Amazon India has increased focus on the high margin cosmetics category and might be in talks with local manufacturers to launch Amazon branded personal care products in India, according to a report in the Economic Times, which has been widely re-circulated by others.
India’s online beauty and personal care market is expected to cross $3.5 billion by 2022 from about $300 million now. Sales of both international and Indian beauty brands are increasing. Ananth Narayanan, chief executive of Myntra and Jabong, both fashion and lifestyle e-commerce portals owned by Amazon’s competitor Flipkart said, “We are looking at a contribution of about 8% [from the beauty segment] to our overall revenue by 2020, from the current 1%.” Shalini Raghavan, chief marketing officer, consumer products division, at L’Oreal India said, “We have definitely added consumers (from tier 2 and 3 towns) through our online presence. With our retail footprint alone, [we] would not have had the same access earlier.”
