SUGAR Cosmetics, one of the fastest growing premium colour cosmetics brands in the country entered the Indian cosmetics market in 2015. The cosmetics brand has recently clocked a turnover over Rs 100 crore and is reportedly already giving tough competition to market leaders in the colour cosmetics category in India. Backed by the trust of marquee investors and the love of millions of makeup enthusiasts, SUGAR Cosmetics is rapidly scaling its physical presence with 770+ retail outlets as of early 2019, driven by a mission of reaching the doorstep of every makeup user in the country. In an exclusive interview with Retail4Growth, Amrita Shinde, Head of Brand Marketing, SUGAR Cosmetics, sheds light on the company’s journey so far, approach to retail brand presence and that helps staying ahead of competition.

Can you first take us through the birth of SUGAR Cosmetics and your current retail footprint?

SUGAR Cosmetics is a four-year-old brand. We entered the Indian cosmetic market in 2015 with premium beauty products that were designed to be high on style and higher performance. Over the year, the company has expanded its retail presence at an aggressive pace from 770+ retail touchpoints which include self-operated kiosks, general trade stores, shop-in-shops in channel partners like Lifestyle, Shopper Stop, Central, Pantaloons etc and also EBOs. We currently have 3 standalone EBOs. We opened our first EBO in Kolkata in Feb this year. Within 2 months we opened our 2^nd EBO in Bangalore and have opened our third EBO in Gurugram recently. We are slated to officially launch our next EBO in Hyderabad soon.

The current cosmetics market is dominated by global market leaders. What would be your key strategy to stand out amongst competition in India? What’s your USP?

The market giants are trying to focus on aspirational beauty. But when it comes to SUGAR Cosmetics, we are trying to build a brand recognition worldwide through the range of bold beauty product that we have. We listen to our customers’ feedback and have tried to incorporate that, which has really worked for us.

Our USP is the colour pigmentation of our products, newness and the fact that our products are available at affordable prices.

SUGAR Cosmetics has clocked a turnover of Rs 100 crore in a short span of 7 years. What factors would you attribute this growth to?

SUGAR Cosmetics started its journey online. Given our online and offline presence and our product range, achieving the Rs 100 crore revenue was no big deal. In the past few years, SUGAR Cosmetics has had an accelerated progress in their retail front achieving a revenue growth of 700%, being present across 92 cities, captivating the international market with in-store presence in Russia.

What would be your online-offline sales ratio and what kind of parity do you bring in?

Our online and offline is almost on the same line. Our online and offline sales ratio in India is 40:45. Beside we are also serving international markets like Russia.  

Read the full interview in the November 2019 edition of VM&RD magazine.