Vanity Business is everyones business
VANITY BUSINESS – AN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE :
The Indian beauty market is one of the largest with a potential of Rs. 30,000 crore with a CAGR of approximately 20%. Yet, the luxury segment of the Indian Beauty industry remains largely untapped. The consumer base is of the Indian Beauty market is that of the mass consumption that usually looks for anything that might suit their budget/ economically.
Vanity cask is a fresh perspective on the Indian Beauty Industry. This company was launched in August 2016 by Mr. Tarun Joshi who has been in the retail and marketing industry for over 30 years. He was the founding Managing Director of Brandhouse Retails Limited. In five years, Tarun led the company from inception to pan India growth. He leveraged the company’s retail infrastructure to launch international luxury brands like Dunhill and Escada in India.
VanityCask is a periodic sample subscription where in the consumers are provided with a box at their doorstep which contains 5 products from either the Skin, Hair or Bath and Beauty segments. All these products are internationally known brands that define luxury in the beauty market. The company so far has launched 2 boxes, Skin and Hair care. Their next box will be launched by the end of this month. All the products that a part of the box are not only internationally recognized but also carefully chosen by a team of dermatologists and other experts in the beauty industry. The company has managed to reach over 2 million women across India through continuous advertising and leading beauty bloggers. They plan on upgrading their product and fiercely market the brand in India.
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A spot of moisturizer or after-shave balm was one thing but anything more than that was taboo. But times have changed, and how. Male grooming is now an Rs 3,800-crore market in India, and is seeing plenty of action with new entrants and existing players clocking impressive growth .As per estimates by global market research firm Euromonitor,the category clocked 21% annual growth and is expected totouch Rs 5,270-crore in the next three years.
Male’s grooming is serious business :
We found in one article of Forbes India Magazine about a men named “Nirupam”
“I look at myself in the mirror first; it is vital for me to be well-groomed,” says Nirupam, who spends around ₹5,000 a month on cosmetics meant exclusively for men.
Similarly, Conrad Dias, 26, from Ranchi is aware of the need to look presentable before he starts his job with a media house in Hyderabad. So, to combat the problems arising from his oily skin, he uses a face wash that promises to get rid of the ill-effects of dirt and pollution. Plus, there’s a body lotion that doubles as a moisturiser. And to style his medium-sized, lumberjack beard, there’s a nourishing beard oil, wash and serum. “I always wanted to keep my beard healthy; it was patchy earlier. The oil has helped fasten its growth,” says Dias, who takes almost 25 minutes to get ready, and shells out between ₹1, 500 and ₹2,000 every month to buy personal care products online.
Both Nirupam and Dias are among a growing tribe of ubersexual men, confident and conscious about the clothes they wear and how they look. A higher disposable income and the hunger to climb the corporate ladder have redefined the needs of male grooming and, in the process, created an attractive market for companies dealing in men’s products.
The men’s grooming market is one of the fastest growing ecosystems for startups in the consumer brands space. It is estimated to be around ₹10,500 crore in size, growing at 10 percent each year, according to 2017 data from Market Intelligence, a market research firm that provides customised research across markets, brands and products.
Till recently, companies like P&G India’s Gillette India enjoyed a monopoly of 80 percent in volume and about 70 percent in value while Colgate Palmolive dominated the oral care segment with an 80 percent share (it is now down to 56 percent). However, the market was vast and its potential was waiting to be tapped.
In the personal care products space, larger consumer brands such as Hindustan Unilever, P&G India, ITC, Godrej Consumer Products and Marico, till recent years, manufactured only a limited range of products meant only for men. That resulted in men buying what was readily available or those made specifically for women.
Shantanu Deshpande, 31, founder and CEO, Bombay Shaving Company, explains this abnormality. He quotes data from a 2017 Euro monitor report and says that of the ₹65,000 crore worth of personal care products bought by Indians, ₹25,000 crore are used by men. However, only ₹10,000 crore worth of products are made specifically for men.
But men in a changing India were not willing to compromise. A large percentage of young Indians were moving to urban centers for better jobs and lifestyle, and mushrooming ecommerce portals and the proliferation of youth-savvy apps like Instagram and Tinder were tailoring their platforms to meet their aspirational needs. Grooming, as a category, too, refused to lag behind.
The Bombay Shaving Company, says Deshpande, has 65,000 customers, with a 50 percent repeat ratio. It manufactures around 25 products, claims total sales of ₹20 crore as of 2017 (it grew four times from 2016), with a fourth of them coming through offline stores in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Pune, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh. The company aims to expand to 100 products by 2020.
“I was lucky enough to be backed by investors, for up to ₹4 crore, in the early days,” says Deshpande. The company then raised $2.4 million ( ₹16 crore) in July 2014 from early-stage investment firm Fireside Ventures (led by Kanwal Singh and Vinay Singh) and three to four other investors. Deshpande plans to raise more capital by mid-2018 for brand building and technology.
A few months prior to the launch of the Bombay Shaving Company, another men’s grooming brand, Beardo (from Zed Lifestyle company), was set up in October 2015 by Ashutosh Valani, 31, and his friend Priyank Shah, 29, in Ahmedabad. Valani had completed his master’s in international business from Brunel University in London and had gathered experience in ecommerce through a trading platform ‘Aajkiitem’ in 2011. “In those early days, we found that people were searching for and buying men’s deodorants, and looking for products such as hair waxes. We realised there was a need… and ventured in to manufacture beard oil and wash,” says Valani.
Beardo now has 40 products, a fifth of which are beard related. Valani pegs the company’s annual sales at between ₹50 crore and ₹100 crore as of 2017; 60 percent of them come through the online medium while the balance is through sales to 5,000 salons across India. Beardo claims to have 25 lakh customers, with a 30 percent repeat ratio.