At home service helps revive beauty salons hit by Covid
Beauty and personal care market expected to grow at CAGR of 8.5% until 2025
Sheelu, a beauty professional, used to work at a salon in Delhi.
Last year, just before the devastating coronavirus pandemic hit the country, Sheelu had joined as a service professional at Urban Company, India’s and UAE’S largest tech-enabled home services marketplace.
This decision to join the online marketplace turned out to be good for her as soon as the pandemic pounded the business of beauty salons across the country.
“I am happy that I made the decision on my friend’s recommendation,” said 28year-old Sheelu, who lives in Indirapuram, near Delhi.
Her income increased considerably, which is 2-3x of her previous salary. She also got support from the company during the lockdown such as monetary assistance and vaccination. “My husband was unemployed for 6 months during that time. I was able to support the household comfortably while paying off existing loans and also managed to save money.”
Sheelu is among the thousands of beauty professionals who are now increasingly joining Urban Company to provide services at homes after the pandemic hit the salon business in the country.
In fact, the men’s grooming segment, which was launched on Urban Company right before India announced nationwide lockdown in March 2020, has grown by about 7x during the pandemic. It is seeing nearly 200,000 transactions per month.
Meanwhile, Urban Company’s salon-for-women business has also grown. The firm is also testing out several new services such as nail art and advanced treatments
like laser hair removal — to add to its platform. Its hair services under the women’s category, which includes haircuts, hair colour and hairstyling, is also growing rapidly and currently present in 8 cities in India. The firm plans to scale up such new services across the country.
“Many of these partners (beauty professionals), who joined us either had taken pause for their services due to the pandemic or used to even run their own salons,” said Mukund Kulashekaran, senior vice-president, business, Urban Company. “With respect to the salon, the market has shrunk quite sharply due to the pandemic,” he added.
In the next 6 months, with the markets opening and people returning to office, Urban Company is expecting a huge increase in demand for such services. This is because the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of online services and consumers are not only finding it safe but also convenient.
“If you want a haircut on Monday night at 8 pm, we will be able to come to your house and provide the service,” said Kulashekaran.
Urban Company has more than 35,000 service partners across 35 cities in India, the UAE, Singapore, Australia and Saudi Arabia. The marketplace offers a variety of home services to consumers, including beauty treatments, haircuts, deep cleaning, plumbing, carpentry and appliance repairs.
Despite the pandemic, Urban Company has reached 30-40 per cent of pre-covid levels because of its safety measures and new initiatives.
The firm plans to expand its presence to the top 100 cities in India. The company said it has been witnessing an overwhelming response from the cities it recently launched in. It will also be hiring over 15000 partners across categories in 2021.
“Beauty vertical accounts for 45-50 per cent of the business revenues,” said Kulashekaran. “We expect the business to grow multifold in the next one year, given the way we are scaling and expanding services,” he added.
Major demand in the salon category is from Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Kolkata. However, other cities are catching up. These include Nagpur, Indore, Vizag, Coimbatore, Madurai, Dehradun and Chandigarh. At present, over 14,000 service professionals work in the beauty category of Urban Company.
“The thought of physically going out, and risking the health of my daughter, was making me extremely uncomfortable,” said Anamika Saini, 31, a teacher in New Delhi and a customer of Urban Company.
“Also, working from home, I was hardly getting any time to go out at all. Urban Company’s safety and hygiene protocols as well as its well-trained service professionals and convenience have made it my preferred choice for not only salon but all kinds of services,” said Saini.
Despite the setback from the pandemic, the Indian beauty and personal care industry is slowly recovering, according to data platform Statista. There is also a clear transition towards products that are more ethically sourced and naturally made.
The overall beauty and personal grooming market is worth $26.85 billion and is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 8.5 per cent from 2021 to 2025, according to Statista.