Lifestyle Brands Walk The Premium Tightrope

SUMMARY

• As India’s affluent consumer spends more on design-led products, premium lifestyle brands are looking to turn one-time buyers into customers across categories and occasions

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Imagine a customer walking into a premium lifestyle store to buy a vase, but leaving with a dinner set, tableware, candles, and a few other pieces of décor for their living room. A few months later, the same customer is back, looking for a housewarming gift for family and friends.

This is the loyalty that brands yearn for. Give more reasons for the customers to return and get a larger share of their wallet as well as their mind space. It’s never about one vase. 

This is exactly where the next leg of growth lies for the premium and mass-premium lifestyle market – not by abandoning what they are known for, but by finding more ways to bring the same customer back into their world. While some are simply moving from kitchenware into décor and gifting or from clothing into home and occasionwear, others are seeing an opportunity in new channels to reach those customers.

The catch, however, is that every new avenue, be it physical retail, marketplaces, or quick commerce, comes with its own set of challenges. And there’s no channel that can be sacrificed. 

• More stores mean more fixed costs 
• More categories mean more inventory and operational complexity 
• Wider distribution can bring reach but reduce control over the brand experience 
• More discounting can move volume while making it harder to justify the premium tag

The question, then, is not whether these brands can find new avenues for growth, but which of them can deliver growth without stretching their economics or diluting the brand.

The Bar For Premium Is Rising

From mass-premium homeware to more design-led and aspirational propositions, brands are carving out different positions to woo a crowded market. But the underlying challenge is: how do you give customers more reasons to buy?

For Nestasia, the answer lies in making premium design accessible to a broader set of Indian consumers while expanding the occasions and categories around the brand. Cofounder Aditi Murarka Agrawal says the brand sees room to grow both its customer base and category presence.

The mass-premium opportunity is therefore less about making premium products cheaper and more about widening the addressable consumer base without stripping away the attributes that justify the premium. 

Nestasia’s positioning sits around this balance of design, quality and accessibility, particularly for middle- and upper-middle-income consumers who may be trading up selectively rather than buying luxury across the board.

“We see substantial room for deeper penetration. We already operate across D2C and marketplaces and have our exclusive brand outlets (EBOs). Meanwhile, trade and other offline channels remain relatively untapped opportunities that we are exploring to reach newer customer cohorts,” Agrawal said.

Then, the customer is also changing. Products that once were bought purely for utility are increasingly being evaluated for how they look and what they say about the home. Kitchen tools, cookware, storage and dining products are becoming part of a broader design vocabulary.

“The Indian consumer has become far more discerning. There is much greater exposure to international brands, and with that comes a sharper understanding of design, material and longevity. People are buying fewer things, but they want those things to mean something and to last,” said Rashi Sethia, the CEO of Nicobar, a modern Indian lifestyle and fashion brand.

This shift changes the growth equation for premium brands. If consumers are becoming more deliberate about individual purchases, brands cannot rely on simply increasing product launches or pushing volume. They need to create more occasions in which the same consumer sees the brand as relevant, while retaining the design, material and craftsmanship cues that support the original purchase.

While this creates an opportunity, it also raises the bar for many. Meanwhile, Kushal Bhagia, the founder and partner at All In Capital, sees repeat behaviour, full-price sell-through, contribution margins, customer acquisition costs and lifetime value as the more meaningful measures of demand. 

“For a premium consumer brand, I would want to see improving contribution margins, disciplined customer acquisition, healthy inventory turns and a credible path to EBITDA profitability. Growth can create value, but only if the economics improve as the business scales,” Bhagia added.