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Samreen Ahmad · · 4 min readBeauty ecommerce in India gets speedy makeover via quick commerce
Photo credit: Mamaearth
Quick commerce players in India are increasingly venturing into the beauty and personal care space.
Indeed, Varun Alagh, co-founder of Mamaearth – one of India’s biggest success stories in the beauty sector – said during a recent earnings call that the company sees “quick commerce emerging as a great growth driver.” The segment has grown by 100% plus year on year, he added.
However, this trend doesn’t seem to be crossing over to Southeast Asia just yet.
“They make my life easier”
Charumathi Sankaran, a media consultant based in Mumbai, is one of those contributing to the rise of this trend in India.
In addition to ordering groceries via quick commerce, she also buys beauty and makeup products on Blinkit, the instant delivery service owned by restaurant aggregator and food delivery platform Zomato.
Apps like Blinkit “make my life easier,” Sankaran tells Tech in Asia, noting that delivery can be made in 15 minutes, compared to the three to four days it takes for conventional beauty ecommerce platforms such as Nykaa.
Sankaran, who buys face masks, lipstick, and hair dye via quick commerce, adds that at times, these items also act as basket fillers for her to meet the threshold for free delivery.
Quick commerce companies in India such as Tata’s BigBasket and Blinkit started out providing quick commerce deliveries for groceries. They’ve since expanded to the new frontier of beauty products, as the segment typically offers double-digit margins.
The trend is slowly picking up, especially among city residents who are looking to replenish household goods faster.
The beauty in quick commerce
BigBasket’s quick commerce vertical offers 15-minute deliveries for cosmetics like lipsticks, eye liners, face masks, moisturizers, correction creams, and even traditional kajal products. The beauty segment already “contributes to 8% to 10% of our quick commerce business (in terms of revenue),” BigBasket’s Seshu Kumar Tirumala tells Tech in Asia.
Photo credit: The Good Glamm Group
The company’s target audience is Gen Z and millennials. According to Kumar, who is the chief buying and merchandising officer at the firm, the demographic seeks “a large amount of information before they choose what products to buy and, at the same, look for getting them in the quickest time possible.”
Indonesia vs. India
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While 15-minute deliveries of beauty items are taking off in India, the same can’t be said for Indonesia.
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