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February 16, 2026
Christina Moniz, Financial Express (Brand Wagon)
16 February 2026
Starting this month global sportswear maker Nike shifted its e-commerce operations to beauty and fashion marketplace Nykaa to address poor logistics, high delivery times and inventory niggles. With Nykaa in charge, the brand said, customers can expect free shipping on all orders and faster deliveries rang ing from twotofour days depending on the location.
The change comes at a time when Nike is struggling to cope with declining market share and operational and supply-side issues in India. Its physical store count in the country has dropped by half in the past ten years to 100 from over 200 a decade ago. Nike in India undertook major restructuring of its business between 2016 and 2019, closing 35% of its stores in those three years to take a more digital-first approach.
It’s not all doom and gloom though. The brand reported a 14% growth in sales in the fiscal ending March 2025 to clock ₹1,380 crore. But it is well behind competing brands such as Puma (₹3,274 crore) and Adidas (₹3,114 crore), both of which have over 400 stores across the country.
Given India’s size, the competitive landscape and potential, treating it as a secondary export market to be serviced from Singapore was a poor decision on Nike’s part, says Devangshu Dutta, founder and CEO, Third Eyesight.
Nike’s alignment with a local player offers important strategic lessons for global brands with big ambitions in India, especially those in the ₹8,800 crore sportswear market. Brands that have not treated India as an afterthought have succeeded in creating sustained growth and market leadership, says Dutta.
“Most of Nike’s global competitors have treated India as a market high consequence. Nike might be the leader by global revenues, in India is smaller than its global rivals like Adidas, Puma and Skechers. ASICS has a smaller base but is growing at 30% while Lotto is also looking to grow its footprint massively, observes Dutta.
Ever since Nike’s digital-first pivot, its customers in the country have raised several complaints citing delivery failures and poor service, with some deliveries reportedly taking weeks. Its decision to transfer its digital operations to Nykaa in India could potentially address these missteps and reverse the breakdown of customer experience, say experts.
Changing course
“The recent move feels like Nike acknowledging that India cannot be treated as an extension of a global system. It needs local infrastructure, local partners, and a model built specifically for how Indians shop online. Partnering with Nykaa brings local execution muscle that is hard to replicate quickly,” observes Tusharr Kumar, CEO, Only Much Louder, adding that the move is a maturity moment for global brands. “Scale alone doesn’t guarantee success. What matters is adapting to local consumer behaviour, logistical realities and service expectations,” says Kumar.
That said, Nike’s shift won’t be without challenges. The biggest one will be balancing scale with brand control, notes Yasin Hamidani, director, Media Care Brand Solutions. “While Nykaa offers strong reach and trust, Nike will need to ensure its premium positioning, product storytelling, and customer experience don’t get diluted. If managed well, this move doesn’t necessarily hurt Nike’s brand,” he states.
However, he adds that competition like Adidas and Puma, with stronger on-ground retail and omnichannel presence, may gain an edge if Nike’s visibility or momentum slows. “The partnership with Nykaa must feel strategic and not like a retreat,” he cautions.
Given that Nykaa is also a marketplace for other activewear brands, it remains to be seen how the platform maintains Nike’s premium customer experience. “On its own platform, Nike could control everything from storytelling to checkout flows and post-purchase engagement. Nike will now need to adjust to sharing customer data, promotional calendars, and operational priorities with a partner platform,” says Somdutta Singh, founder & CEO at Assiduus Global, adding that striking the right balance between leveraging Nykaa’s scale and maintaining Nike’s distinctiveness will be key.
(Published in Financial Express – Brandwagon)
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February 14, 2026
This episode of theUpStreamlife is a freewheeling conversation between Vishal Krishna and Devangshu Dutta, founder of Third Eyesight, with insights into the growth of modern retail and consumption in India, brand building and M&A, the balance of power between brands and retailers/platforms, sustainability vs growth and many other aspects, and is well-suited for founders and teams who want to be building for the long run in India.
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February 12, 2026
Vaeshnavi Kasthuril, Mint
Bengaluru, 6 February 2026
Global fragrance maker Bath & Body Works Inc. is betting on a reset to revive growth after years of heavy discounting and weak product innovation dulled its brand momentum across markets. The Columbus, Ohio-based retailer is pivoting to a “consumer-first” formula strategy centered around upgraded formulations, more disciplined marketing, and fewer promotions.
The reset matters as India is emerging as one of the company’s fastest-growing and best-performing markets and is also becoming a testing ground for how the brand evolves its retail model. India now ranks among Bath & Body Works’ top five international markets by growth.
“We’re seeing strong engagement across stores (in India), digital marketplaces and even quick commerce, which gives us confidence as we evolve the brand and introduce more innovation,” said Tony Garrison, global vice president at Bath & Body Works, in an interview with Mint.
The fragrance maker entered India in 2018 in partnership with Dubai-based Apparel Group and has since expanded to about 50 stores across major metros, while also building an online presence through platforms such as Nykaa, Myntra, and Amazon. Apparel Group brings over 80 global brands to India, including Victoria’s Secret, Charles & Keith, Aldo, Crocs, and Tim Hortons.
“We’re learning a lot from how the Indian consumer shops across platforms, especially the speed and convenience expectations,” Garrison said. “It’s helping us think differently about assortment, pack sizes and how we show up digitally”.
Even as discretionary spending softened, the brand’s franchise partner, Apparel Group, delivered double-digit sales growth in India and high single-digit comparable store gains in FY25. It reported a 26% year-on-year jump in FY25 revenue to ₹1,118 crore and a net profit of ₹20.5 crore, reversing a loss in the previous year.
Globally, Bath & Body Works’ earnings reflect soft consumer demand as well as margin pressures. Its revenue declined 1% to $1.59 billion in the third quarter of FY25, while net income fell 27% year-on-year to $577 million.
Reviving the fragrance engine
While legacy scents such as Japanese Cherry Blossom, Champagne Toast, and Thousand Wishes remain global blockbusters, the company admits it hasn’t produced enough new hits at a similar scale in recent years. Japanese Cherry Blossom is a $250 million fragrance.
“I think we haven’t done the best job of keeping up with some of the fragrance trends. We haven’t done a lot of innovation, and that’s what you’re going to see this year. This is a big change year for us,” Garrison said.
The company plans to elevate its home fragrance portfolio, bringing in more premium candle collections, gift-ready packaging, and deeper, more sophisticated scent profiles. The broader goal is to encourage shoppers to trade up within the brand rather than wait for markdowns. “We want customers to see the value in the product itself… not just the promotion,” Garrison said.
New retail formats
To test new retail formats, the company and Apparel Group plan to pilot a small “neighbourhood store” format of roughly 500 square feet in select non-metro markets later this year. These stores will focus heavily on core body care lines and hero fragrances, while creating a more discovery-led environment for first-time shoppers.
India is also emerging as a key market in testing how far premiumisation can go. Garrison noted that the company has not seen a slowdown locally: “India has actually been one of our strongest markets in the post-Covid period. Even when consumers are careful, they still spend on small luxuries that make them feel good”.
What experts say
Retail experts caution that the reset in India won’t be without challenges. Devangshu Dutta, founder of Third Eyesight, noted that brands often fall back on discounting when volumes don’t come through. He added that the personal care market has become intensely crowded, making brand clarity critical.
While the brand is leaning into quick commerce and smaller stores, Dutta cautioned that premium brands still need larger formats to build experience-led differentiation. “Neighbourhood stores can be spokes, but you still need the hub—the large store—to communicate the brand experience,” he said.
Race Intensifies
The turnaround plan comes at a time when rivals, including The Body Shop and Forest Essentials, are also vying for the Indian consumer’s wallet. The Body Shop plans to achieve ₹1,100 crore in revenue in India within the next three to five years. India’s fragrance market was valued at $1.0 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a 13.9% CAGR to $3.23 billion by 2033.
(Published in Mint)
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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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January 6, 2026
Saumyangi Yadav, Entrepreneur India
Jan 6, 2026
After years of rapid growth and a sharp reset, India’s direct-to-consumer (D2C) sector is expected to settle into a more balanced phase. The period of easy funding, aggressive customer acquisition and scale-at-all-costs expansion is clearly over, experts suggest. Now, what lies ahead in 2026 is a shift towards steadier growth driven by better execution, stronger retention and clearer brand positioning.
According to Bain and Flipkart, India’s e-retail market is projected to reach $170–190 billion in GMV by 2030, driven by a growing online shopper base and evolving commerce models. As adoption deepens across Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, high-frequency categories such as grocery and lifestyle are expected to drive a larger share of growth, making repeat purchase and habit formation critical for D2C brands.
Against this backdrop, 2026 is shaping up as the year when D2C brands are judged less on ambition and more on outcomes.
A Post-Hype Phase of D2C
Industry observers say the D2C ecosystem has clearly moved beyond its hype-driven phase. Devangshu Dutta, Founder and Chief Executive of retail consultancy Third Eyesight, describes the current moment as one of structural correction rather than contraction.
“India’s D2C ecosystem is in a post-hype phase where growth may be slower but structurally healthier,” Dutta says, adding, “Earlier growth cycles prioritised visibility and sales at the expense of profitability and consistency. Now, success is being measured by repeat rates, contribution margins and the ability to fund growth internally.”
Tighter funding is also driving this shift. With D2C investments slowing and overall capital remaining cautious, brands are now being pushed to show predictability rather than promise. Tracxn data shows Indian D2C startups raised USD 757 million in 2024, significantly lower than previous years, while overall PE-VC investments in India remained flat at USD 33 billion in 2025, according to Venture Intelligence.
As a result, Dutta notes that many D2C companies are rationalising portfolios, tightening inventory cycles and optimising supply chains. Marketing strategies, too, are evolving, with greater emphasis on retention, community-building and owned channels instead of discount-led growth.
Uniqueness Will Define Winners
If capital discipline is one defining force, speed is another. Harish Bijoor, business and brand strategy expert, argues that D2C’s next phase will be shaped by how brands respond to a faster, more fragmented commerce environment.
“The e-commerce revolution led to a more refined orientation of D2C, and that has now given way to a q-commerce revolution that is even faster,” Bijoor says, adding, “The D2C revolution is going to be leveraged by speed. A whole host of players will invest time, energy and innovation into this.”
In Bijoor’s view, traditional e-commerce is now the slowest layer in a spectrum where quick commerce is the fastest, and D2C sits in between. In such a landscape, competing purely on price is no longer sustainable. He believes differentiation will increasingly come from uniqueness and premium positioning rather than ubiquity.
“When you know that you get a particular great-tasting biryani at just one place with no branches, you will go to that place. That uniqueness is what will distinguish D2C commerce in the future,” he says.
Bijoor adds that many D2C brands have been trapped in price wars under the guise of differentiation. He also argued that brands that premiumise and resist excessive omnichannel dilution are more likely to build desirability and long-term value.
Consumers Move Beyond Metros
Structural shifts in demand are reshaping how and where D2C brands grow. India now has one of the world’s largest and most diverse online consumer bases, with growth increasingly driven by Tier-2, Tier-3 and smaller towns rather than metros alone. Internet adoption continues to deepen across rural and semi-urban India, expanding the addressable market well beyond early digital buyers.
This widening base is changing the nature of growth. Consumers are becoming more deliberate in how they spend, weighing value, quality and trust more carefully than before.
As Devangshu Dutta notes, Indian consumers have always been discerning, but rising living costs and economic uncertainty have made them even more thoughtful, pushing brands to earn repeat demand rather than rely on impulse or discount-led purchases.
“Value is not just about discounts,” he says. “It’s a balance of price, performance and trust. For D2C brands, repeat consumption has to be earned through consistent quality, transparent pricing and dependable service.”
High-frequency categories such as grocery, lifestyle and general merchandise are expected to drive much of this expansion. Bain estimates these segments will account for two out of every three e-retail dollars by 2030, reinforcing the importance of habit formation and retention-led models.
Quick Commerce Expands Discovery, Not Profitability
Quick commerce has emerged as a powerful but complex growth lever for D2C brands. The format now accounts for a significant share of India’s e-grocery demand and has scaled into a multi-billion-dollar market, becoming a key discovery channel for food and everyday consumption brands.
However, expansion beyond metros remains challenging. RedSeer data shows non-metro markets contribute just over 20 per cent of quick commerce GMV, even as platforms scale to over 150 cities, with breakeven economics in smaller towns requiring significantly higher throughput.
Praveen Govindu, partner at Deloitte India, cautions that while quick commerce has helped many D2C brands gain discovery, particularly in food and beverage, it is not a sustainable growth engine on its own.
“From a customer acquisition standpoint, quick commerce is not fundamentally different from traditional e-commerce,” Govindu says, adding, “It is an expensive channel, and competition will only intensify. Over the long term, brands cannot rely on burning capital there.”
Omnichannel Enters Its Toughest Phase Yet
As digital acquisition costs rise, India’s ad market is projected to grow nearly 8 per cent in 2025 to Rs 1.37 lakh crore, with digital accounting for almost half of the spends, brands are being pushed to diversify distribution. Yet omnichannel presence alone is no longer enough.
“Many brands talk about omnichannel, personalisation and seamless journeys, but in practice these efforts are still disjointed. In 2026, the focus will shift from intent to execution,” Govindu says.
RedSeer projects India’s retail market to cross USD 2 trillion by 2030, with nearly 90 per cent of consumption still happening offline. For D2C brands, this makes offline expansion unavoidable, but success will depend on consistent execution across pricing, inventory, service and communication.
Consumers, Govindu notes, do not consciously differentiate between online, offline or social platforms. “They simply want a consistent experience,” he says. “Even small inconsistencies can erode trust.”
AI-Led Discovery and Experience
Perhaps the most transformative force shaping 2026 will be the evolution of buying journeys themselves. Govindu sees the rise of AI-led and agentic commerce as a major inflection point.
“Conversational platforms and AI-driven assistants will increasingly influence discovery, purchase, fulfilment and post-sales experiences. What earlier happened across multiple touchpoints is now beginning to happen in one place,” he says.
This convergence amplifies the importance of content-led discovery, owned data and deep consumer understanding. Brands that can unify storytelling, commerce and service into a coherent narrative are more likely to build loyalty in an environment where switching costs are low and alternatives are abundant.
Whether growth comes through D2C websites, marketplaces, quick commerce or offline stores, experts agree that the real differentiator will be a brand’s ability to build durable consumer relationships. As investors shift focus from short-term metrics to long-term value creation like retention, margins and brand strength, the next phase of India’s D2C story is less about rapid expansion and more about refinement.
(Published in Entrepreneur India)
Saumyangi is a Senior Correspondent at Entrepreneur India with over three years of experience in journalism. She has reported on education, social, and civic issues, and currently covers the D2C and consumer brand space.
