Amazon sees jump in demand for premium clothing and beauty products

livemint.com:

New Delhi: Online marketplace Amazon is seeing a clear trend of consumers buying more expensive clothing, watches, beauty products, and pricey footwear on its platform. This is a sign that e-commerce platforms are now seeing a shift from value-focused purchases to more expensive ones. "There is a very clear trend on premium products across customer segments—beauty, fashion, even on mobile phones, people are trading up and that comes from more disposable income as well as a larger middle class," said Saurabh Srivastava, vice president, Amazon Fashion India.

Srivastava looks at both fashion and beauty in the online beauty marketplace. Fashion and beauty is one of the largest and one of the fastest-growing categories on Amazon India. "The online fashion and beauty market, by some estimates, is already over $11 billion dollars; it is estimated to grow at a 35% CAGR till 2028.

So this is a huge opportunity. We are seeing that in certain categories—there’s huge acceleration. In some categories we are selling 2x, in some categories, it is like 14x, mostly focused on premium products.

If you look at luxury beauty, we are growing almost two times than we were," Srivastava said as the company announced its latest fashion and beauty trends report. Amazon opened its global beauty store in May with brands such as Forest Essentials, Kama Ayurveda, O3+'s Professional, etc. However, the portfolio for now only consists of a few up-market brands when compared to what rivals Myntra and Nykaa offer vis-à-vis their international beauty portfolio.

Nykaa, for instance, has a large selection of foreign beauty brands, some exclusive to the platform. Customers are asking for international beauty brands, he said. Meanwhile, Srivastava said fashion