e-commerce
Flipkart unveils annual beauty trends report with NielsenIQ at Glam Up Fest 2025
Mumbai: Flipkart’s beauty game just hit glow mode. At its flagship Glam Up Fest 2025, the homegrown e-commerce giant joined hands with NielsenIQ to unveil its first-ever Glam Up Annual Beauty Trends Report — a sizzling dossier on what’s hot, what’s viral, and what’s flying off carts in the beauty aisles.
The numbers are blinding. Five beauty products sold every second, over 148 million items purchased in 2024, and premium beauty growing at 70 per cent year-on-year. India’s online beauty obsession has officially entered its golden age — and Gen Z is running the show.
“The beauty landscape in India is in the midst of a vibrant transformation, and no one is driving it more than GenZs. Their evolving preferences, digital fluency, and expressive approach to beauty are reshaping the industry as we know It,” quipped Flipkart head of business (Cleartrip, FMCG, general merchandise) Manjari Singhal. “At Flipkart, we’ve always believed in staying close to the consumer. The Glam Up Trends Report is a reflection of that belief, an effort to listen, understand, and anticipate what beauty means to the next generation. This report is the result of a deep, collaborative effort between Flipkart and NielsenIQ teams.”
Here are sone of the key findings of the report:
* Skinimalism is the new glam: Sales of gel moisturisers shot up 120 per cent, serums by 80 per cent, and face washes cleaned up with a 123 per cent rise. Active ingredients like niacinamide, salicylic acid, and vitamin C are skincare royalty.
* Slugging, glazing, and SPF-ing: Sun protection is now a religion. Sunscreen sales have doubled; SPF product searches soared 76 per cent. Hydration-led rituals are here to stay.
* K-Beauty craze goes full K-drama: Snail mucin, hydrating essences, and sheet masks clocked 90 per cent YoY growth. Searches for Korean skincare grew 81 per cent. Seoul clearly has India’s skincare vote.
* Fragrance goes full ‘scent-sational’: Perfume isn’t just a splash; it’s a statement. Sales doubled, attars surged 2.5x, and gourmand notes (think marshmallow and brown sugar) are ruling scent playlists.
* Hair’s having its serum moment: Goodbye champi, hello peptides. Flipkart saw 2x growth in hair serums and an 85 per cent spike in scalp care. Haircare is now high-performance skincare in disguise.
* Cherry Cherry Lady and Surma surge: Glossy lips, barrier-friendly blush, and hybrid makeup formats are hot picks. Searches for Surma-inspired looks skyrocketed 33x, proving culture and colour can coexist.
* Beauty by geography: From Delhi’s dust to Kerala’s humidity, Flipkart is going hyper-local with assortments tailored to regional skin and hair woes.
Flipkart’s bet? Beauty is Gen Z-led, creator-powered, science-fuelled — and only just getting started.
Flipkart senior director research and insights Priyanka Bhargav, said: “Beauty today is bold, expressive, and constantly evolving and no one captures that spirit quite like Gen Z. Whether it’s their focus on skin health, passion for active ingredients, love for nostalgic aesthetics, or embrace of hybrid formats, they’re redefining the beauty playbook. The Glam Up Trends Report helps decode this dynamic shift. With rich data, real consumer voices, and cultural context, it highlights what’s truly resonating. Trends like Hydration Daze, Scientific Obsession, kiSKIN, and Cherry Cherry Lady go beyond surface appeal, they reflect how young India is engaging with beauty in deeper, more expressive ways. This report is the result of a thoughtful collaboration between the Flipkart Insights Team, the beauty and personal Care team, and our intelligence partner, NielsenIQ. We hope it sparks fresh thinking, challenges conventions, and inspires the next wave of beauty innovation.”
Flipkart’s Glam Up Report isn’t just a data drop — it’s a blueprint for beauty’s next billion. With a marketplace of over 1.4 million sellers, 500 million+ users, and innovations like UPI, no-cost EMI and easy returns, the platform is blending global trends with Indian needs at scale.
As Kartheek Kanumuru, Sakait Choudhary, Priyanka Bhargav and Manjari Singhal unveiled the report, one thing was clear: Flipkart is no longer just delivering products — it’s delivering beauty revolutions in a box.
Glam up, log on, and swipe right on that serum.
(Pictured above: Left to Right: Sakait Choudhary, Priyanka Bhargav, Manjari Singhal, Kartheek Kanumuru at Flipkart Glam Up 2025)
e-commerce
Visa report tracks rise of India’s affluent, experience-led spending
Affluent base doubles to 130 lakh, travel 58 per cent of elite spends.
MUMBAI: In India’s new luxury playbook, it’s less about owning more and more about living better. A new whitepaper by Visa Consulting and Analytics (VCA) maps a decisive shift in India’s affluent economy, where spending is becoming more intentional, experience-led, and closely tied to personal identity rather than pure income growth.
Titled India’s Affluent Economy 2025–2026, the report draws on a Visa-commissioned Yougov study and VisaNet data across travel, dining, retail and lifestyle categories. The headline number is hard to miss: individuals earning over Rs 10 lakh annually have nearly doubled from 69 lakh to 130 lakh, significantly expanding the country’s discretionary spending base.
But it’s not just about scale, it’s about behaviour. As consumers move up the affluence ladder, discretionary categories are taking a larger share of credit card spends, positioning cards as key enablers of premium, lifestyle-driven consumption.
The geography of wealth is shifting too. Affluence is no longer confined to metros such as Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, with cities like Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur and Lucknow increasingly mirroring metro consumption patterns.
The report highlights a clear pivot from ownership to access. More than 50 per cent of affluent consumers now use cards for elite memberships, while 7 in 10 are drawn to limited-edition drops and curated collections. Increasingly, luxury is defined by seamless access be it concierge-led travel or curated dining where time saved is as valuable as money spent.
Spending patterns reinforce this shift. Among the ultra-elite, travel accounts for 58 per cent of discretionary spends, far outpacing retail and luxury combined at 28 per cent. Cross-border spending penetration stands at 63 per cent, signalling a growing global outlook among India’s affluent.
Closer home, indulgence is becoming routine. Nearly 4 in 5 affluent consumers dine at premium establishments at least three times a year, while 1 in 4 visit luxury venues more than five times annually. Dining spends are also climbing, with Rs 20,000 emerging as a new entry-level benchmark per experience and Rs 50,000 marking premium territory.
Retail, meanwhile, is becoming more selective. Three in four affluent consumers make a high-end purchase at least once a quarter, while one in four shops premium every two weeks. Luxury retail intensity is also rising, with 2 in 5 consumers spending over Rs 5 lakh annually, and a smaller but significant segment exceeding Rs 10 lakh.
Technology and wellness are carving out new roles in this ecosystem. High-end gadgets now see average spends of Rs 60,000 or more per purchase, while ultra-elite consumers are eight times more likely to visit spas and show five times higher engagement with cosmetic stores than non-affluent groups.
The broader takeaway is structural. Affluent consumers are no longer buying products, they are buying ecosystems. Integrated experiences across travel, dining, wellness and payments are becoming central to how this segment lives and spends.
As India’s affluent base expands beyond metros and aligns more closely with global consumption patterns, the real opportunity lies not just in size, but in speed. For brands, the message is clear: relevance will be defined by how early and how seamlessly, they plug into this evolving lifestyle economy.
