on, shared during her speech at the World Retail Congress in London. “And so that’s when we thought the Indian woman needed a place to shop for beauty. That’s where our journey started.” Fast forward twelve years, and Nykaa is the undisputed leader in India’s online beauty and fashion space, boasting more than $2 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV), 14 million transacting customers, and a hybrid presence that spans 200 physical stores and a powerful digital ecosystem. But perhaps its most remarkable achievement lies in something harder to quantify: transforming not just how Indians shop for beauty and fashion but how they think about it. “We see our mission as bringing the world’s best beauty and fashion brands to India and getting the customers a little bit of that global access,” Nayar said.  Community-driven strategy  India’s consumer economy is paradoxical: vast yet uneven, price-sensitive but increasingly aspirational, high-growth but infrastructurally challenging. This is where Nykaa has found its power.  “When we go and convince brands to enter India, whether it’s Revlon, Footlocker, Charlotte Tilbury, or Fenty, we are telling them that we will take their brand, preserve it, and make it come alive in India,” she said.  Nykaa’s approach to the market is deeply community-led. “There’s such an immense need to build a community because a lot of these people are being introduced to beauty for the very first time. And I think just the world of beauty and fashion is very community-based,” the co-founder said.  “We’ve always placed a lot of focus on community and making this group of about 14 million women really feel integrated. And we do absolutely everything from having a huge presence on social media to working with influencers. This is most evident in its omnichannel strategy. Nykaa may be 90 per cent online by revenue, but its 200 physical stores serve a far more important function than sales: they are hubs of discovery and activation. Through events like ‘Beauty Bar’, where makeup artists demonstrate looks to packed local crowds, or dermatologist-led skincare sessions, the brand is democratising beauty knowledge while building trust.  But it’s at ‘Nykaaland’, the company’s experiential festival which Nayar described as “Coachella, but for beauty”, that its vision is most vividly realised.  Drawing more than 25,000 attendees in a single weekend, the event blends influencer culture, global brands and live music into a spectacle that signals how aspirational retail in India is shifting from transactional to experiential.  The rise of Indian beauty creators on Instagram and YouTube coincided with increased exposure to international beauty standards and trends. Nykaa smartly tapped into this influencer ecosystem, eventually building a network of more than 10,000 creators. Its community-first approach became a self-reinforcing loop: engagement drove trust, which drove sales, which deepened community. “Everything we do and everything we talk about is how to bring in community on-site, off-site, events digitally, all the time,” Nayar added. “Therefore, it’s really core to how we’re looking at business.”  AI and the next transformation  Nykaa now finds itself at another inflection point and this time artificial intelligence.  “We are feeling that we need to wake up and see the AI opportunity and integrate it into every part of the business,” Nayar said. “As we’re starting to study and examine the tools out there, we actually feel that there is an opportunity to integrate AI into literally everything we do.” Nykaa is already exploring generative tools that can convert static images into walkable model videos, automate graphic sizing, and provide AI-driven skin consultations.  “The complexity of AI – whether it’s just helping in process optimisation, whether it’s delivering insights across management, or whether it’s actually engaging with customers – is immense,” she said.  However, Nayar is wary of digital overreach. “Sometimes less is more. Just because there are 100 tools out there doesn’t mean you sit and plug them into every part of your business. You’re just going to be driving yourself a little bit crazy,” Nayar shared.  With increasing scrutiny around data privacy, a decision to integrate AI cannot be made lightly, especially when a platform like Nykaa sits on one of the richest consumer datasets in Indian retail. “I think just to build on that, definitely, such discovery is a big opportunity, but two other complexities we’re thinking about are where we use tools versus where we build internally. It’s also that you can’t be sharing your data with a lot of third-party tools. So how to think about data sanctity is also on our mind,” she added.  Nayar pointed out that the best and biggest use of AI is completely reinventing the business.  Nykaa’s public listing in 2021 brought with it the pressures of quarterly scrutiny, but also new freedom to scale with vision. However, the company is now facing fierce competition with Reliance’s Tira and Tata Group also ramping up their digital commerce bets, and D2C challengers are now flooding the market.   According to the Nykaa Beauty Trends Report, India’s beauty and personal care market is expected to reach $34 billion by 2028 at a compound annual growth rate of 10-11 per cent.