How did SUGAR Cosmetics Achieve Market Dominance In the Makeup Industry?

If you are a makeup lover and want to start your makeup line then you will find a lot of makeup brands in this area. The makeup line is a sector where you will find many competitors. 

It is one of the most dynamic and dominant in nature. In this article, you find out how a brand that could sell just 100 lipsticks in their first round now sells more than a thousand lipstick and has more than 3500 stores located in India. 

It defeated Lakme, one of India's most popular cosmetic brands.

Sugar Cosmetics was started by Vineeta Singh and her husband. To start up, a business every businessman or woman has to fix or find a solution to the problem their customers are facing. 

In the case of Vineeta Singh’s business, the problem was that there were no cosmetics related to Indian skin and to solve the problem they started the business.

In 2012 they were small ventures. They use to use the door-to-door sale method. Later in 2015 when the world was turning shopping into digital mode at that time sugar Cosmetics was registered on Shopify and launched two new products:

1. Black matte Eye Liner
2. Black color Pencil

Their product black matte eyeliner was a success globally in UK and USA but at that time Shopify was not well managed in the Indian market because the shopping digital mode was a new thing in India. 

At that time and customers were scared to buy cosmetic products because obviously who is going to buy a product and apply it on the face if it has no guarantee and can even destroy your skin. 

So, the shopping mode was still developing. But in UK and USA, the tables had turned. They got many orders from these countries and from this point their journey started. 

In 2016, a new shopping online platform came into the market Nykaa. Sugar Cosmetic was registered in Nykaa and in some years they sold many products and were getting orders from customers. And the product which was making a big fuss in the market was the Black matte Eye Liner.

Big brands in makeup lines like Lakme, Maybelline, and New York use to deal in black gloss eyeliner and there was nothing new in it. They were not dealing in the matte shade and it was somewhat new at that time. So, to try something new sugar cosmetics took this opening opportunity and made millions out of it. 

From Nykaa they use to get 80% of its revenue from its sales. They could see the potential of selling products online and wanted to try this on different platforms like Amazon Flipkart etc. black matte eyeliner was easily sold out on Flipkart, Amazon and Nykaa.

Business Strategy

Sugar cosmetics were using Thumb stop packing. They made sure that their product has the best packaging and is comfortable to carry or handle wherever you go. 

They deal offline as well as online to sell the products. Most of their revenue comes from the offline sector as you know makeup line people are still not very prone to buy beauty products online. 

For example, if you want to buy lipstick or foundation, try to use it on your skin to see if it matches your skin. Sugar Cosmetics had opened many stores and they invested a lot of money to buy the shops so now they needed funds for further process. They raised around 2.5 million in funds in the first round of 2017 and opened more stores in many places. 

In 2020 corona made a lot of businesses suffer but sugar cosmetics try this case not to affect them and focused more on what will be better to launch at that time. At that time the full country was on lockdown and all shops were closed. This was the time when all people were digitally active and were using social media every second. 

So they taught of a plan to make people aware of their brand. They started advertising, campaigns, and promoting the brand on Instagram Facebook, and Twitter. 

After doing so they had more than 1 billion followers. In 2020 they were awarded for popular ads in which Anmol the acid attack survivor was made the brand ambassador.

In that ad, they showed the before and after looks of Anmol Rodriguez. When the pandemic was slowing down many makeup lines closed their shops but Sugar Cosmetics opened more shops, they saw this as an opportunity to be in the market.

We can learn a lot from their strategy, sugar cosmetics tried to focus on one product and innovated it. Which made it unique and different from its competitors. They tried to take every opportunity that was available to expand their business. 

They made sure to satisfy their customers. In the pandemic, they try to find a way in which they can promote and make their name known to people. These are some steps to keep in mind when you start your own business.

Written By: Nylisha Cruz