Late in 2018, when Angad Soni was preparing to launch Sepoy & Co., his botanical mixers startup, he was sure of two things: one, he had to get the formulation of his first product, tonic water, right. Two, the bottle in which it would be sold had to stand out.
The target audience was consumers of premium gins who had likely sampled high-quality tonics on trips abroad, but had to settle for mass-market brands in India sold in plastic bottles, or in cans, such as Schweppes. Alongside the taste, Soni knew “it was paramount that we figure out our packaging from day zero”.
Glass bottles were the clear choice, but had to grab attention. So, Soni worked with Olsson Barbieri, a design agency in Norway that had designed bottles and packaging for several Norwegian, Scandinavian and European spirit and beverage brands, to create Sepoy's signature fluted and ribbed glass bottle.
But manufacturing that design in India proved far more complicated. Soni’s bottle-making partner, Hindustan National Glass & Industries took months of convincing. “They said the vertical lines that you have are not possible, get rid of them. But that’s an integral part of the design,” recalls the Sepoy founder.
The effort eventually paid off. Today, the distinctive bottle is closely associated with the Sepoy brand, which closed the last fiscal year with ₹17.5 crore in revenue.
Sepoy, a bootstrapped brand, is not alone in putting so much into getting its packaging right. Across the board, packaging has become central to making brands stand out, as they vie with each other to grab consumers by the eyeballs.
And that may be part of the reason why India’s packaging industry is booming. It was estimated to be worth ₹5.4 trillion in fiscal year 2025 (FY25) and is projected to reach ₹8.3 trillion by FY30, according to a report by investment banking firm Avendus Capital.
The digital shelf
The packaging shift is closely tied to how brands are discovered today. “Packaging has served three major requirements since the first consumer goods were launched: protection, information and shelf appeal. This hasn’t changed, but the context in which packaging must deliver today has changed dramatically,” says brand and design strategist Meeta Malhotra. “For a growing number of internet-first companies, the shelf is no longer a physical store but a screen. Consumers encounter products as thumbnails on a quick commerce app, as images on a marketplace listing, or as part of an Instagram feed.”
India’s e-retail market grew to about $66 billion in 2025, expanding at nearly 20% annually, according to consulting firm Bain & Company. Quick commerce has emerged as one of the fastest-growing segments, already accounting for 16–17% of e-retail. For Sepoy & Co, quick commerce contributes over half of sales.
At the same time, the number of brands competing for attention has surged. According to Tracxn, India currently has 11,586 active D2C brands, while 2,593 have shut down. For many of these brands, which have little or no physical retail presence, packaging is the only physical touchpoint with the customer.
“I like fluted designs, be it in bottles or glassware. That’s what caught my eye when I came across Sepoy & Co for the first time,” says Lakshmi Madhu, a Chennai-based product marketer at a technology firm, who mostly buys her Sepoy mixers on quick commerce.
She adds that the bottles add to her decor and display when she is hosting at home, which is an added advantage. “I will buy a product just because the packaging looks good. I feel the brand has put in that extra effort and thought, so there must be something there. And it gives me a premier feel.”
Packaging as product
It is exactly this customer response that India’s direct-to-consumer (D2C) or internet-first brands are chasing. “User experience matters in the D2C world. Consumers have too many options. When someone is paying ₹300–400 for a skincare product, they are not just buying functionality,” says Romita Mazumdar, founder of skincare brand Foxtale. The five-year-old company raised about ₹250 crore in 2025 in Series C funding, led by Japanese beauty products company Kose Corporation along with existing investors Z47, Kae Capital, and Panthera Growth Partners. “We live in a world of Instagram where aesthetics have become core to how people see and present their lives. That is where packaging and the entire unboxing experience become important,” she added.
Like Soni, Mazumdar focused on packaging alongside product development. She revealed that packaging is among the top three reasons for purchase in customer surveys.The company closed FY25 with ₹206 crore in revenue, a 144% year-on-year jump.
This understanding influenced her product and packaging decisions when she worked on a new range of bodycare products, called Hula Hoop. The bodywash line has a distinct hourglass-shaped dispenser. The brand, which has a 20-to-30-member in-house packaging team, has invested in proprietary moulds and holds patents around its packaging formats.
Standing out
The crowded ‘aisles’ of e-commerce marketplaces and quick commerce sites give brands just a few moments to convince a customer to buy.
For Pallavi Bhatia, founder of fragrance brands Olfa Originals and Mad Nose, that became clear early. “There’s just so much clutter. For the product to stand out, it has to look and feel different,” she says.
Olfa, a premium brand priced above ₹15,000, follows a hybrid distribution model. While discovery happens online on Instagram and on e-commerce platforms where its recruitment products (entry-level offerings designed to attract first-time customers) such as travel perfumes and ambience sprays are sold, the significant purchases mostly happen in physical stores in locations such as Delhi, Jaipur, and Hyderabad.
The bootstrapped Olfa Originals, founded in 2016, closed FY26 with revenue of around ₹7 crore and is looking to double that to ₹15 crore this fiscal year.
The performance of the company’s recruitment products on marketplaces gave Bhatia deep insights and begin thinking of another brand. “I would say 70% to 80% of the reason for the first purchase online was the packaging,” she says.
And so, Bhatia started working on her e-commerce marketplace-focused Mad Nose brand of fragrances in 2020, with packaging development and product formulation going hand in hand. “I wanted to make sure that it’s a bottle that stands out from the sea of products on Amazon,” says the sixth-generation perfumer.
That thinking led to one of the brand’s most recognizable elements, an oversized bottlecap shaped like a human face with a prominent nose, designed to be instantly identifiable even in a small product image. Bhatia finally launched Mad Nose in 2025. It is looking to end this fiscal year with ₹5 crore in revenue.
Beyond aesthetics
Founders point out that form may be the most visible element, but functionality plays an equally key role. “A lot of our packaging is functional,” says Mazumdar, highlighting that much of her range includes active ingredients that need to be in a stable form until the product reaches the consumer. She opted for airless pumps that had to be sourced from abroad. The brand also uses specially created knobs that cover tube openings, so they remain airless, says Mazumdar, who is now investing in a manufacturing facility that will create sustainable packaging.
The functional element becomes critical for Nat Habit, which uses cold-processed, food-grade ingredients with minimal preservatives in its range of skin and haircare products. “Packaging had to act as a stability shield. It protects from oxygen, moisture and contamination while extending shelf life,” says co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Swagatika Das. The company saw its revenue surge almost 50% year on year to close FY25 at ₹109 crore.
Nat Habit uses a mix of packaging materials. Its spout pouches, used for face and hair masks, use a food-grade aluminium barrier to protect formulations from light and temperature fluctuations. Its tubes, used for conditioners and hand malai, feature five-layer ethylene vinyl alcohol (EVOH) protection, to help preserve texture, freshness, and efficacy. Bottles, used for hair oils and shampoos, are made with UV-protected materials to safeguard sensitive botanical actives.
Mad Nose, too, has optimized for use-case driven packaging for its travel perfume. Instead of traditional breakage-prone vials, Bhatia opted for biodegradable capsules that are more travel-friendly, housed in cheerful tin cases reminiscent of vintage mint tins.
The cost of looking good
The emphasis on packaging comes with significant investment. According to Mazumdar, developing a single packaging line can cost anywhere between ₹20 lakh and ₹1 crore. “Where others may spend ₹15 on packaging, we might spend ₹30. I take a hit on margins to deliver that experience,” she claims.
Sepoy’s Soni shares a detailed breakup of what a startup needs to invest on premium packaging. The design agency’s cost can range from a few lakhs to a few crores. Creating custom moulds costs between ₹5 lakh and ₹10 lakh, and at least 10 are needed. Then comes the cost of manufacturing, which can range between ₹7 and ₹10 per bottle with the minimum order volume running into lakhs. Throw in labelling and storage fees and the costs mount quickly.
Nat Habit, backed by Fireside Ventures, Bertelsmann India Investments and others, has transitioned a significant portion of its packaging to recycled PET (rPET), even though it is more expensive. “As Nat Habit grew, PET bottles became our largest packaging material stream, making virgin plastic our biggest environmental footprint,” says Das. Now, 72% of the brand’s PET bottles are made from rPET. Das says that while rPET adds ₹6–8 per kilogram to material costs, it helps offset ₹3–4 per unit in Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) liabilities, India’s regulatory framework, which makes brands financially responsible for collecting, recycling, or offsetting the packaging waste they generate.
When every design looks good
But as more brands invest in design, the very advantage packaging once offered is beginning to erode. Pari Purohit, founder of creative design outfit Studio Glyph, questions the efficacy when all products and their packaging are similar.
“When categories get so crowded that customers can’t tell the difference between two products because they promise the same benefit, the lazy solution from a brand point of view is to say ‘let’s make the design look different’,” says Purohit, whose studio has worked with the likes of beauty label Just Herbs, supplements company The Good Bug, cleaning products company Beco, and skincare brand Orimii.
That view is echoed by Rahul Chawda, founder of Anomaly Brands, an agency that has worked with premium chocolatier Smoor, tempeh-based food startup Hello Tempayy and quick service food brand Samosa Party.
“The democratization of brand creation has made 10,000 brands in a place where four or five should operate, and the products themselves are not different,” Chawda says. While brands might use packaging as the default lever for differentiation, it is also the easiest to replicate.
Chawda explains that the ecosystem around launching a new consumer brand is now a well-oiled machine, with contract manufacturers offering everything from formulations to even the bottles, tubs, tetrapacks and outer packaging in bright colours and standout fonts. The result is an endless scroll of pretty looking bottles.
“Everyone looks good right now. So then it comes down to subjective taste. Do you really, as a business, want to rely on subjective tastes for sales,” asks Purohit. “Unfortunately, many people view design as the driver for business. It should actually be the tool that serves business."
Unsurprisingly, a number of internet-first brands have struggled after the initial growth spurt. This is most visible in the beauty and skincare segment. Honasa Cosmetics, owner of the Mamaearth brand, registered just 9% year-on-year revenue growth to reach ₹2,150 crore in revenue in FY25. Wow Skin Sciences, once considered a breakthrough beauty care brand, saw revenue dip from ₹246.8 crore in FY24 to ₹145.5 crore in FY25. In FY22, its revenue was at almost ₹344 crore. Sugar Cosmetics’ revenue dropped to ₹411 crore in FY25 from ₹515 crore in FY24.
Foxtale’s Mazumdar acknowledges this shift. As more brands invest in packaging, what was once a differentiator is quickly becoming the default. “I don’t think we are the only ones solving for packaging anymore, though I believe we do it better,” she says.
Founders accept that packaging can do only so much. “At the end of the day, if your product quality is not good, and you cannot persuade the user to buy again, you are finished,” admits Sepoy’s Soni.
But, for a customer to know if a product is good, they need to first try it. As Soni says, first impressions matter: “And packaging is crucial to make that first impression.”