The beauty industry can undoubtedly be called one of the topmost recession-proof industries. In the last two decades, the beauty and cosmetic industry had seen massive growth and revenue generation.
This particular sector is highly dynamic when it comes to ever-changing customer preferences and the availability of products. Seasons may change, but the demand for beauty products remains the same.
Nykka– A name on everyone’s mind right now! The company makes sure that its persona comes live in every aspect of marketing and has a profound impact on the existing and potential customer base both.
In particular, Nykaa intends to become a leader in the beauty and cosmetic product industry. The company gets ahead of its many competitors because of the way it is run and controlled. Nykaa can be considered as one of the best examples of successful ecommerce platform due to its innovative and user-friendly nature which is the reason behind its continued success and growth.
Table of Contents
How It Began: The Foundation
Falguni Nayar, the founder of Nykaa, was struck with the thought to build an app for beauty and cosmetic products when she got a wonderful user experience at the Sephora store. At her visit, she was provided with personalized suggestions on which product she needed to buy according to her skin type, and the store person demonstrated how the product should be used.
Finding an opportunity out of it, she realized the need for an eCommerce beauty brand that can help women to get products as per their choice and feasibility. Thus, it marked the introduction of eCommerce giant Nykaa, in the cosmetic industry.
At present, Nykaa has a strong online as well as offline presence, working on an Omnichannel system. The company led its core foundation as a personal and multi-beauty product business and mainly on online platforms. Gradually with time, it increased the range of products comprising wellness, fashion apparel, hair care, luxury, and many more for both women and men.
From Start-up to Scale-up: Journey So Far!
To overcome the gap that existed in the Indian markets, Falguni Nayar targeted the beauty and cosmetic app market and launched Nykaa in the year 2012. Nykaa offered an extensive range of products comprising both international as well as Indian brands.
Later to this, in the year 2015, Nykaa started working on an Omnichannel system and established its physical stores for a strong offline presence in the Indian market. As a result, it increased the sales and revenue of the company at a faster pace.
Let’s have a glimpse of Nykaa’s journey from a start-up to scale-up:
Demand For Cosmetic Beauty Products: Global Statistics & Market Share
With an increased rate of people switching to online selling platforms from traditional business platforms, various industries are demanding this change, and so is the beauty and cosmetic sector. The cosmetic store eCommerce app plays a turning point in bringing a hike in the sales and revenue generation of this particular sector.
The following statistics give a clear idea about the huge demand for on-demand app development solutions in the cosmetic and beauty store sector:
The above graph represents the global value of the cosmetic market during the year 2018 to 2025. Starting from 2018, the value was seen at 507.8 billion U.S. dollars whereas, it is forecasted to grow at 758.4 billion U.S. dollars by the year 2025.
A Glimpse of Leading Beauty and Cosmetic Store Apps
The beauty and cosmetic product market is growing at an increasing rate and presently, it possesses a strong market share. Various companies are keen to know, how to develop an app like Nykaa so that they can get benefit out of the lucrative market of cosmetic and beauty products.
Here we are mentioning some of the leading brands in the beauty and cosmetic industry:
Why Do You Require to Make a Cosmetic Store App: Need of an Hour!
In this era of online business, both customers and sellers are switching to digital platforms. No matter whether the business is a large size, mid-size, or a start-up, there is an immense need to develop platforms that can help you accelerate your reach beyond the geographical limitations. Several IT companies provide mobile app development services across the globe to keep you ahead of the game.
Here are some of the key benefits of having a beauty products store app:
Increased Visibility
According to the research and statistics, people spend approximately 3 hours and 15 minutes a day on average on their mobiles. People check their apps, social media handles, notifications, and mails, therefore, if there is a beauty store app then it increases your chances of visibility.
Higher Customer Engagement
The customers always need a channel to reach you. If there is a 24*7 online chat support present for the customers, then it results in better customer engagement and thus, it really makes a difference in your sales chart. People in the present time choose to communicate over text rather than calling.
Direct Marketing Channel
For an online retailer like Nykaa, the app works as a direct marketing channel. There has been used a 360-degree coordinated marketing and content strategy by the expert beauty app developers while developing the app. The app provides customers with product recommendations, stores product reviews, beauty book articles, buying guides, and also, the Routine Finder which helps find the products according to a person’s specific concern, age, and daily routine.
Strong Brand Recognition
The cosmetic store app contributes much to your brand awareness. The more functional, informative, and user-friendly your app would be the higher the level of customer involvement would be there. If your app integrated features, then it has a high chance of downloads and customer retention rate. Thus, it ultimately boosts brand recognition.
Competitive Edge
To take a leap ahead of the market competitors, the business is required to work with a forward-thinking approach. The Nykaa like app are still not being adopted by many businesses and hence, it is essential to build a mobile app for your beauty & cosmetic business for future growth and to gain a better competitive edge.
How the App Runs: Nykaa Business Model
Cosmetic store app like Nykaa works upon an inventory-based business approach to make sure the customers are provided with superior quality products. This model ensures lucrative profit margins as the sourcing is through direct channels. Nykaa makes sure that all the products are authenticated to earn a high level of customer trust and loyalty. To help you create your own on-demand cosmetic store app similar to Nykaa, let’s check up on the company’s business model.
1. Product Purchase
Nykaa uses the direct purchase method as it buys all the products through direct channels such as manufacturers and brands rather than buying from other wholesalers. After purchasing, Nykaa lists those products on its respective app and website.
2. Storage
All the products of Nykaa are stored at its warehouses. The company had established its key warehouses in Mumbai, New Delhi, and Bangalore for the smooth dispatch of products across the world.
3. Placing of Orders
The customers can place online orders through the Nykaa app and website. As well, the customers can also visit Nykaa stores for offline buying.
Outline of Nykaa Business Model
Let’s have a detailed discussion of how each segment plays a vital role in building the successful business model of Nykaa.
i) Consumer Base
The consumer base of Nykaa is too extensive as there are both categories, I.e., firstly, the ones who are extremely brand-specific buyers and search for particular beauty and cosmetic products. Secondly, the one who needs a combined online marketplace where they can get multiple brands and choose as per their requirements.
ii) Categories
There are particularly 4 types of categories in which the Nykaa consumers have been segregated and explained:
1. Brand Specific Buyers
This category of customers is much exposed to international brands and look for products as per their brand preferences.
2. Active Product Seekers
This category of customers falls in the age group of 19 to 25 years. This category looks for advice and suggestions for the purchase of beauty products.
3. Beauty Conscious and Trend Followers
This category of customers is the one who tends to browse different categories, brands, and products. This category of customers falls in the age bracket of 25 to 45 years. They are even very much conscious when it comes to their styling and looks.
4. Busy Buyers
This category of customers falls in the age group of 27 to 45 years and are classified as working or busy customers because of their hectic schedules. They usually have limited time to make a purchase and therefore their buying is depended upon the products they need.
iii) Extended Sub-Categories
Nykaa has also other categories of customer-based depending upon its new ventures.
The category of Nykaa Man comprises customers who are searching for men grooming products and have limited time because of the busy timeline. Nykaa Pro category is primarily for the professionals who are searching for professional range beauty products but at some discounted range.
This category includes make-up artists and salons. Nykaa Fashion is made to offer products to consumers looking for an extensive range of designers and brands. The last category, Nykaa Luxe is developed to target the esteemed group of customers who are basically searching for products from luxury-class international and Indian brands.
How Nykaa Generates Revenue: Money Making Techniques
The cosmetic store apps use various business models to generate revenue. Following are the key approaches used by the cosmetic store apps for their earnings:
1. Advertisements
The beauty store app has a great revenue source in the form of banner advertisements. The app provides a recognized platform to various other partner brands for marketing their products and service in the form of paid advertisements. The eCommerce app development company you hire offers this feature to help businesses earn higher revenues.
2. Product Sales
A cosmetic store app has an extensive range of products. It earns the maximum revenue generation through sales of its products at various platforms. Companies sell both in-house brands as well as partner brands’ products. Because of the availability of an extended range, the customer base becomes too large.
3. Parallel Category Sales
Nyka Man and Nyka Fashion are Nykaa’s other revenue streams that fall under parallel category sales. The beauty and cosmetic app development company provide businesses with this feature to enhance their sales and revenue generation.
4. Commission Based
Sales commission is another major source of earnings for cosmetic store apps like Nykaa. Businesses generate continuous revenue via commission-based sales.
USP of an eCommerce Cosmetic App like Nykaa
To develop a beauty store app like Nykaa, the first thing you should keep in your mind is to check the USP of your app. The unique selling proposition plays a vital role in making your brand a big name. To compete in the giant eCommerce market, it is necessary to hire mobile app developers who can provide you with a stand-out app.
Here is a list of key USPs of cosmetic store app like Nykaa:
Quick Delivery
Fast deliveries are the main USP of a cosmetic store app as the businesses provide the customers with the products in a very short span of time after placing an order. There can also be options provided for urgent deliveries to meet the customer’s demand.
Beauty Guides & Videos
While looking for beauty products, one dilemma often restricts many potential customers from purchasing I.e. the lack of knowledge of how to use the product. A cosmetic app like Nykaa brings a solution to this issue as it provides the customers with various blogs, beauty guides, and videos that help the customers in understanding the usage and application of the cosmetic products. With this attribute, the customers can buy products as per their actual need and the company can target more potential buyers.
Extensive Product Range
Cosmetic store apps have a wide range of products for its customers. There are luxury range products from international brands, premium range products, economic range products, as well as home-grown products by Indian brands. Availability of products of all the categories extends the customer base of an app like Nykaa as it satisfies the needs of millions of masses across the globe.
Shipping Tracker
A good cosmetic app development company pays keen attention to the shipping tracker. Shipping is one of the most significant features of any eCommerce app because it plays a vital role in providing a satisfying user experience. Nykaa offers a live tracking option to the user once the order is placed and also provides updates on a regular basis.
Cash On Delivery
There are various methods by which the customers can make payment on the eCommerce apps but when there is an option of COD, then it increases the chances of association of new buyers. It helps in developing trust among the customer base when it comes to on-time deliveries and product quality. Nykaa also offers a COD option to its customers.
Trouble-free Refunds & Returns
Easy refunds and returns are the most necessary service that needs to be offered by the eCommerce cosmetic store app. It might happen that the user is not happy with the product because of any reason, then the customer must have trouble-free return and refund options available. It increases the customer loyalty and revisits of the buyers. Nykaa offers easy product return and also generate refunds once the product is reached to its respective warehouse.
User-Friendly App Interface
A cosmetic store app should work on a user-friendly app interface that helps the customers to browse conveniently. The mobile app development company you hire must make sure that the app interface is user-friendly in order to improve the user experience.
Referral Bonus
Cosmetic store apps bring various referral bonuses for its customers to gain their trust and loyalty. This referral bonus feature helps build brand recognition and also works as a marketing tactic.
Scheduled Product Delivery
When it comes to receiving the shipment, there are many times when the customer is not at one particular location. Therefore, to resolve this issue, the beauty store apps provide a facility for scheduled shipping. With this feature, the customers can schedule the date and time of product delivery and thus it offers a convenient shopping experience to the buyers.
Features of a Cosmetic Store App like Nykaa
The cosmetic store app development company have to prepare a checklist of the below-mentioned features for a highly functional and user-friendly eCommerce app:
Sign-in
This is the way to onboard users to use the app. The cosmetic store app also enables sign-in through various social media platforms or via google account. By signing up once, the user can effortlessly log-in in the future and browse the app.
Push Notifications
It is one of the key features of a cosmetic store app as there are notifications to send and receive alerts. In the case of customers, they receive notifications when an order is confirmed, the order is shipped, price changing, availability of products, new arrivals, sales, and delivery-related alerts. The vendors or the sellers also receive these alerts such as when orders are received, refund and return requests, payments are done, etc.
Wish List
To save the time of the users, and to help them to choose the required ones out of a heap of products, the feature of the wish list is added at the time of cosmetic eCommerce app development. This function helps segregate products that are even out of stock as users can add them to their cart once they are notified that the products in their wish list are now available in the app or the website.
Voice Assistant
The feature of voice assistant is extremely useful in the busy schedules of the working buyers. They can simply give commands to the voice assistant and get the products.
Video Shopping
This is one of the latest features being emphasized in the beauty service app development phase. With this, the online shopping platform can also help customers to get a personal experience as they can check how the product will look on them via virtual assistance.
Product Recommendations
This feature recommends products to the customers as per their browsing style, and also provides styling and beauty tips for a more personalized shopping experience.
Customer Service / Help & Support
It is a virtual assistance feature to be integrated by the beauty and cosmetic store app development company to provide support and help to the customers 24*7 for inquiries related to products, services, and payments.
Payment Gateways
The higher the modes of both online and offline payments are integrated within the cosmetic store app, the greater are the chances of success. The app users must feel convenience in making payments through the integrated gateways.
Loyalty Program
With this feature, the brand tries to increase customer loyalty by offering additional benefits like cash back, reward points, discount vouchers, and codes. It is a good way to keep the users connected with the app for a longer period of time.
Ratings & Reviews
The on-demand cosmetic app is more likely to get customer response and increased purchase if there are ratings and reviews provided by the customers. Customers have a tendency to purchase after reading reviews and checking ratings. Hence, it is an integral feature of the beauty store eCommerce app.
Inventory Management
This particular feature helps in tracking a record of the out-of-stock products to improve the efficiency of the app by making the products available to the users.
Filter & Search
Filters are the key feature when it comes to sorting and bifurcating products according to one’s preferences and choice out of many. The on-demand eCommerce platform development company makes sure to provide all adequate filters required with multiple categories to provide a user-friendly experience to the buyers.
Required Team Structure
There is a defined team structure required for an eCommerce beauty brand like Nykaa. It is suggested to ask the cosmetic app development company to provide you with a strong and effective team to care for your project comprising of the following team members:
- UX/UI Designers
- Project manager
- Back-end Developers
- Delivery Manager
- Android/iOS Developers
- Quality Analysts
Tech Stack to Include
To create an eCommerce App similar to Nykaa, the company is required to be tech-savvy and have integrated technological solutions. The cosmetic store app development company must have the following mentioned technologies:
- Frontend: React, Varnish Software, PHPfpm
- Backend: Node, Redis, Solr, Apache Tomcat, Django
- Database: MongoDB, MySQL
- Cloud & DevOps: EFK, CHEF, Docker, Pagerduty, Nagios, jFrog Artifactory, New Relic, Pingdom, Cronitor.io
Development Process to Build a Cosmetic Store App like Nykaa
While calculating the cost of developing an app like Nykaa, the development process plays a significant role. Let’s have a brief discussion over the steps involved in the on-demand app development process:
Step 1. Market Analysis
Before entering any market, there is a need to sharpen your research skills for performing potential market research and analysis. Firstly, get an insight about your target audience, latest market trends, existing issues in the market, and target market. A deeper understanding of all these aspects will assist you to deliver successful results.
Step 2. App Designing
Designing is the core of an app as it influences the target audience to use the app and stay on it for a longer duration. Consumers are in search of an app that is highly responsive as well as affluent when it comes to designing. It might put a little pressure on your cost but the response it can generate is worth the money spent.
Step 3. App Development
To get your hands on a productive cosmetic store eCommerce app, it is necessary to hire mobile app developers who possess qualified skills and are tech-savvy. The mobile app development team is solely responsible for the further process once the app has passed on the phase of app designing. The developers are needed to use innovative and modern technologies which can easily resolve the already existing issues of the targeted market.
Step 4. App Testing
This phase needs detailed attention from the end of developers as they need to be highly sure about the smooth working of the app and all its functions. Almost in every app development process, the developers face several bugs and errors which hinder the app performance. The app keeps on going through the phase of app testing, till the time, it is completely error-free and ready to work smoothly on the client’s end.
Step 5. App Deployment
This is the concluding step in the development process as the app is ready to get deployed on the chosen platform. All you need is to brush up on your marketing strategies to catch the audience’s attention and potential customers.
Cost to Develop an App like Nykaa
A number of factors are responsible for generating the final cost of developing a cosmetic and beauty eCommerce app. Some of the key aspects include the chosen platform, functionality, advanced features, hourly app development rate, and the team and technology.
Also, the level of complexity and geographical location define the cost of the app. On average, the cost to develop an app like Nykaa ranges between $25000 – $35000. If you are also inspired by the incredible journey and lucrative profits of Nykaa, then you can also have a similar platform for your business by developing an on-demand cosmetic store app with efficient features.
Conclusion
Nykaa app has been a revolutionary in the beauty and cosmetic product industry. It has captured the market in a short span of time with its fulfilling services to its clients. The cosmetic industry is growing day by day and extending its roots in all the potential markets.
Therefore, it is the most appropriate time to take a dip in it and reap all the benefits you can with the help of a fully functional mobile app. If you also want to establish your name in the beauty and cosmetic industry integrating with technology, then, hire us to get a user-friendly and outstanding beauty store mobile app. Semidot Infotech provides top-notch beauty & cosmetic app development services at affordable prices.