Defining the problem
Nykaa’s repeat rate in beauty was plateauing. Indian users, being highly price-sensitive, often switched platforms for discounts. We needed to increase brand loyalty, especially for in-house and exclusive brands, without relying solely on heavy discounting.
Goals
The business goal was to improve repeat purchase rate and AOV for specific brand and category cohorts by monetising loyalty through a paid construct instead of relying on discounts. From a product standpoint, the focus was on building a scalable framework for digital SKUs that could support future loyalty or savings programs. Marketing aimed to launch a differentiated mechanic that offered instant gratification while fostering long-term brand stickiness.
Our approach to the brand identity
What users had to say
Users wanted clarity of value before purchase and they expected immediate, tangible savings.
Post-purchase gratification was key, users looked for instant feedback on how much they saved.
Users clicked repeatedly on the pass even after adding it, indicating curiosity and desire for re-verification of benefits.
Luxe users were sensitive to the term “savings”, influencing how the feature was branded and named.
Discovery of pass on PDP
Designed a bold, aspirational banner with a micro-animation to introduce the pass in the promotions section. Initially tested within the Offers section but later given its own space for visibility and interaction.
Cart nudge component
Created an inline component to reiterate the value of adding the pass before checkout. We simplified the numbers, focused on emotional triggers (Save ₹XX now) and reused the same component for order confirmation
Cart SKU card
Once the pass was added to cart, we chose to keep it visually similar to the other SKUs to reduce dev time during the MVP rollout, yet it had a distinct Glam Pass branding for higher recall. While designing the image asset for this case, we had to cater to all different shapes and sizes of brand logos.
Savings gratification
Collaborated with the visual designer to create an overlay animation to display the instant savings from the pass to add a delight factor for our users.
Impact
Launched the MVP with Nykaa Cosmetics (an in-house brand) as a low-risk pilot, the feature drove a +13 bps lift in unit conversion, ₹0.53 higher revenue per visit, and a 3.1% increase in orders per customer, with 87% of buyers being new or low-frequency users. The underlying Digital SKU backend framework from this MVP has since scaled to power 10+ brand passes across the platform, each configurable by price, offer, and user cohort.
Learnings
Champion underdog ideas — even skeptical ideas can unlock business value when design leads with conviction.
Ship early, learn fast — the MVP gave credibility and data that fueled scale. We learnt by prioritising progress over perfection.
Design is not just decoration — when UX, content, and visual language align, adoption of features follows naturally.
