India’s makeup category on quick-commerce platforms reached ₹938 crore annually, more than twice Amazon’s ₹418 crore, according to a report by 1DigitalStack. The study analysed lip, face, eye and nail products across Amazon, Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto.
The report found that quick commerce’s average monthly makeup category size grew 1.4 times to ₹83 crore in a year, while Amazon’s increased 1.3 times to ₹37 crore. Generic beauty keyword searches rose 236% on Blinkit and declined 76% on Amazon, indicating a shift in product discovery towards quick-commerce platforms.
Products like eye, lip, and face makeup together comprise 81% of quick commerce’s category size and 75% of Amazon’s category size. While lip makeup shows platform-specific shifts in what shoppers prefer within the same category, face makeup is the fastest-growing sub-category on Q-com with ₹13.7 crore revenue across sub-categories.
As for brand leadership, the report highlights that success on Amazon does not guarantee quick commerce leadership. Brands like Mars Cosmetics and Laneige are gaining share on quick commerce, as they contend to find equal footing on Amazon.
On quick commerce, value-led pricing (affordable products) is winning, and premium pricing still holds on Amazon. For instance, in lip makeup on quick commerce, the value segment jumped from 34% to 55% of sales in a single year.
These growth metrics are explained by geographic rebalancing. Tier 2+ cities’ growth is outpacing metros in makeup, with Amazon’s makeup revenue growing sharply, especially in lip makeup. However, the Delhi-NCR share fell in every category, with other metro cities showing flat growth, pointing to rising Tier 2+ demand as one of the key growth drivers.
Talking about the report, Devi Prasad Biswal, Co-founder, 1DigitalStack, said, “Makeup is no longer a planned purchase. With the emergence of quick commerce, it is now an on-demand category, with impulse buying becoming a norm. Q-comm is now outpacing Amazon in category size and has evolved as a beauty discovery channel. Now, with festival season around the corner, the trend in a year has shown that sub-categories like face makeup hit 1.4x twice on Q-com, showing much sharper festive seasonality on the platform.”
The report also provides six priorities for brands operating in this fast-shifting, long-tail category:
- Visibility: Invest in both generic and feature-led visibility. Covering only one cedes the other.
- Assortment: Build subcategory breadth rather than relying on hero products.
- Shelf availability: Stockouts can cost visibility. As consumers buy broad-search items in quick fashion and repeatedly, maintaining shelf availability on quick commerce becomes important.
- Pricing: Match pricing to each channel’s shopper base.
- Contribution Tracking: Track whether a brand is actually gaining ground or just riding a category’s growth.
- Competitive Tracking: Track channel-specific wins rather than assuming one leader dominates across channels.
This report by 1DS serves as an important guide for brands to scale across different channels effectively in a long-tail category like makeup.
