How personal care appliance is booming category in India?
How personal care appliance is booming category in India?

How did VEGA start? Also share your entrepreneurial journey so far?

Vega – India’s leading beauty accessory brand, flagship brand of Vega Industries Products Pvt. Ltd., part of a leading NCR-based conglomerate with business interests in fields of hobby & craft, beauty & other consumer products launched it’s exciting & innovative range of products in the Indian market at the turn of the century in the year 2000.

Vega diversified into Personal Care appliances category in the year 2013. Today our product portfolio includes women personal care appliances portfolio includes straighteners, curlers, dryers, 2-in-1 stylers, epilators and shavers whereas men’s portfolio includes shavers, trimmers and body groomers.

I started the brand in 2006 and transformed the brand from a make up brushes brand to a one stop shop brand for beauty care accessories and personal care appliances. The company almost doubled turnover year on year adding products and categories to fulfill the ever growing beauty accessory needs of the consumer and always striving to be ahead.

Also, shed light on your distribution strategy? Going forward, what are the plans to scale up the distribution?

The general trade distribution includes 25,000+ retailers 500+ distributors which is driven by a strong sales force consisting of more than 250 sales people and around 150 beauty advisors, positioned across India. Whereas, the modern trade includes 600 MT stores and leading market places including Amazon, Flipkart , Nykaa , bigbasket , myntra , Jabong. We have exclusive stores spread across in Delhi, Dehradun and Chandigarh.

We will be scaling up distribution for personal care appliances and entering new channels like electrical, modern trade.  For Beauty Care accessories we are very well distributed in cosmetic channels but are looking for allied channels like pharmacy and , professional channels with a smaller assortment.

We will also be scaling up our exclusive outlets which showcase all our categories of beauty care accessories and personal care appliances. Through the stores we are not only selling our products but also the complete consumer experience through makeovers and demos. We are the only brand in this category operating exclusive stores.

Who do you see as your biggest competition?

Honestly competition has never deterred us, we are one of the largest nationalized brand in Beauty care accessories and our task is to grow the category and increase consumer penetration and always give the best products to our consumers to groom them and make them look beautiful. In personal care appliances – Philips is the leader , Panasonic , Braun and a few more brands exist , some in grey market. But our beauty lineage and pedigree of beauty accessories and consumer insights give us the confidence that we will be carving the future of women category in personal care appliances.

What is your take on beauty care accessory market market in India? How do you see this market over next five years?

Indian beauty care accessory market is going through a very good phase. Consumer is evolving and beauty consciousness is starting very young at the age of 15 years. The potential is immense as penetration of categories like manicure, pedicure, and bath accessories is low. However with the advent of social media and youtube, there is a content boom and a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) culture among the youth, they want to read and use beauty products by themselves.

Beauty care accessories comprise of Hair combs, Hair brushes, Make up brushes, Bath, face, manicure and pedicure tools. All of these are at different stages of evolution and penetration. Hair comb has been a commodity, but with the consciousness of natural products, consumers prefer hand made combs and wooden combs to plastic one. Hair brush is a youth dominated category. In the times to come, consumer will ask for a paddle brush or a round brush depending on her need and hair texture.

 Manicure tools are going to see a huge growth as nail art and nail tattoo are picking up. Pedicure is a functional category and will continue to grow. Bath – sponges, loofahs and bath brushes come in the pampering and luxury space and will see huge growths as well. Next five years will be exciting as the industry is growing and evolving as we speak. It is no longer a necessity but an expression of one’s personality and sense of style.

At last, kindly highlight your growth plans?

We are coming up with our second 360 degree campaign which is ATL led, our aim is to change our business model from sales push to consumer pull. We have invested a lot in this campaign and are revamping our imagery and positioning brand Vega as an aspirational hair styling expert for the young girls of today.

Sonam K Ahuja a fashionista is our brand ambassador and the imagery we are trying to build is chic and fashionable. Innovation is our motto, will reflect in our campaign, our new products, packaging and distribution and will continue to be a source of growth

With innovative offerings and imagery revamp we will also be expanding the Vega exclusive store model and launch flagship stores in more cities across India. We want to have a strong presence in the women personal care appliances category and foresee a huge growth coming from this category

 

 

 

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