Beauty and the ecommerce beast: As online breaks entry barriers, newer brands crop up, expanding offerings & market

Kolkata | Mumbai: Indians are continuing to splurge on grooming, with ecommerce driving the boom.

The number of electronic device brands in India selling products such as hair stylers, straighteners, dryers and shavers online rose to 571 in 2024, from 399 in 2022, more than thrice the 154 sold in stores, according to market researcher NielsenIQ.

Beauty and grooming products are fast filling up the online space with more than 3,500 brands, according to a Redseer Strategy Consultants-Nykaa report. Almost 96% of them operate primarily in the ecommerce space.


“Online offers a wider assortment in the category,” said Sharang Pant, head of commercial, tech and durables, NielsenIQ India.

Online up to 30% Cheaper

“Many brands are being launched every year, enabling new consumers to enter the beauty and personal grooming category at different price points or upgrade as well,” said Pant of NielsenIQ. “Online prices are cheaper by 10-30% versus offline for these products.”

The pace of unit or volume sales growth for electronic grooming devices online at 22% year-on-year is more than twice that in offline stores at 8.9%, showed data from NielsenIQ, which tracks actual sales.

On an already high base, the share of online sales to the total for electronic grooming products rose to 88% in 2024 from 84% in 2022, the researcher said. Industry executives peg the ecommerce market for electronic grooming products at over Rs 12,000 crore. In the beauty care segment, the online contribution has risen to 15% from 12% in the past year, according to NielsenIQ data. Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), the country’s largest consumer goods company, pegs the total beauty products market at Rs 68,000 crore.

“The bedrock is wanting to look a better version of yourself,” said Harman Dhillon, executive director, beauty and wellbeing, HUL. “What ecommerce allows you to do is, it reduces the entry barriers that you had otherwise, in offline. Because it’s easier to get a product which is very, very specific and to list it, whether on your own website or to make it available is easier, versus, in the past, going in distributive trade and organised retail.”

The Redseer report said micro-trends or short-duration fads of 3-6 months, especially among GenZ consumers, are also driving growth with products such as graphic eyeliners, tinted moisturisers, lip stains and colour-shift lipsticks becoming viral.

The broader personal care segment is growing at 8.5% year-on-year, while the beauty category within that is increasing at 8.6%, NielsenIQ data showed. This is driven by premiumisation, innovative offerings, and the influence of global trends, such as the rising popularity of westernisation and South Korean beauty products and trends in India, the researcher said.

“Online platforms have become the preferred channel for purchasing luxury beauty products, with growth nearly double that of offline channels.,” said Roosevelt Dsouza, head of customer success, FMCG, NielsenIQ India. “This shift is driven by unique product offerings from small and mid-sized manufacturers, particularly on e-commerce platforms.”

The Redseer report said newer beauty care products are riding on trends popularised by influencers, pop stars and others, prompting consumers to shift from generic personal care to specific beauty products, such as the quest for “glass skin”, which first emerged in South Korea. This includes products such as sunscreen sprays and sticks, lip oil and lip tint, liquid blush, body butter, rosemary oil, salicylic acid serums and cleansers.

Shoppers Stop, FSN E-Commerce Ventures (Nykaa) and others have said the beauty category is set to grow the fastest in recent earnings updates. Nykaa said its beauty vertical growth accelerated sequentially in the December quarter with revenue growth upwards of 25%.

Shoppers Stop chief executive officer Kavindra Mishra told analysts last week that beauty has “outgrown” overall business in the fiscal year thus far.

“With the launch of the latest version of ss.com app, our conversions have increased. In beauty, we have also launched same-day delivery from two stores. This is an experiment, and we are working on this project,” he said.