Why are quick commerce platforms selling cosmetics for ₹1?

Swiggy Instamart and Zepto have launched campaigns in which customers can buy select beauty products for just ₹1 once they add cosmetics worth a certain amount to their cart. BigBasket’s BB Now, meanwhile, is offering deep discounts on all beauty and skincare products.

Mint explains why these platforms, which earn most of their revenue from groceries and staples, are now pushing deep discounts in beauty and personal care, and what they hope to achieve in the long term.

Why are quick commerce platforms selling cosmetics for ₹1? How does the offer work?

Swiggy Instamart and Zepto recently launched campaigns in which customers who add cosmetics worth at least ₹599 to their cart get access to a special catalogue with select beauty and skincare products available for ₹1. This catalogue features entry-level products from well-known brands such as Lakmé lipsticks, Maybelline kajal, Mamaearth sheet masks, Plum face washes and Minimalist serums. BB Now has been running a similar campaign, offering discounts of around 60% on all beauty and skincare products.

These promotions signal that quick-commerce platforms want to position themselves as places where customers can discover and buy cosmetics quickly, analysts said. The goal of these short-term, high-visibility promotions, which are co-funded by platforms and brands, is to increase the number of orders and the value of each order by pushing more customers to buy cosmetics, they added.

The promotions aim to tap people’s increased discretionary spending and growing willingness to experiment with new products. Beauty and personal care fits the bill as it’s conducive to impulse purchases and repeat buys. Beauty products also have much higher margins than groceries and staples, which account for the lion’s share of goods sold on these platforms, experts said.

Satish Meena, founder of Datum Intelligence, said, “Brands use these ₹1 offers as a sampling tool. New-age and YouTube-first beauty brands especially push these deals on Blinkit, Swiggy and Zepto to get customers to try their products.

“Quick commerce is simply a more efficient sampling channel. Customers open the app multiple times a week, and these offers are placed right at the top or shown as pop-ups, so discovery is instant,” he said.

He added that the share of beauty products in quick-commerce sales has been growing quickly over the years and continues to do so with more brands come in, including premium ones.

Mint’s queries to quick commerce platforms did not elicit a response.

Why are brands funding these offers even though quick commerce may not be their biggest channel?

That’s because quick commerce platforms offer brands a type of value that traditional online channels do not—instant visibility, quick sampling and rapid repeat cycles. Though quick commerce is still smaller than general e-commerce or offline retail for most beauty brands, quick and easy product discovery on these apps creates a powerful trial funnel. This trial-led conversion is often more efficient than expensive digital marketing campaigns, which typically have large customer acquisition costs.

For this reason, most ₹1 and 60%-off deals are co-sponsored by brands, which see them as a customer acquisition tool rather than a margin play. A short-term discount can translate into long-term, high-frequency customers on these platforms.

What do quick commerce platforms gain from this?

For quick commerce platforms, these beauty discounts are a way to boost both average order value and profitability. Beauty and personal care products have far higher margins (25-35%) than packaged groceries (8-12%) and fruits and vegetables (2-5%).

Because of this, beauty products can easily increase orders well beyond the usual ₹500-660 range, leading to significantly higher contribution margins than orders made up entirely of staples. These flashy deals also help platforms attract more urban, high-income shoppers who are likely to experiment with beauty products.

By nudging users to try entry-level products and experiment with different brands, these platforms are starting to encroach on territory traditionally owned by online beauty retailers such as Nykaa as well as offline stores.

Over time, quick commerce companies want to be seen not just as grocery delivery apps but as impulse-led discovery platforms for beauty and other discretionary categories, which would give them a path to growth beyond low-margin essentials and improve profitability.

The long-term impact of these campaigns will depend on whether platforms can increase the number and variety of discounted products, and whether customers who try the ₹1 products continue to buy them at full price once the promotions end.

How large is the beauty segment in quick commerce, and how fast is it growing?

India’s quick-commerce sector is projected to achieve a gross merchandise value (GMV) of ₹64,000 crore in FY25, with beauty and other discretionary categories now contributing a significant 20-25% of gross sales for leading platforms, compared to 22-23% for staples. GMV measures the total transaction value of merchandise sold over a certain period, before subtracting expenses such as discounts, returns, or operating costs. While beauty is still a smaller category than staples, it is one of the fastest-growing verticals.

According to a report by Datum Intelligence, India’s beauty and personal care market is worth $24 billion today and is expected to touch $45 billion by 2030. Quick commerce is the fastest-growing channel within this segment: its beauty GMV climbed to about $1 billion in 2024 and is projected to hit $3 billion by 2030. This would translate to a more than 20% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), far outpacing traditional e-commerce (13-14% CAGR) and offline retail (8-9% CAGR).

While offline and e-commerce currently account for $19 billion and $5 billion of the market, respectively, quick commerce has quickly become a meaningful discovery and trial channel for beauty purchases.