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February 2, 2026
Sakshi Sadashiv, MINT
Bengaluru, 02 Feb 2026
BRND.ME, a roll-up commerce company, expects to complete its reverse flip (change of headquarters) from Singapore to India by March, clearing a key regulatory hurdle as it prepares to tap Indian public markets with an IPO.
Despite the rise of private labels from quick-commerce giants such as Swiggy Instamart and Zepto, CEO Ananth Narayanan remains confident. He argues that BRND.ME’s core categories—spanning complex, value-added products such as specialized haircare and niche party supplies—possess a level of brand loyalty and complexity that is difficult for generic retail labels to replicate. While private labels are currently displacing national brands in high-frequency, simple categories like dairy and staples, Narayanan believes the company’s core categories remain protected from this encroachment as they drive searches.
Having shifted its strategy from aggressive acquisitions to organic scaling, the company is now doubling down on its four largest brands: MyFitness (peanut butter), Botanic Hearth (haircare), Majestic Pure (aromatherapy), and PartyPropz (celebration supplies).
About 10-15% of BRND.ME’s India business currently comes from quick commerce, a channel the company plans to scale, Narayanan said. The company is the leader in party supplies on quick-commerce platforms, benefiting from impulse-driven demand. “People forget birthdays and anniversaries, so it’s a classic category to build a brand on quick commerce,” he said. The category contributes about ₹200 crore of revenue. The company also leads the peanut butter category through MyFitness, with a 30% market share on all quick commerce platforms and annual revenue of ₹270 crore.
The company’s revenue run rate stands at about $200 million. Male consumers worried about male-pattern baldness now account for about 35% of haircare sales. The company aims for a 10-fold jump in aromatherapy and haircare sales from $6 million to $60 million within four years, led by Majestic Pure and Botanic Hearth.
Drawing on his experience running Myntra, Narayanan said that private labels typically have a ceiling. “Even when we pushed hard on private labels at Myntra, they never went beyond 25-30% of the overall portfolio. That tends to remain the case as the categories we operate in are very hard to displace because we drive searches.”
This dynamic is already visible across several quick-commerce categories. The peanut butter segment is heavily consolidated on Blinkit, with Pintola and MyFitness together accounting for about 73% of sales, according to data from Datum Intelligence. Similar patterns have emerged in other categories. Blinkit’s popcorn segment, for instance, has rapidly consolidated into a duopoly, with 4700BC and Act II controlling 99% of sales.
Private labels muscling in
While Blinkit has consciously avoided launching private-label products on its platform, Swiggy has done so through Noice, and Zepto through Relish and Daily Good. For established brands, these private labels are becoming harder to ignore. Swiggy has scaled Noice aggressively, expanding the portfolio from about 200 to 350 stock keeping units (SKUs) and onboarding more manufacturing partners while moving beyond staples into categories such as beverages and ready-to-cook foods. These products are aimed at delivering significantly higher margins of 35-40%, compared with 10-15% on third-party brands, Mint reported earlier.
Private labels now contribute an estimated 6-8% of quick-commerce sales, up from 1-2% two years ago, according to data from 1digitalstack.ai, though penetration in perishables remains limited because of supply-chain complexity and quality concerns. A broader push into fresh categories could lift private-label share to 10-15%. Noice has already captured 3.4% of wafer sales and 1.9% of biscuit sales on the platform within months of its launch, according to 1digitalstack.ai data. The two categories are dominated by Lay’s and Britannia, which have a market share of about 35% each in their respective segments.
Zepto’s private-label push spans multiple everyday categories, including Relish for meat products, Daily Good for staples, Chyll for ice cubes and juices, and Aaha! for snacks, sweets, cereals and batters.
This growing presence creates a structural ‘trap’ for digital-first brands. Devangshu Dutta, chief executive at Third Eyesight, a consultancy firm, said, “Brands that are overly dependent on a single sales platform remain structurally vulnerable to being replaced by the platform’s own private labels, which are designed to capitalise on product opportunities that already have proven demand.” Platforms, he explained, tend to dominate high-frequency purchases, often undercutting brands on both price and visibility.
Persistently high online customer acquisition costs add to the pressure, particularly if the customer relationship is owned by the platform rather than the brand. “This has been one of the significant friction points for all digital-only brands, and weighs especially heavily on companies that have online-heavy portfolios with multiple brands in play,” Dutta added.
(Published in Mint)
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September 17, 2025
Sowmya Ramasubramanian, Mint
17 September 2025
Snapdeal, run by AceVector, is relying on strong growth in fashion and apparel to strengthen its position in the competitive e-commerce space, especially during the high-stakes festive season when customer loyalty is low. According to CEO Achint Setia, the company has seen its fashion and lifestyle categories triple in growth this year, though exact figures remain undisclosed.
“Fashion has been a standout category this year and, in fact, has been possibly the fastest-growing one so far. Overall, lifestyle [including fashion, home decor, and kitchen] already accounts for 90% of our business today, and fashion is a major driving force,” Setia told Mint in an interview.
Setia was appointed to the role in January, replacing Himanshu Chakrawarti, who led Snapdeal and its subsidiary Stellaro Brands for three years. Setia has over two decades of experience across marketing and strategy roles in firms like Myntra, Viacom18 Media, and Zalora Group.
While the festival season is a key period for all consumer-facing brands and platforms, this year is important for Snapdeal as it is currently waiting for the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) clearance to list in the public markets.
“Approval from Sebi before the end of the financial year is crucial for Snapdeal. If they don’t get it, or if they have to refile, they’ll need to update their IPO documents with a full year of financial data. This means the festive season performance will be key in shaping investor sentiment, especially in a volatile market,” said a senior e-commerce executive, asking not to be named.
The firm filed its draft papers for an IPO reportedly to raise ₹500 crore through the confidential route in July, which allows it to withhold public disclosure of IPO details until later stages. Setia declined to comment on the progress of the filing.
Despite its early entry, Snapdeal is yet to make a mark among the top e-commerce players in the country by both market share and volume of transactions. For context, industry estimates show Flipkart as the market leader with 48% share, followed by Meesho and Amazon. The Indian e-commerce market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21% and reach $325 billion dollars in 2030 as per an October 2024 report by Deloitte.
Founded in 2010 by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, Snapdeal was initially launched as a daily deals platform and later pivoted to a full-fledged marketplace in 2011. Over the years it raised more than $1.8 billion in funding from Softbank, Alibaba group, Foxconn and Blackrock among others. However, intense competition and the absence of a distinct growth strategy have gradually eroded Snapdeal’s momentum in the e-commerce space.
Snapdeal largely caters to cities outside metropolitan areas where value retail has picked up in recent years. Within this, fashion remains the top growth driver-with more than 80% of orders placed priced below 1599 and 80% of them com-ing from small town India, accord-ing to CEO Setia. “For us, it’s about the value-conscious mindset that could be sitting out of anywhere,” he noted.
Over the last few months, Snapdeal has invested substantially in in-house festive campaigns, as well as technology and tools for returns forecasting and logistics. According to Setia, it has also expanded its seller portfolio, adding more from key clusters like Tirupur, Surat, Ludhiana, and Agra.
According to a September 2024 report by market research firm Centrum, the mass-market fashion segment accounts for 56% of India’s total apparel market.
However, offline continues to account for more than half the sales, with Tata’s Trent, D-Mart, and Vishal Mega Mart offering a sufficient selection of price-conscious consumers in smaller towns.
While small-town India offers a wide online shopping-savvy market waiting to be captured, Meesho has raced past Snapdeal in those geographies, especially in value commerce.
“For a very long time, Snapdeal has been positioned as an e-commerce platform for Bharat, but it doesn’t necessarily hold a strong position. Meesho, Flipkart and Amazon have expanded their presence in these markets over the years, which means competition is so much more now,” said Devangshu Dutta, founder and chief executive officer at consulting firm Third Eyesight.
(Published in Mint)
admin
November 14, 2024
Economic Times
14 November 2024
The Swiggy IPO is making news for being the most successful in a decade in its category. The food and grocery delivery firm yesterday listed at a 5.6% premium to its IPO price of Rs 390, making it the first company with an issue size of over Rs 10,000 crore in the past decade to have listed above its offer price, ET has reported. The stock closed 17% above its issue price at Rs 455.95 in a weak market, surpassing analysts’ expectations of a tepid debut. The company’s market capitalisation at close on Wednesday was Rs 1.02 lakh crore.
Swiggy’s impressive debut also indicates the incoming deluge of cash in an emerging business, quick commerce. Swiggy plans to plough more cash into its quick-commerce business, Swiggy Instamart. Swiggy’s bigger rival, Zomato, is also planning to fatten its war chest. Zomato plans to raise fresh funds through a qualified institutional placement (QIP) despite sitting on $1.5 billion, or about Rs 12,600 crore. The money will also fuel its quick commerce business, Blinkit. Zepto, another quick commerce player, is also raising money. ET reported last month that Zepto is in talks to raise $100-150 million from a group of domestic family offices and wealthy individuals. It last raised $340 million in August. Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit and Zepto are the top three players with over 85% market share.
The floodgates of capital opening into the quick commerce sector would worry the big e-commerce platforms which have already started feeling the heat from quick commerce.
The quick rise of quick commerce
While quick commerce becomes the preferred medium for immediate needs and impulse purchases, e-commerce is favoured for more planned purchases like home, beauty and personal care. But now quick commerce firms are diversifying beyond groceries, small-value items, etc. and invading the home turf of e-commerce players.
Quick commerce is already conquering kirana, the neighbourhood small retail business, as well as hitting modern retail. As consumer preferences shift towards the convenience of last-minute grocery deliveries, quick commerce companies are outpacing traditional retailers, with 46 per cent of consumers surveyed reporting a cut in purchases from Kirana shops, a recent report has said. The quick commerce market size is expected to reach $40 billion by 2030, a jump from $6.1 billion in 2024, according to the report by Datum Intelligence.
Quick-commerce operators such as Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto are aggressively trying to lure away consumers from large ecommerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart by matching their prices across groceries and fast-selling general merchandise, triggering a price war in the home delivery space, ET reported a few months ago. This is a departure from the earlier pricing strategy of quick-commerce players who typically charged 10-15% premium over average ecommerce marketplace prices for instant deliveries, industry executives had told ET.
A recent ET study of prices of 30 commonly used products in daily necessities, discretionary groceries and other categories, including electronics and toys, in both ecommerce and quick-commerce platforms reveal the pricing disparity has been bridged. “The pricing premium which quick commerce used to charge for instant deliveries is gone with these platforms now joining a race with large ecommerce to offer competitive pricing to shift consumer loyalties,” B Krishna Rao, senior category head at biscuits major Parle Products had told ET.
The increasing competition is putting pressure on ecommerce majors to reduce delivery time.
“Price matching by quick commerce is to acquire market share and is part of market acquisition cost even when it might not be profitable at a per unit transaction level,” Devangshu Dutta, CEO of consulting firm Third Eyesight, had told ET. “They may have to sacrifice margins in the short term to get customers shopping more frequently.”
After challenging kirana and modern retail, e-commerce is the next frontier for quick commerce companies.
The challenge shaping up for e-commerce giants
With Swiggy, Zomato and Zepto raising a huge amount of money, the war between quick commerce and e-commerce is likely to turn bloody, besides increasing internecine competition among quick commerce players themselves.
Quick commerce, which began with the delivery of groceries and essential items, has now expanded to include a diverse range of products. This includes electronics, clothing, cosmetics, household goods, medicines, pet supplies, books, sporting equipment, and more.
E-commerce sector offers a vast opportunity for growth of quick commerce business. The Indian e-commerce market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21% and reach $325 billion in 2030, as per Deloitte’s report released on Monday. This huge potential is luring big players. The Tata group’s ecommerce venture Neu is set to enter the quick commerce segment branded as Neu Flash, rolling it out to select users selling grocery, electronics and fashion, ET reported last month. Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance, leveraging its vast network of supermarkets, is expanding into the 10–30 minute delivery segment. Ambani wants to ensure quick commerce helps bolster its business ahead of an IPO of Reliance Retail, which was last year valued at $100 billion, and has backers including KKR, sources told Reuters recently.
Besides entry of big ones like Tata and Ambani, the deluge of fresh investment into business by the incumbents such as Swiggy, Blinkit and Zepto will pose a big threat to large e-commerce players Amazon and Flipkart. Swiggy has recently hired two Flipkart executives to boost its senior leadership. They have joined two other executives that Bengaluru-based Swiggy had hired from the Walmart-owned ecommerce major in the past few months.
Swiggy and Zomato are both assessing several new services as they diversify beyond their core businesses, ET has reported a few days ago. Swiggy is all set to launch a pilot programme for a services marketplace, labelled ‘Yello’, which will host professionals such as lawyers, therapists, fitness trainers, astrologers, dieticians, according to sources. It is also testing a premium membership service called ‘Rare’, for affluent customers providing them access to high-end events such as Formula 1 races, music concerts, upscale art exhibitions, in addition to VIP hospitality and priority reservations at luxury restaurants.
Zomato has previously been bold in its diversification moves by buying Paytm’s events and ticket business for Rs 2,048 crore. It is now trying out a concierge-like service to help users place online food orders over WhatsApp. Human customer relationship agents will provide the Gurgaon-based company’s new service instead of its usual approach of deploying chatbots, a person familiar with the move has told ET recently.
Apprehending challenges by quick commerce players, Flipkart has already started its own quick commerce business Flipkart Minutes. While still far behind its established rivals, Flipkart Minutes hit daily orders of 50,000-60,000 during its Big Billion Days sales, people with knowledge of the matter told ET last month.
Further investment and bigger players entering the sector will heat up competition among the quick commerce companies even as they will grapple with new challenges such as logistics as they expand. But a bloody war could soon be seen on the e-commerce battlefield as emboldened by huge popular response the quick commerce companies start invading on the well-guarded turf of Flipkart and Amazon.
(Published in Economic Times)
admin
September 16, 2024
Priyamvada C., Mint
16 September 2024
When the late George Fernandes, the industries minister in the short-lived Janata Party government of 1977, issued a diktat to multinational corporations Coca-Cola, IBM and AstraZeneca to dilute their stake in their wholly owned subsidiaries to 40% in favour of Indian shareholders, Coca-Cola and IBM chose to exit India. Later, during P V Narasimha Rao’s proliberalisation government in 1993, Coca-Cola returned. It bought out Ramesh Chauhan’s Delhi Bottling Company and Coolaid, the bottling companies of five carbonated drinks, in 1998.
With Coca-Cola India now said to be evaluating options to list its wholly owned bottling subsidiary – Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB), Mint explains the rationale behind companies considering such moves.
What caused the change in strategy?
Experts said there is a trend of consumer giants spinning off their units to optimise their balance sheets, go asset-light and focus on their core brands and business models. Coca-Cola India’s ambitions to list HCCB come almost a decade after rival PepsiCo’s bottler, Varun Beverages, listed on the local stock exchanges, yielding significant value for the Jaipuria family.
Unlike PepsiCo, Coca-Cola owns its bottling franchise, just as other MNCs including consumer goods major Whirlpool, ball-bearing specialist Timken, and tobacco giant BAT, who are keen to take advantage of the valuations that Indian investors give to well-run MNCs. Varun Beverages commands a market valuation of ₹2.09 trillion. Hindustan Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive (India) are examples of multinational companies that have listed in India.
Coca-Cola’s move is seen as a strategic attempt to yield significant benefits, including financial gains, risk mitigation and other exit opportunities. The Economic Times was the first to report on HCCB’s listing plans in May.
How does the parent company benefit?
Through such moves, the parent company can reduce exposure to risks associated with bottling companies, which include fluctuations pertaining to raw material, regulatory changes and local market conditions, said Alpana Srivastava, a partner at Desai & Diwanji. While spinning off bottling subsidiaries is more prevalent in the beverage industry, she said other fast-moving consumer goods and retail companies may explore similar strategies to optimise their balance sheets in the current environment.
Earlier this year, HCCB announced the transfer of its bottling operations in three territories in north India to streamline supply chains in the region. However, the bottler declined to comment on its IPO plans.
As part of the transition, the Rajasthan market will be owned and operated by Kandhari Global Beverages, which operates in parts of Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Jammu & Kashmir, and Ladakh.
The Bihar market will be owned and operated by SLMG Beverages Pvt Ltd, which runs bottling operations in Uttarakhand, parts of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar. The Northeast market and select areas of West Bengal will be owned and operated by Moon Beverages Pvt Ltd, which operates in parts of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
What other factors motivate such spin-offs?
Besides providing liquidity for the bottler, listing may offer tax benefits such as reduced capital gains tax or more favourable transfer pricing rules and optimise the overall tax burden for both the parent company and the subsidiary, Srivastava explained. It may allow both entities to be valued more accurately based on their individual capacities in growth, risk profiles and capital intensity.
This comes in the backdrop of companies looking to make the most of a bullish stock market to unlock more value for shareholders by listing their manufacturing subsidiaries. It enables the companies to raise more capital, which can be used to strengthen their market presence and reduce debt, said Devangshu Dutta, founder of Third Eyesight, a management consulting firm. He said the core value generator for companies such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi are brands and marketing rather than manufacturing.
In April, private equity firm Lighthouse Funds invested ₹700 crore in Parsons Nutritionals, a contract manufacturer specialising in packaged foods, beverages, and personal care products, underlining investor appetite in this sector. Other co-investors include the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, Evolvence India, HDFC AMC’s Fund of Funds, and various family offices.
However, there may be legal considerations, too. While exclusive contracts exist, the bottler may have partnerships with other companies in its distribution portfolio, which may have to be reviewed and renegotiated. There may be regulatory compliance and other anticompetitive considerations when it involves such big entities.
Other instances of such moves
While there are fewer examples of bottling companies listed in India, this practice is more common globally. Coca-Cola has listed most of its bottling subsidiaries in other global markets such as North America and Europe.
While there is no shareholding between PepsiCo and Varun Beverages, there is an exclusive arrangement for Varun Beverages to bottle, use trademarks, distribute, market, and sell PepsiCo products across India. The beverage giant benefits from royalty and licence fees. Over the past year, Varun Beverages’ revenue rose 22% to ₹16,400 crore while its profit increased to ₹2,056 crore from ₹1,497 crore in FY22. As of Friday’s close, the bottler’s shares had gained almost 30% to ₹645.20 since the beginning of this year.
Any potential listing opportunity for HCCB may allow a staggered exit for Coca-Cola India from managing local operations, monetising its stake and participating in future licence fees and/or royalty arrangements, said Dhruv Chatterjee, a partner at Saraf and Partners. He added that there are indications in the retail and fast-moving consumer goods category of similar divestments. Coca-Cola India did not respond to Mint’s request for comment.
Ravikumar Distilleries is an example of a listed manufacturing company that has tie-ups with liquor companies Radico Khaitan, Shashi Distilleries and John Distilleries, in addition to manufacturing and marketing its own liquor products. Bengal Beverages is an unlisted bottler that manufactures and distributes non-alcoholic beverage brands under licence from Coca-Cola across categories such as sparkling soft drinks, juice and water.
What kind of contracts exist between the bottler and the parent company?
Many bottling plants are usually set up by companies as a joint venture with a local partner. The bottler procures the concentrate from the companies. About 14-15% of the concentrate cost goes to the bottler, which translates into revenue for the brand, according to a person familiar with such discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity. The company spends a part of this revenue on marketing activities that target mass audiences through television, radio and newspapers.
Depending on the terms of the contract, the bottler may be expected to spend a portion of its revenue on marketing through outdoor settings such as billboards, flyers, social media and events. The arrangement between a bottler and a company may be either a pure bottling arrangement (or contract manufacturing) or a bottling and distribution arrangement, where the bottler is also responsible for marketing, branding, and last-mile distribution.
How has the carbonated beverage market fared?
Market research provider Statista estimated that the carbonated drink market in India clocks about $2.4 billion in revenue and is expected to grow by 6.98% annually over the next four years. The volume consumed at home and other outdoor locations is likely about 4.2 billion litres this year.
In 2022, Parle Agro’s brand Appy Fizz and Coca Cola dominated with a 31% market share each, followed by Fanta, Pepsi, 7UP and Sprite, among others. Other brands such as Reliance-backed Campa Cola are expected to challenge the dominance of these companies.
Before Reliance acquired Campa for ₹22 crore in 2022, the soft drink had been launched by Pure Drinks Group in the 1970s. The group was behind the launch and distribution of Coca-Cola in 1949, before the US company was shunted out of the country in 1977.
Pure Drinks and Campa Beverages subsequently launched Campa Cola to fill the gap left by foreign soft drink companies in the country. However, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo re-entered the Indian market in the 1990s, throttling local competition.
(Published in Mint)
