How did shark Vineeta Singh's SUGAR Cosmetics become a successful startup despite the cut-throat competition in cosmetic industry?
A threadđ§”
A threadđ§”
If you see from the outside the cosmetic market in 2015 looked over-served. Why would you need more choices when you are getting cosmetic products from great brands like Huda Lakme, M.A.C, Maybelline etc. ?
But thatâs where some geniuses find gaps in the market.
But thatâs where some geniuses find gaps in the market.
Some of those gaps were filled in by an emerging cosmetic brand- SUGAR cosmetics- all of us are already aware about it, arenât we?
This versatile cosmetics brand has been trying to sell products which fit in extremely well to the kind of lifestyle young women want. They want to feel bold and confident about themselves without caring about the stereotype.
So the company is making a pathway to empower young women who donât wear makeup to look good in front of others, but who wear it to feel good and bold themselves.
Every new and emerging company has been trying to curate their products for âBharatâ and SUGAR has been doing that too. They arenât just targeting women living in metro cities, but also the ones who are living in tier 2 or 3 cities.
They are targeting new-age millennial woman- who are quite different from their mothers and wear makeup on everyday basis.
They saw 2 major challenges in front of Indian consumers who are awestruck by international brands and trends-
1. finding the right shade for the Indian skin tone; &
2. overpriced products for world-class quality
1. finding the right shade for the Indian skin tone; &
2. overpriced products for world-class quality
SUGAR cosmetics bridged this gap and built an individualistic brand. They developed highly pigmented, trendy and long-lasting products that suits every Indian skin type and colour.
They offer quite affordable and pocket friendly product range to their target customers with a mid range of Rs.500-600 rather than the extremes- Rs. 150 to Rs 3000.
In India if you make something high quality, affordable and give it aspirational value, you win.
Indian youth aspires to live a better life. That means they have aspirations. But that aspirational lifestyle isnât very affordable to a lot of them. If you make that aspiration affordable, you can win. Boat and Sugar are great examples.
Sugar took a lot of right steps in order to be successful. One of those was identifying and understanding the right target customer. Their target customers were well-opinionated, well-informed, and quite vocal about their views.
So for acquiring new customers, SUGAR opted for digital channels for marketing and distribution. And they leveraged social media platforms like Instagram. They built their strategy around the in-house content production and brand building.
They took a plain and simple approach to reach their customers- educating people about their needs and simply making them aware about the product- either by making videos or carousels.
Apart from this, SUGAR aced the packaging front as well. They used minimal designs and colours for the products- black and white- which are aesthetically pleasing. And on the contrary, they packed their products in a distinct yet unique way using triangulated illustration style.
They chose such a packaging to create brand awareness and to deliver their value proposition in the most efficient way- chic yet approachable- to appeal the younger demographic and to stand out.
Apart from all this, theyâve understood the significance of influencer marketing in this digital age. They used âunboxing videosâ and âbefore & afterâ videos to create awareness about their products. So many make up artists teach using SUGAR products.
They got a lot of success because of Nykaa and also rode the D2C wave in India quite nicely. A detailed thread on D2C revolution in India coming soon.
In 2019, they opened their first store in Forum Mall, Kolkata for offline expansion and by 2021 they had 10,000 stores across India.
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