, which entered beauty retailing with Tira two years ago, now sells nearly 1,000 brands, including exclusive labels such as Akind, Augustinus Badee, Allies of Skin, Kundal and Patchology.
“10 years ago we were only competing against big guys,” Vincent Karney, global chief executive of Beiersdorf, maker of Eucerin, Nivea and La Prakrit, told ET last month. “Now we have those local brands, and we have to become a bit more agile.”
On Nykaa, Fenty Beauty by Rihanna is the highest-selling brand in lipcare while Eucerin has become its biggest premium dermo-cosmetic serum. South Korean beauty brands Axis-Y, Tirtir and Numbuzin grew over 60% in 2024, with sales of toners increasing 104%, serums 45%, moisturisers 52% and sunscreens 154% on the platform.
VLCC and Colorbar did not respond to ET queries, while Forest Essentials was not reachable.
In January, Mike Jatania, cofounder and executive chairman of The Body Shop and Aurea Group, told ET, “There would be continuation of new entrants. Inflation is still a global issue and we will see the pressure. Competitive environment will be a challenge… 70% of our stores are showing decent growth. We have closed some stores and opened a few also, that’s the nature of the business.”
Ingredients Matter
Warnery of Beiersdorf emphasised the need to stay focused on “big innovation, by being able to talk to GenZ, (a position) which might be filled in by those local brands coming with basic ingredients.”
The likes of Minimalist, Ordinary and Pilgrim disclose active ingredients at a granular level, specifying the exact percentage of acid used in the product to appeal to GenZ users (those born between 1997 and early 2010s), who are said to be far more conscious of what they use on their skin compared to millennials (those born during 1980s to mid-1990s) and Gen X (those born from about 1965 to 1980).
Shoppers Stop, which manages brands such as Estee Lauder, Shiseido, Bobbi Brown, Mac and Clinique in India, sees the overall beauty market driven by companies focusing on consumers across age groups, and not just younger ones. Both natural and dermatological products are expected to find takers.
“While most new age brands tap younger cohorts, their pocket size allows them to mostly buy affordable products and the more affluent consumers opt for established global brands that have proven themselves since decades,” said Biju Kassim, chief executive, beauty, at Shoppers Stop. “Beauty is still not a habit in India and with hundreds of brands being launched, the focus is to grow penetration. There is also a shift from care to cure, driven by derma-recommended products and brands disclosing active ingredients, but it is still a niche sub-segment.”
Dutta of Third Eyesight sees the current trend as temporary. “We expect growth of (established) companies to bounce back in the current fiscal, driven by a strong demand for beauty,” he said, pointing especially to online platforms. India’s beauty and personal care market is expected to reach $34 billion by 2028, up from $21 billion now, driven by an online surge and a growing preference for high quality, premium beauty products according to a report by Nykaa and consulting firm Redseer.
Nicolas Hieronimus, chief executive of cosmetics giant L’Oreal, last year said consumers in India are more demanding and are not just settling for very basic things like putting an ingredient in a product such as salicylic acid or collagen. “That’s where L’Oreal has the best cards to play, and that’s where we really thrive,” he had told ET.
Beiersdorf, Unilever, L’Oreal and Shiseido, among the world’s largest cosmetics companies, have all identified India as a key growth driver, citing the burgeoning population and growing affinity for beauty products.
(Published in Economic Times)
admin
December 31, 2024
Jasodhara Banerjee, Forbes India
31 December 2024
Once, there was alabaster. Then, there was porcelain. And now there is glass. And no, we are not talking about the different kinds material to make fine, delicate objet d’art, but the quality and texture of facial skin—smooth, flawless and luminescent—that humans aspire to.
While a Google search for the term ‘glass skin’ will churn out hundreds of results that describe not just what the term means—tracing it to Korean skin care routines and products—but also detail the meticulous steps, varying between five and 11, that will apparently make you look like your favourite K-pop singer or K-drama actor. Like all things K (read: Korean), be it television and OTT serials, or food and clothes, K-beauty seems to have taken the Indian market by storm. A search for ‘Korean brands’ on online platforms such as Nykaa and Tira Beauty brings up more than a thousand products, ranging from ₹75 for a facial sheet mask to ₹17,900 for 60 ml of face cream. Clearly, there is something for everybody.
Fuelling this surge has been a plethora of factors, including the rise of online marketplaces that have made Indian and foreign skin care and beauty products more accessible than before, the thriving ecosystem of influencers and content creators that has revolutionised the marketing of these products, and, of course, consumer demand for products that claim to have the goodness of natural ingredients backed by the surety of science. And, surprising as it may seem, the Covid-19 pandemic and accompanying lockdowns also seem to have played a role in this.
Case in point is Amorepacific Corporation, a Seoul-headquartered beauty and cosmetics company that operates in more than 50 countries, and has a portfolio of more than 30 brands, such as Sulwhasoo, Laneige, Mamonde, Etude House and Innisfree. It is one of the largest cosmetics companies, not just in South Korea, but in the world.
“We are the number one beauty and personal care brand in South Korea and were the first Korean corporation to enter India with direct management, with our own subsidiary,” says Paul Lee, managing director and country head, Amorepacific India. “We started our business in India with Innisfree, which uses natural ingredients from Jeju Island in South Korea. We started with Innisfree because India had a huge demand for brands with natural products. Then we introduced Laneige and Sulwhasoo, which fall in the luxury skin care segment, and these were followed by Etude, which is a makeup brand.”
Amorepacific entered India sometime in 2012, taking tentative steps in a fledgling market with minimal investments and a retail store in Delhi’s Khan market. “At that time, the awareness of K-beauty was very small, and our momentum of growth started with the popularity of dedicated ecommerce players like Nykaa. In the last seven years, our annual growth has been 50 percent, our current growth is 60 percent year-on-year,” says Lee.
A potent potion for growth
Although industry players and experts feel there are multiple factors behind this growth, the popularity of Korean cultural elements is a significant one. “Korean beauty and personal care brands have multiple enabling factors. The global expansion of Korean beauty and personal care products has been on the back of a cultural export wave like any other earlier in history; in this case through the growing popularity of K-pop and K-dramas,” says Devangshu Dutta, founder, Third Eyesight and co-founder, PVC Partners. “In India, these brands initially had an influence in the Northeastern states, where customers are usually ahead on the fashion curve and also find resonance with the look of these brands.” He adds that factors such as the increasing number of Indian tourists to East Asian countries, and the growing presence of Korean and Japanese expatriates within India have also supported the growing footprint of these brands.
A spokesperson for Tira Beauty, which was launched in April 2023, agrees with Dutta, and attributes the demand for K-beauty products to the exposure that consumers have to K-dramas and K-pop. However, she adds that a significant factor is rooted in the products themselves. “These are the innovations that these brands are bringing to the table,” she explains. “The kind of formulations they offer are very well-suited for the Indian consumer. The ingredients are very efficacy oriented, and deliver a lot of quality, thus resolving a lot of concerns that consumers in India have.”
For instance, skin hydration is a core need of consumers, and a lot of Korean skin care products focus on hyaluronic acid as an ingredient. “Consumers who have sensitive skin or inflammation as a key concern get to use ingredients like centella asiatica, that a lot of Korean products use,” she says.
The spokesperson adds that the texture of the products is also a factor behind their popularity in India: “A lot of Korean sunscreens are light weight, a lot of their essences are suited for the Indian skin and the Indian weather. Both these factors are contributing to the rise we are witnessing in the space of K-beauty.”
Lee of Amorepacific highlights the use of unique ingredients such as fermented beans, ginseng and green tea that were never used before by American or European companies. There are also many options for consumers to choose from, depending on what is best suited for them. For instance, there is a product line with green tea for consumers with sensitive skin, and the same products are available for those with dry skin. “There are three key metrics that we have seen among Indian consumers: One is the demand for premium quality, two is the demand for glass skin, and the third is reliability.”
Lee also attributes market factors that have been instrumental in making Korean products more accessible to Indian consumers. “There has been a lot of change before Covid, and after Covid. From the macro perspective, the number of internet users with access to low-cost data plans has increased. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of new people watching OTT platforms such as Netflix also surged. From the Netflix perspective, I think India is one of the top three countries, where the number of subscribers is concerned.”
According to the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, the beauty market in India saw substantial growth following the Covid-19 pandemic and is projected to expand by 10 percent annually from 2022 to 2027, more than twice the global average growth rate for the beauty sector. According to market analyst Mordor Intelligence, the K-beauty market in India is expected to grow annually by 9.4 percent from 2021 to 2026.
Lee highlights the popularity of Korean OTT series such as Squid Games in making Indians familiar with Korean culture, and YouTube videos making a lot of people aware of K-beauty. “When we started operating in India, there were hardly two or three brands operating here, but currently there are more than 60 Korean brands in India. The influence of TV and music content has made people familiar with Korean culture, which is similar to Indian culture in being family-centric,” he adds.
Content creator Scherezade Shroff Talwar says, “The Hallyu [Korean] wave during the pandemic has definitely contributed to, what I would say, an over-consumption of Korean culture and I definitely contribute to it as well. K-beauty products have been around in India for a while, but with the increasing popularity of K-dramas and K-pop, people are seeing more such content across multiple platforms. This has contributed to the rising number of Korean brands in India, and the use of their products.” She recalls how, in November, she was in South Korea with her K-drama club, and the members had lists of the products that they wanted to buy there because they are not available in India.
According to a September report by market research firm Mintel, social media analysis in India reveals that there have been 6.2 million posts in the last two years discussing K-drama, K-pop, and K-beauty trends, predominantly among the 19 to 24 age group. This continued popularity in K-pop throughout the APAC region influences consumers’ interest in Korean skin care and beauty products, the report adds.
Lee says that Korean beauty companies have also been prompt to react to the demands in the market. For instance, Innisfree introduces new products every three months, and they are based on consumer feedback through social media and actual stores. Given the demand from Indian consumers, Amorepacific has also formed a task force at its headquarters which is dedicated to reviewing and studying the Indian market, with plans bring in more brands and businesses.
Data shows, adds Lee, that the import of Korean skin care products into India is increasing by 63 percent every year, going up four times compared to 2020. Amorepacific’s own research shows that 53 percent of Indian beauty consumers have already tried Korean products. “Fifteen percent of the entire skin care products market is now dominated by Korean products,” he claims.
Although Amorepacific decided to close all 23 of its exclusive stores in India because of the losses suffered during the pandemic, it decided to partner instead with local channels such as Nykaa, Tira Beauty and SS Beauty, and its products are today available across 400 counters in 45 cities. “Although our company is seeing 60 percent growth every year now, our retail area is doubling every year,” says Lee. “Our aim is to be available in 500 counters within a year.”
The availability and accessibility of Korean skin care and beauty products have also coincided with the rise of marketing products through influencers and content creators. The spokesperson for Tira Beauty says that influencers have played a massive role in the popularity of Korean products. “One of the reasons why K-beauty products do well across markets is because Gen-Z consumers tend to follow a lot of these influencers,” she explains. For instance, Tira launched the Beauty of Joseon sunscreen, and it went out of stock very quickly. “We experienced this because there was a lot of awareness due to influencer activations, and there’s a certain amount of virality these products enjoy even before they are launched.” She also gives the example of the brand Tirtir, which was launched on Tira Beauty in India in November. “The brand rolled out samples to influencers in India in July, and that helped propel demand to a great extent.”
According to business consulting firm Grand View Research, celebrity influencers have been beneficial to marketers due to their global reach, which often transcends cultural boundaries. Hence, the top strategy used by Korean cosmetics brands is to sell their products to Korean celebrities. Storytelling using Korean celebrities as brand ambassadors, and streaming advertisements and video tutorials all over the social media platform are some of the major strategies adopted by K-beauty brands.
Grand View Research gives the example of the lip layering bar of Laniege, which has emerged as a convenient tool for those who want to get the trendy gradient lip look with just a single application. Celebrities such as actors Song Hye Kyo and Lee Sung Kyung have used the product, enhancing its appeal and desirability among consumers.
Celebrities from different parts of the world promote K-beauty products, and this fosters a cross-cultural appeal and encourages individuals from diverse backgrounds to explore and adopt these products in their skin care routines. Following this global trend, in India, young celebrities have been roped in to appeal to Gen-Z consumers. For instance, actor Palak Tiwari became the first Indian brand ambassador for Etude, while actor Wamiqa Gabbi became first Indian brand ambassador for Innisfree, and Sara Tendulkar, daughter of cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar, is the brand ambassador for Laneige.
Dutta of Third Eyesight says, “Influencers certainly have played a role in building the buzz around K-beauty and have formed a relatively cost-effective means to spread the message in the past. However, in recent years with a growing number of social influencers, there is more clutter as well on the channels.”
India not in the big league, but demanding
Although the rise of K-beauty products in India has been significant, the country remains a far smaller market for these brands compared to markets such as the US, Europe and China. According to Grand View Research, the global K-beauty products market size was valued at $91.99 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.3 percent from 2023 to 2030.
The consulting firm says the Korean cosmetics industry grew steadily during the Covid-19 pandemic, owing to an increase in awareness of the numerous benefits offered by the products. Moreover, due to a rise in popularity among consumers, major K-beauty companies are taking initiatives such as R&D, product launches, mergers and acquisitions to retain shares in the market and respond to changes in the marketplace by introducing a range of items.
Grand View Research valued the US market, one of the largest for K-beauty products, at $20.2 billion in 2021 and expects it to grow at a CAGR of 8.8 percent between 2023 and 2030. Compared to this, Statista valued the India K-beauty market at $486 million in 2021, and expects it to grow to over $1.3 billion by 2032.
Lee of Amorepacific says the US remains the largest beauty market as a whole, followed by China, Japan, the UK, France and India. “One of the differentiating factors between the US and Indian consumers is that the premium market in India is very small, and it is still a mass-product driven market,” he says. “Secondly, ecommerce in India is still quite small. In South Korea and the US, ecommerce just in the beauty segment, is 30 to 40 percent, while in India it is 13 percent. India is traditionally an offline market.”
He adds that despite the growth, Indians remain sceptical about whether Korean products are suitable for Indian skins, and there is demand for products that are made only for Indians. “Localisation, therefore, has become important for the company. Although we conduct clinical trials in different geographies, we are starting to take more feedback from Indian consumers, and we are ready to develop products only for the Indian market. For instance, we have introduced the Innisfree kajal and the Innisfree hair massage oil, and have developed lip colours for the Indian market.”
Although the company did not divulge revenue figures, it is expecting to grow six times in the next six years in India, and plans to introduce at least five more brands within the next seven years in this market.
(Published in Forbes India)
