Canadian beauty brand The Ordinary enters India through Nykaa tie-up

Canadian skincare startup The Ordinary has forayed into India through an exclusive tie-up with Nykaa to introduce its products in India, a $20 billion-plus market with increasingly beauty-conscious consumers.

It is launching a range of 38 products to start which will be available only on Nykaa.com and Nykaa Luxe and On Trend stores for a year. The Ordinary product, which range from $5 to $37.10 on its own website, will retail from Rs 500 onwards in India. The pricing is slightly higher in India than it is in its home market Canada, where it manufactures its products and incurs lesser logistics cost, Nicola Kilner, CEO and Co-Founder of The Ordinary by DECIEM, told Business Today.

"Interest from India has been growing over the last few years. Our website sales into India over the last year have tripled. Among our Instagram followers, India is among the top 10 countries where followers are from although we have very little presence in the market today. It's our biggest ever new market launch we've ever done in terms of investment, the biggest ever opening order we've ever had from a retailer," Kilner told Business Today in an interview before the launch.

She added that their aim is to make India one of the top 3 markets for The Ordinary within five years and one of the top two markets for DECIEM as a company.

The Ordinary, along with brands Avestan and NIOD, is owned by parent firm DECIEM. Last year, cosmetics maker Estee Lauder Companies, which owns makeup brand M.A.C, paid $1 billion to take control of the DECIEM Beauty Group. It raised its stake from 29% to 76%, and said it will buy the remaining interest in the company after a three-year period.

The Ordinary sells globally through its website, and is available in 44 countries through retail partnerships. In India, though, DECIEM is retailing only The Ordinary products, with plans to introduce NIOD later depending on the reception. Several reseller portals, however, are already selling DECIEM brands along with other international, especially Korean skincare and beauty brands, in India.