Amazon India ‘May’ Launch Its Personal Label For Beauty Products

Amazon India is reportedly planning to launch its own label of beauty and personal care products.

As an Economic Times source stated, “With beauty and personal care a “strategically important category” for the company, Amazon India is talking to contract manufacturers and will be launching private labels (in-house brands) in a few categories within skincare and makeup.”

An email sent by Inc42 to Amazon India didn’t elicit any response till the time of publication.

At present, Amazon India retails 2 Mn beauty products across 19,000 brands.

If Amazon makes such a move, it would be concurrently challenging its arch-rival Flipkart-owned Myntra, which has recently announced its plans to open beauty and wellness offline stores.

Myntra already offers more than 100 beauty and cosmetics brands which include MAC, Clinique, Bobbi Brown and Estee Lauder. It now plans to sell these products via a chain of its wellness stores.

However, in the Indian beauty and wellness market in India, beauty ecommerce websites like Nykaa, NewU, Purplle, etc. are already leading the space. These companies focus exclusively on beauty and wellness products and have even opened their offline stores in major cities like Delhi, Bengaluru, amongst others.

In a December 2016 report, FICCI estimated the Indian wellness industry to grow with a CAGR of 12%  to achieve a $23.4 Bn (INR 1.5 Tn) turnover by 2019-20.

Another report claimed that the Indian beauty industry is looking towards a market value of $12.4 Bn (INR 80,000 Cr) by 2017-2018 and is expected to grow at a rate of 15% to 20%.

Confirming the line of claims, RedSeer Consulting also established a report that suggested that the domestic online beauty and personal care market is expected to cross $3.5 Bn by 2022 from about the present figure of $300 Mn.

Ecommerce giants like Flipkart and Amazon have been tapping into the high-margin cosmetics market on their platforms. However, with a personal label, Amazon has taken a huge step ahead and we will have to see if it can create a brand value amid the growing consumer landscape preferring to purchase beauty products online in India.

[The development was reported by ET]