These Are Great Times To Build Brands In The Beauty & Fashion Space: Nykaa’s Adwaita Nayar

Emphasising the substantial opportunities in both brand creation and platform-focused business, Adwaita Nayar, the cofounder of Nykaa and CEO of Nykaa Fashion, said that it is a really good time to build brands in the beauty and fashion space.

“We are really bullish on the kind of consumption and the kind of growth that these businesses and verticals are going to see,” Nayar said while speaking at Inc42’s fourth edition of the D2C summit.

Discussing the potential and opportunities within the Indian market, specifically in the context of D2C brands and identifying gaps in the brand ecosystem, Nayar added that there is a significant opportunity in India due to a lack of options in various product categories such as women’s fashion.

Nykaa itself is building private label brands across its fashion and beauty categories, which the company is very bullish about, Nayar added.

“We don’t actually like to call them private labels internally, we call them owned brands because private labels typically have the connotation of being cheaper and sort of undercutting on price. We are trying to identify gaps in the ecosystem. And then we’re trying to create beautiful brands in those spaces. We have entirely different teams that work on this very high focus on creativity, design quality, coming up with the positioning and coming up with the gaps,” she said.

Nykaa currently has 20 ‘owned brands’ across fashion and beauty segments. The beauty and fashion ecommerce giant sells owned brands not only on its own platforms but also on other platforms and offline channels, with some brands performing well outside their primary platforms.

In addition, Nayar said she sees a significant opportunity in the realm of teen-focussed fashion. She frequently discusses this potential with her team and believes that while Nykaa may cater to some teenagers, there remains a substantial opportunity for someone to establish a dedicated platform and a collection of brands tailored specifically for teens.

Nykaa’s net profit jumped 8.2% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 5.4 Cr in the first quarter of FY24. The Falguni Nayar-led startup’s operating revenue jumped to INR 1,421.8 Cr in Q1 FY24 from INR 1,148.4 Cr in the corresponding quarter of last fiscal.

Beauty and personal care (BPC) vertical’s GMV grew 24% YoY to INR 1,850.8 Cr in the quarter under review. It also rose 13.6% on a QoQ basis. The GMV of Nykaa’s fashion vertical rose 12% YoY to INR 653.7 Cr in Q1 FY24. However, on a QoQ basis, it declined from INR 664.1 Cr.