Founder Falguni Nayar says Nykaa has a significant lead and the advantage to actively defend its turf

The founder and CEO of Nykaa, Falguni Nayar, said that the fashion and cosmetics shop intends to aggressively defend its ground against competition from Indian conglomerates and new entrants since it has a significant lead and advantage in terms of brand play, customer base, and business analytics.

In an interview with PTI, Nayar said that retail is a “very big segment with space for many” and that the omnichannel beauty and fashion store would remain focused by providing offers that significantly exceed customers’ expectations in order to keep them from switching to competitors.

The remarks are relevant given the fierce rivalry that is developing in India’s quickly expanding beauty e-commerce market.

With the introduction of Tira, an omni-channel beauty retail platform, Reliance Retail has intensified competition in the burgeoning beauty and personal care sectors, which already include firms like Nykaa, Tata Cliq Palette, a recent entry, Myntra, and others.

According to Nayar, Nykaa has contributed to the beauty industry’s expansion from a “small niche category” to a “much bigger category.”

“Now that the sector is expanding, several national conglomerates and huge enterprises are showing interest in it. They’re all found in stores. Their decision to expand their retail footprint into other regions made sense.

“However, Nykaa has a significant lead and an advantage in terms of brands, customers, business, and industry knowledge, so we will obviously… hope to defend our business,” said the company’s executive director.

Retail play, according to Nayar, is a very large market that provides room for many.

“One guy taking the whole market has never been the case in retail. Hopefully, we will be among the few stores that thrive since there are always a few that don’t,” she said.

Nykaa pledges to be devoted to providing customers with experiences that surpass their expectations.

“I consistently advocate for maintaining a customer-centric approach and exceeding their expectations to eliminate any motivation for them to seek out competitors,” she said.

In 2012, Nayar founded Nykaa, an online store selling cosmetics. After taking Nykaa public in November 2021, she became the wealthiest self-made Indian woman in 2022, surpassing Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw with the company’s successful listing.

In addition to asserting that the governance agenda has to be established very early in an entrepreneurial journey, Nayar thinks that investors (in the ecosystem) would be paying more attention to recent examples of corporate governance violations in certain well-known businesses.

She emphasized that any governance compromise cannot be justified just because a business is expanding or pursuing size and scale.

“I believe that the firms will also realize that governance cannot be compromised. Making compromises in governance due to expansion or the pursuit of size and scale does not serve as an excuse for breaking the law. Companies must abide by any regulations set out by the industry, she added.

She also mentioned Nykaa’s outstanding governance record.

In terms of business, Nayar is upbeat about the future and believes that there is a lot of space for development in the beauty, personal care, and fashion industries in India.

She claims that because of its youthful, aspirational population, growing income levels, durable infrastructure, and robust digital networks, India is pinging on the radar of major global companies.

Nykaa has observed that the majority of the CEOs of international beauty firms have recently paid us visits. It has been incredible to see how these CEOs, as well as the chairmen of the top 10 beauty companies, have all expressed a desire to do more while they have been in our nation. This indicates to us that there is global interest in collaborating with India. The future is promising, too,” she said.

Given the room for progress, Nayar expressed her strong “optimism” and “confidence” about the future.

The per capita consumption of beauty and fashion in India is so low that the recent increases in wealth must be causing it to increase several times.

“This voyage has also been seen in China. Where China was 15–16 years ago, India is now. And there was a recent surge in consumption across all categories, with the beauty and fashion sectors leading the way. Thus, we have every confidence that it will happen again in India,” the woman said.