Sugar Cosmetics Case Study. How became Best Cosmetics Brand

Sugar Cosmetics Case Study. Let’s start from the very beginning. Sugar was founded by Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukharjee as Co-Founders. Primarily founders had a venture named Vellvette Lifestyle as a Company in 2012.

Furthermore, this became the parent company of the Cosmetic Brand Sugar in 2015 when it entered the Market.

Nearly 1 crore of personal savings were put in as an investment in the company as initial capital. Right in the very beginning, the founder Vineeta Singh doesn’t have the vision to create a mega brand but just to address the needs of women.

However, when they actually came into the market they decided that Sugar had to become a top player.

The company started totally as a bootstrap startup there was no external source funding provided to the company.

Even the founder tried hard to have certain funds for the business but all efforts made no change.

When your business is bootstrap there remains no chance for any kind of mistake or carelessness. Every step needs to be calculated well and analyzed with all of its consequences.

The Beginning of Sugar Case Study

At the time SUGAR entered the Indian Market, there were only a few big players like LAKME and LOREAL PARIS.

Also, there was no scope for the e-commerce industry the whole market was offline-based only. Here this giant’s sales channel was totally from their distribution network.

This was one of the reasons the market was not disrupted yet because it worked as an entry barrier for other brands.

However, the company was a bootstrap startup so they have a clear direction to remain totally based on ecommerce to sustain for longer.

Any business that wants to succeed in the long run then it needs a firm foundation that it has to solve a big problem or fulfill the market gap.

Sugar cosmetics had the second one. Sugar found and filled the Gap in the market and this is a crucial point in the Sugar Cosmetics Case Study.

What was the Gap?

Most of the brands in the Indian market were global brands and therefore made with formulation of the global skin standards.

Indian skin differs from the global standard skin as well as the conditioning here is also different like;’ traffic, high sun rays, and humid environment, and after the make have to be long lasting such brands are preferred more.

Founder says: “While we were running our e-commerce business between 2012 and 2015 we found that there were a lot of women who couldn’t find a perfect lipstick.”

Long story short there the gap was discovered and Sugar was ready to fulfill it.

This is much like how Boat covered the Market gap Read BOAT SUCCESS STORY 

Product Introduction of Sugar Cosmetics

Founders went to Germany and outsourced the manufacturing while they made sure to approach such brand that holds experience in working with brands like LOREAL Paris.

Therefore no quality compromise needs to be made. This way the quality was assured too.

Founder Vineeta Singh mentions the next challenge was the target women liked to see the practical use and application of the products and learn the art of makeup as compared to buying online.

Also at that point in time, the E-commerce industry and Internet services were not really good.

Here note the point that the audience likes to learn the art of making that was further used by the company as market data.

On the one side of the market, Big brands were focusing on the old and rich ladies. They had no actual interest in young ladies as well and their products were also not very appealing to young women.

The brand was sure about the target audience which was millennial women with the age bracket of 20 – 27 only.

The brand focuses on the audience and maintains consistency with them.

Another thing that Sugar highlighted is that the ladies don’t like to put on makeup to look more attractive to others instead they prefer makeup to make them feel confident among the public.

Young women wanted to look more confident and more empowered.

First Product in Sugar Cosmetics Case Study

So here without any latency Sugar launched their first two products

1. Black Matt Eyeliner
2. Black Coat Pencil

As a result they got reviews like; this is the best product in the market, The brand is really great, etc.

First year Sugar was not able to do a good business where the total sale was 100 products in the market. But what was about to come was really exciting.

Marketing of the Sugar Cosmetics

The marketing medium Sugar used was totally Digital Marketing as the product was being sold through the Internet only.

Here the emphasis was on Social Media Marketing.

Unlike the other brands, Sugar doesn’t use Social media to market promotional posts or offers on sale. But they leveraged Social Media.

From the last insight, Sugar learned that women want to see the practical implementation and learn makeup. Sugar used content marketing and helpful learning-oriented content on Social Media like the form and ways of makeup.

Because of this Sugar built up a good community base which benefited a lot to bring up the sales to the company.

Here the Brand was sure as an insight that what Sugar is selling is an emotion of Power and Empowerment and their community is the only weapon that was really helpful.

Another crucial point in SUGAR Cosmetics Case Study is how they used the data and performed marketing strategies accordingly

Also, Women believe in word of mouth a lot in such products.

Everything went as expected the community really supported them very well.

Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown

Founders see lockdown as an opportunity because the business was already online and this was the time when the whole world was going towards digitization.

Mentioned that the reach of Sugar before the lockdown was 100 Million odd monthly Impressions. Now it increased to 240 Million.

They also crossed 1 Million followers on Instagram and 800,000 downloads of their app.

The company built up a good fan following among millennials. Now Sugar Cosmetics was presented as a Brand and class among people.

When a woman wears Sugar they are not ready to be categorized under the typical stereotype anymore.

The Best things that Sugar DID

1.     FabBag by Sugar: It was a subscription-based model with a subscription of Rs 599/month. They provide surprises to their customer which include goods such as;

•       Cosmetics
•       Fragrance
•       Bath care
•       Skincare
•       Hair Care

`          This did two things first, giving actual market data and secondly develop the trust among the customer ultimately resulting in building a great Brand Image in the market.

2.     Premium Products: With time brand evolutes and introduces more premium products in their product line like glossy eyeliner.

These products can be used in daily life also and becomes a bestseller and for sure the favorites of customers.

3.     Leveraging Influencer Marketing: Influencer marketing has proved to be a power for Sugar as they were totally based on content this helped them a lot.

Currently, Sugar has more than 2 Million Followers on Instagram. The strong presence over the Internet proved to be very beneficial.

In 2017 80% of their sale came from NYKA and later they were on Platforms like Flipkart and Amazon.

Key Growth Highlights: Sugar Case Study

• The traffic of more than 2 million unique visitors each month on the company’s website
• Sale of more than 200,000 products each month.
• Products in over 40,000 retail stores
• A strong presence on all prominent e-commerce platforms.
• Sugar sells its product in countries like Korea, the USA, Germany, and Italy apart from India only.
• Currently around 120 exclusive stores all over India target is to cross 150.
• The company raised a total funding of $85 Million
• The revenue of the company for the Financial year 2022 is Rs 500 crores.
• With over 1M+ downloads of the app becoming the number one consumer brand in India.
• The cosmetic brand had been growing like never before. From opening the first Sugar store in 2019 to 125+ Exclusive stores today Vineeta Singh conquered the beauty industry.

Learnings from the Sugar Cosmetics Case Study:

1.     Quality: Don’t compromise the quality of the product you don’t need great marketing word of mouth is enough.

There is a quote: “The best marketing for any brand is a satisfied customer itself.”

2.     4Hs: The story of entrepreneurship is the story of 4Hs:

•       Hunger
•       Hustle
•       Humility &
•       Humor

With hunger in your idea, Hustle in your action, Humility in your words, and Humor to build it all. You can achieve all that you set your mind for.

3.     Consistent Improvement: Continuous trying and continuity in your product definitely You’ll have a great product. Take seriously the data you get from the market in the form of customer feedback.

Improving your product accordingly will make it perfect for the market.

The Sugar is not an overnight success but a journey with several Ups and Downs.

Founder Vineeta Singh says” The journey was trying error and fail….., and try again.”

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