The Personal Care and Beauty Market in India

It's not only urban areas in India where people use beauty and personal care products. New technology and mass media are bringing awareness to smaller towns and rural areas. Companies advertise their products through social media campaigns, television commercials, and celebrity endorsements.

Categories of personal care and beauty products

A report from Euromonitor,  shows that while mass brands account for most of the sales of these products, premium brands are registering strong growth. People with higher disposable income have more discretionary money to spend on premium products.

Multinational corporations make up about two thirds of the companies that sell beauty and personal care products in India. They have the strongest distribution networks. Consumers can find their products in all of the available retail channels, both on and off-line, both urban and rural. When manufacturers launch new products, they usually introduce multiple variants in order to appeal to people with different tastes and desires.  The personal care industry makes up 22 percent of India's market for consumer package goods.

According to Amritt Ventures, haircare is the major category in India's personal care industry. Shampoo is the most popular of all consumer-packaged goods. Hindustan Unilever Ltd. dominates this segment of the market with three popular brands. Two India-based companies, Dabur and Marico's Parachute, dominate the important hair oil segment with their brands of coconut hair oil.

The soap and bath industry is also very significant as more than 90 percent of Indian households use soap. Both Indian and foreign companies sell popular brands of soap. Procter& Gamble's Gillette dominates the market for razors and shaving cream.

In the cosmetics segment of the personal care industry, Indians buy a lot of makeup, lotions, skin creams, and lightning creams. Hindustan Unilever introduced the first skin lightening cream in the world, Fair & Lovely,and sells two other popular brands of skin care products. L'Oréal Parisalso developed products especially for the Indian market. Revlon is expanding into smaller cities. Colgate-Palmolive is likewise a major player in this segment.Working men and women purchase the majority of cosmetics in India.

The organic skincare category is growing rapidly. Two large Indian companies, Himalaya Herbals and Boutiques, specialize inorganic Ayurveda products.Oral care products make the smallest category of personal care products. Fewer than half of Indian consumers use toothpaste or other western-style products of this kind. Colgate-Palmolive accounts for more than half of sales in this in segment. Hindustan Unilever likewise sells popular brands of toothpaste.

Personal care and beauty products online

E-commerce is growing rapidly in India, even though only a few years ago sceptics were saying it wouldn't work. E-commerce accounts for the strongest growth in retail sales.  Only China and United States use Internet services more than India. Only Brazil is growing its population of online users more than India. Nearly three fourths of the online population in India is 35 years old or younger.  Because of the growing use of smart phones, Indian e-commerce will probably quadruple within five years. Multinational firms sell a lot of products in India, but some Indian firms already have sales of more than one billion in US dollars.

The healthcare industry is also growing rapidly in India.  The buying public is growing in numbers and sophistication not only in the largest urban centres, but also in smaller cities and towns. When it comes to healthcare, these people need online retailers to make up for the fact that local healthcare facilities are not yet as good as what's available in major cities. Companies that sell consumer package goods are beginning to learn that e-commerce can move much more than electronic gadgets like laptop computers.

It stands to reason therefore that sales of beauty and personal care products will also grow online. Celebrity promotions, rising income, mass media, and accelerating urbanization are driving the growth of this sector. Mass brands probably account for most of it. All of the large companies mentioned in this article are actively looking into how to take maximum advantage their online presence.Premium bread brands are marketed mostly by small retailers that specialize in beauty supplies.  That does not mean that people who want them can't find them online.

An online e pharmacy like BigChemistcan offer all of these brands and all of their variants. Consumers no longer have to visit numerous stores to find the products they want and need. The ability to place online orders for a variety of health and beauty supplies and medications is not only convenient, but also a boost to the market industry.