The premium category in the beauty and personal care segment is growing nearly twice as fast as the overall BPC segment in India, said Jigar Shah, who co-founded skincare startup 82°E in November 2022 along with actress Deepika Padukone.
“The BPC industry is growing at 10% but the premium category is actually growing twice as fast at roughly 20%. So, consumers are increasingly wanting more high-quality products and giving emphasis on performance and quality more than anything else,” Shah noted in an interaction with FE.
“Pricing is a very subjective thing. If you are comparing us with a `500 product, of course we are expensive, but if you are comparing us with some of the high-performance global brands not just in India but outside, we are definitely way cheaper,” Shah added.
The company has so far launched 12 products, with most priced between `1,200 and `2,900. Shah added that the company is comfortable with its pricing and so are the customers they have interacted with. He added that Indian consumers will increasingly go for premium products as per capita GDP rises in the next few years.
“This is something we have seen happen in different countries, whether it’s China or Indonesia. The consumption behaviour changes once the per capita GDP crosses a certain threshold. The aspiration portion increases, the spending on discretionary, etc, improve and that’s something that we are going to see happen in India very soon as we approach that $2,500 per capita GDP,” he said.
For the next year, the company has large-scale expansion plans across categories, channels and geographies. Shah said that the brand will launch new products more aggressively next year and also venture into more categories in the beauty and personal care segment.
The company also plans to expand its product availability to offline channels, in addition to its online website and e-commerce sites. In terms of market expansion, the company plans to expand its footprint to global markets and focus on scaling export opportunities.
“We are one of the first D2C brands out of India to have built capabilities to ship to about 150 countries globally, out of that we have shipped to about 50+ countries in the last one year,” Shah added.
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