Vertical

Beauty & Personal Care

The questions Beauty & Personal Care brand builders ask, with curated resources on each.

Choosing what to sell

Which product categories are actually good for a new D2C brand in India right now? In India the money has consistently clustered in food & beverage, beauty & personal care, and wellness/nutraceuticals, high-frequency, premiumisabl... Beginner 4 resources →

Niche & positioning

My product solves a problem people don't like to talk about (hygiene, intimacy, mental health) - how do I position it without scaring off buyers? Pee Safe and Bombay Shaving Company both built real scale by naming the taboo directly and treating destigmatising the conversation as the marketin... Intermediate 3 resources →

Private label vs white label vs own mfg

Where do I find private label manufacturers in India for cosmetics, food or supplements? Category-specific private-label manufacturers, not general B2B directories, are the fastest route, most Indian nutraceutical and cosmetics private ... Beginner 3 resources →

Packaging design & development

What labelling is legally mandatory on my packaging in India? For food, FSSAI mandates your license number, ingredients, nutritional info, veg/non-veg mark, manufacturer details, batch number and expiry, displ... Intermediate 2 resources →

Tech stack & apps

Are subscription and loyalty apps worth adding, and which ones should I look at? Only add a subscription app if your product is genuinely a repeat-consumption item - skincare, supplements, coffee, pet food. Recharge is the enter... Intermediate 3 resources →

Product licenses & certifications

I make skincare/cosmetics at home or with a small manufacturer, do I need a CDSCO license before I can sell? Yes, manufacturing cosmetics in India needs a manufacturing license from your State Licensing Authority (CDSCO sets the framework nationally but st... Intermediate 2 resources →

EPR & sustainability compliance

Can I call my packaging 'eco-friendly' or 'sustainable' on my product page without getting into trouble? Not casually, ASCI's Green Guidelines (effective February 2024) require any absolute claim like 'eco-friendly', 'sustainable', or 'planet-friendly'... Intermediate 3 resources → Where do I actually source compostable or plastic-free packaging in India without blowing my per-order cost? Brown Living and Mindful are the easiest starting points for small-MOQ compostable and plastic-free packaging in India, cornstarch/sugarcane mailer... Beginner 3 resources →

Business insurance & risk

Do I actually need product liability insurance as a small D2C brand, or am I overthinking it? Yes, and earlier than you think, product liability insurance isn't just an enterprise-scale concern anymore; marketplaces increasingly require proo... Beginner 3 resources →

Launch strategy & drops

What exactly is a 'drop' and should my brand even bother with limited drops? A drop just means releasing a product in a short window or limited quantity on purpose, borrowed from Supreme and streetwear culture, to turn a nor... Beginner 3 resources → What's the right cadence for repeat drops - weekly, monthly, or seasonal? Weekly only works if you have Supreme-level production discipline and genuinely new SKUs every time; for most D2C brands, monthly or seasonal drops... Intermediate 3 resources →

Influencer & UGC seeding

What can I learn from how Mamaearth used influencers and word-of-mouth before it had a big budget? Ghazal Alagh's earliest move wasn't Instagram at all - it was gifting product to mom bloggers and building genuine friendships with them before ask... Beginner 3 resources →

Reputation & crisis management

If I actually need to recall a product in India, what's the legal process and who do I have to notify? Under India's Consumer Protection Act 2019, the CCPA has the power to order a recall of hazardous or unsafe goods after investigation, and dependin... Advanced 4 resources →

Selling on Flipkart & others

Is getting onto Myntra harder than Flipkart? What do I actually need? Yes, meaningfully harder, Myntra reviews every brand manually through partners.myntrainfo.com and rejects most applications, and the single biggest... Intermediate 4 resources → How do I get onto Nykaa as a beauty or personal-care brand? Start at nykaa.com/sellonnykaa with your brand and category details, then move to seller.nykaa.com once approved, Nykaa runs a stricter curation pr... Intermediate 3 resources →

Quick commerce

Is quick commerce actually profitable for a D2C brand, and which categories work best? For most small brands it's a paid-visibility channel before it's a profit channel, founders report margins collapsing to low single digits when hal... Advanced 4 resources →

Going offline: retail & trade

General trade vs modern trade, where should I start, and how do the margins actually work? General trade (kirana stores) still moves 70-75% of India's FMCG volume and has lower entry costs, but it runs through a layered chain, manufacture... Intermediate 3 resources → How do I get a distributor or stockist to actually push my brand in general trade? Distributors have zero built-in motivation to prioritise a new D2C brand over the established FMCG names already generating them volume, you have t... Advanced 3 resources →

Scaling 1Cr to 10Cr to 100Cr

What can I learn from how Mamaearth and WOW Skin Science scaled - and where did they hit trouble? Mamaearth crossed ₹1,000 crore by going digital-first before retail, betting hard on founder-led brand trust and toxin-free positioning years befor... Advanced 3 resources →