Shoppers Stop looks to double its beauty business as global brands come knocking

Mumbai: Department store operator Shoppers Stop Ltd could double its beauty business in the next few years by partnering with more global brands and adding more standalone stores for existing brands, said Biju Kassim, the CEO of its beauty business. “If we really work around all the fundamentals well I think in the next three years for sure the beauty business could double,” Kassim added.

Last fiscal year the company – which sells clothing, footwear, accessories, home products and beauty products – reported revenues of ₹5,228 crore, up 3% from the previous year. The beauty business reported sales of ₹887 crore in FY24, up 10% year-on-year, while the beauty distribution business — Global SS Beauty Brands — reported additional revenue of ₹119 crore.

Shoppers Stop not only sells beauty products in its own stores but also manages specialty beauty stores for global brands such as M.A.C., Estée Lauder, Bobbi Brown, Clinique, Jo Malone and Too Faced in India. It also operates the multi-brand online beauty store SS Beauty.

Last year Global SS Beauty Brands partnered with Japanese company Shiseido Asia Pacific to launch global makeup brand Nars Cosmetics in India. It is also slated to open Giorgio Armani beauty stores in the country. Shoppers Stop extends its reach by distributing international cosmetics and perfumes to retailers such as Sephora and Nykaa.

“We started out two years ago with beauty contributing about 15.5% to our business, and we have increased this to 17-18%. The plan is to hit about 25% in the next two to three years. Beauty has been growing faster than other categories,” said Kassim, who hinted at more global tie-ups in the coming years. “We are open for discussions with any potential partner and there are many, many brands yet to come to India,” he added.

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Global SS Beauty Brands’ business could touch ₹250 crores this fiscal year, he added. “This year we want to do over ₹250 crore [of business] simply with the addition of new brands to our portfolio and annualisation of brands that we signed last year,” he said.

India’s beauty market is a beast

Young Indian shoppers are lapping up beauty products like never before. After expanding more than four-fold from 2006 to 2022, India’s beauty and personal care market is set to grow five-fold in the next 15 years, hitting $90 billion in gross merchandise value from $19 billion in 2022, according to estimates by HSBC Global Research. Skin care, make-up and many other subcategories could grow 10-fold during this period, HSBC said in a report released earlier this month.

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It’s no surprise, therefore, that several large companies such as Hindustan Unilever, Reliance, the Tata Group and Nykaa are chasing the beauty shopper. However, scale will be the main determinant of profitability in the beauty and personal care market, the report added.

“In India, we think specialist online beauty retailers with an omnichannel presence are best positioned to capture the value of the exponential growth in e-commerce and this long-term growth story. Some smaller brands that can develop strong value propositions, especially those with a distinctive positioning and value proposition, may become partners of larger companies or acquisition targets,” the HSBC report said.

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L'Oréal, the world’s largest beauty products company, said it expects 100 million new customers in India to shop online for beauty products in the next three to four years. The French company draws a fifth of its sales of brands such as Maybelline, L'Oréal Paris, and Garnier from online retailing.

On 20 June Mint reported that e-commerce giants Flipkart and Amazon are aggressively expanding their beauty and personal care businesses. Flipkart could double the beauty and personal care category in terms of gross merchandise value—a key metric for e-commerce firms that measures the total value of sales—within the next four to five years, a senior company official said.

Meanwhile, Amazon India said it plans to bring quality beauty products to every last pin code in India. “Beauty is one of the top categories via which we recruit new customers. It's very strategic from a customer acquisition and repeat standpoint. We do expect it to be one of our top categories for the platform in terms of driving growth as well," said Zeba Khan, director, beauty, luxury beauty and personal care, Amazon India.