Festive boost for beauty startups

Half your face may be hidden by a mask and corona norms may have crimped gatherings, but Indians are snapping up beauty products this festive season with cosmetics startups witnessing a surprisingly robust spike in sales.

Expectedly, makeup products for eyes and nails—still visible though Diwali gatherings may be small—have picked up sales.

“Self-improvement, in terms of beauty and wellness, has emerged as a key trend in the last few months. The festive season has further accelerated this trend,” said Sreedhar Prasad, internet business expert and former partner at KPMG. “Customers also have a lot more time on hand to search for the right beauty products and treatments, which gives a huge opportunity to direct-to-consumer brands to fulfil this need.”

Online beauty store Purplle.com said its sales volume jumped three-fold during its six-day Diwali sale over September with 70% orders coming from tier 2 and tier 3 cities.

“We have seen the highest demand in the skincare category, with a growth of over 240%, followed by hair care and makeup. There is a resurgence of demand for makeup products like lipstick, blush, foundation, concealer in addition to eye makeup,” said Manish Taneja, co-founder and chief executive of Purplle.

“Our customers haven’t had many opportunities this year to dress up, and Diwali provides a perfect opportunity.”

This is in addition to the seasonal products such as moisturizes, face creams and body lotion performing well owing to the onset of winter.

Online direct-to-consumer cosmetics brand MyGlamm said it is seeing a clear uplift in the festive season with a 30% increase over last year’s festival sales.

“During the lockdown, makeup was non-essential and became zero, while skincare really grew. With the onset of the festive season, makeup has now come back strongly,” said Darpan Sanghvi, founder of MyGlamm.

Homegrown colour cosmetic firm Kiro said celebratory or occasion-based purchases this year are attuned to the consumer’s lifestyle.

“She (the customer) is spending time celebrating festivals in a more intimate setting, and that is reflecting in the product and shade choices,” said Vasundhara Patni, founder, Kiro. “Our highlighter and eye shadow sticks are proving to be loved by consumers. Considering the mask situation, eye products continue to be the top picks.”

Varun Alagh, co-founder of beauty brand Mamaearth, added, “The festive season has been good as well with more than 3x growth over last year with higher contributions from tier 3 and tier 4 markets. This growth can be attributed to the product innovation and new product launches across categories.”

Vineeta Singh, co-founder and CEO, SUGAR Cosmetics said that the company did 50% more revenue last month than pre-Covid highest and in terms of net revenue, the brand grew 66% from September to October.

"This spurt has been predominant due to the growth in the e-commerce channels, but even retail saw a solid recovery on the back of Diwali, wedding, Karvachauth and Durga Puja shopping," she added.