Journey to the West: The Ayurveda Experience eyes western demand for natural and holistic beauty products

The company was established in 2010 when it started selling courses on Indian philosophy and ideology. From 2017 onwards, the firm pivoted to beauty and started developing and acquiring its Ayurveda skin care brands.

Out of its portfolio of four brands, it currently has three Ayurveda skin care brands, one which is scheduled to launch in the third quarter this year.

Its first beauty brand, iYURA, was developed in house and centres around traditional Ayurveda with a range of beauty oils.

On the other hand, AJARA has a more modern feel and a wider variant of products. The brand was initially developed in the US before being acquired by the firm.

Ayurveda potential​

While the firm is based in India, a majority of its sales comes from western markets, including North America, Europe as well as Australia.

The US currently accounts for 65% of the business while Europe, which only started operations in 2020, accounts for 15%. The rest of the company’s sales account of Australia, Canada and India.

Founder Rishabh Chopra told CosmeticsDesign-Asia​ that the company’s success in the western markets show there is a lot of promise for Ayurvedic beauty brands.

He believes this is being driven by the demand for natural and herbal ingredients in cosmetics, a trend that Ayurvedic beauty brands are well equipped to tap on.

He added that demand for its Ayurvedic oils was strong, accounting for approximately 80% of its total business.

With the emphasis on health and wellness amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, Chopra expects global demand to continue rising.

“You can see a large demand for yoga, a huge interest in meditation and the whole concept of holistic health and alternative techniques have been very strong. Ayurveda encompasses all of these themes,”​ he said.

This demand is pushing the firm to expand its portfolio into beauty. Aside from the one brand it plans to launch soon, it is also working on the acquisition of one more brand.

Furthermore, it also sees potential in launching more health food and supplements products – including products for skin care.

Mighty ambitions​

Moving forward, the company is focusing on expanding its footprint in the US, Europe as well as India.

While the company is predominantly an online brand, it is also exploring an offline retail expansion in the US, including a standalone experience store.

Chopra believes the company still has huge room to grow in the market.

“Today, we have over 400,000 customers on the platform and over 350,000 of them are skin care consumers. The goal of the next five years is to grow that by ten times. This should be quite easily possible given that we are new in Europe and India. In the US, we have barely scratched the surface – only a quarter of a million customers – we are only getting started.”​