Growth is no longer all about acquisitions, as India’s $2.4 Tn consumer economy evolves rapidly to become the world’s second-largest at $4.3 Tn by 2030. Mature B2C platforms and horizontal marketplaces are leading this change in market dynamics, balancing acquisition with retention and long-term customer engagement.
The rise of AI-powered commerce, shifting consumer expectations and omnichannel distribution have added layers of complexity, making traditional marketing levers far less reliable for driving meaningful growth.
A robust acquisition and retention strategy has become critical for the rise of consumer brands as a major growth engine, driving Indian ecommerce to a $400 Bn industry by 2030, backed by rising disposable incomes, a young and energetic workforce, and rapid urbanisation. Also, brand presence and visibility, both online and offline, have become non-negotiable as competition intensifies and choices multiply.
To look deeper into the brand strategy for navigating this ecosystem, 12 industry leaders – from marketplaces, fintechs, and lifestyle and emerging consumer-focussed brands – joined Inc42 and PrsmX by Mobavenue for a roundtable, Building A High-Performance Growth Stack For Modern B2C Brands.
The discussion touched on rethinking acquisition, leveraging data and technology and scaling growth through product-market fit and customer experience. The session was moderated by Karan Saraf, director of Deals at PwC, and featured the following speakers:
- Sneha Das, cofounder and CEO, Ittisa (Dogsee Chew)
- Christabel Singh, associate marketing director, UpGrad
- Aditi Olemann, head of marketing and communications, Cashfree Payments
- Mithun Zachariah, product head for online PG, Pine Labs
- Suresh Rangarajan, founder and CEO, Colive
- Ravi Teja Palla, CBO, Urban Ladder
- Abhishek Thakur, head of strategy and growth, Indus Appstore, Phonepe
- Anmol Verma, director of acquisition and activation, Meesho
- Karthik Hariharan, SVP of marketing, Axio
- Khyati Nayyar, head of growth and revenue, Comet
- Sk Md Arif, head of customer growth, Flipkart
- Saurabh Golani, country head, PrsmX, Mobavenue
Customer Acquisition Needs A Rethink
For many B2C platforms, acquisition remains central. “Surprisingly, we’re still very serious about acquisition. That might sound unconventional for a business that’s over a decade old, but for us, acquisition today also means reactivation,” Sk Md Arif of Flipkart said.
“As Flipkart adds newer, high-frequency categories, a customer who knows us for one part of the portfolio might be completely unaware of what we offer elsewhere. In that sense, a customer can be old and new at the same time. So it’s a mix of acquisition, cross-selling and reactivating users across categories and use cases,” Arif added.
Even for aspirational lifestyle services, acquisition is a matter of shaping demand, rather than responding to urgent need. “We don’t see ourselves as a rental business. We position Colive as a lifestyle upgrade. This isn’t roti, kapda, makaan — it’s about convenience, community and choice. Our communication taps into aspiration, not compulsion, because customers are upgrading, not solving for shelter,” Suresh Rangarajan of Colive shared.
“That’s also why visibility matters — digital is important, but physical signage still builds trust and scale perception. The real challenge is staying top-of-the-mind until the need arises, so you’re already in the customer’s phonebook when the decision moment comes.”
For high-consideration categories like edtech, acquisition is further complicated, Christabel Singh explained why attribution is one of upGrad’s biggest challenges because education is far from an impulse purchase.
“With ticket sizes running into lakhs, decisions are spread across 60 to even 180 days and involve multiple touchpoints. We try to score and weight behaviours across the journey to understand what drives meaningful engagement. What’s worked best are deeper touchpoints like webinars and masterclasses, where sustained participation is a strong signal of intent, even if conversion happens much later,” she added.
The scenario is not much different in fintechs and credit-led businesses, where acquisition extends beyond the initial sign-up. “In credit, acquisition doesn’t end at conversion — it ends when repayment happens. The flywheel really starts when a customer pays on time, because that feedback loop allows us to responsibly cross-sell other financial products,” Karthik Hariharan of Axio said.
Axio focuses heavily on retention, loyalty and cohort behaviour across channels. “If a customer uses us across different platforms and recognises Axio as the common layer, that familiarity drives zero-cost acquisition and long-term value.”
On the other hand, high-average-order-value categories like furniture require a hybrid approach. Ravi Teja Palla of Urban Ladder noted that furniture has traditionally been a brick-and-mortar category and that higher AOVs require a physical presence.
“Today, we operate as an omnichannel brand — selling lower-ticket items online while larger purchases happen offline. Our acquisition strategy blends performance marketing and above-the-line marketing (ATL), with digital channels building aspiration and retargeting nudging customers to nearby stores. In terms of spending, it’s broadly a balanced mix across digital and offline channels,” he said.
Even D2C brands with niche, high-emotion categories stress thoughtful acquisition. “Getting our D2C website early helped us build strong first-party data — even down to a pet’s breed and age, which allows us to retarget at the right life stage. In the US, subscriptions on Amazon work extremely well and drive nearly 10% of sales, but that model doesn’t translate to India at all,” Sneha Das of Dogsee Chew said.
“Our next big focus is customer delight because pet parents remember brands that show empathy. Across channels, we’re very clear on spend — Amazon drives scale, while D2C helps us build data and optimise for long-term LTV,” Das added.
Horizontal marketplaces like Meesho leverage organic growth through targeted acquisition, Anmol Verma of Meesho said, “Our growth has largely compounded through organic flywheels — strong word-of-mouth driven by a clear value proposition, supported by referrals and selective brand-led media. CAC for us isn’t geography-led; it varies by user segment and competitive intensity. What we track very closely is incrementality — whether a channel is actually adding value or just cannibalising demand.”
As brands begin to question the incrementality of the channels, the need for unified, cross-screen measurement becomes more pressing. With media consumption fragmented across CTV, OTT, mobile, desktop and retail media, isolated channel strategies are increasingly limiting impact.
Platforms like PrsmX by Mobavenue aim to address this fragmentation by integrating premium inventory, advanced targeting and programmatic activation into a unified framework, enabling brands to define audiences once and activate seamlessly across screens while managing reach and frequency more intelligently.
“Many D2C and ecommerce brands focus only on social media or low CPAs, assuming that will automatically lead to growth. What’s missing is a disciplined approach to measurement, experimentation, and media mix optimisation, testing different formats, channels, and messages, and continuously learning which touchpoints actually move the needle. That’s where growth truly happens,” Saurabh Golani, country head of PrsmX, noted.
More Data Doesn’t Mean Better Growth
While acquisition sets the stage, technology and data increasingly determine if it translates into sustainable growth.
“We do have a common, unified data layer across the Flipkart group, but we’re very conscious about how and when we use it. We don’t force-fit data unless there’s a clear customer overlap, like between Cleartrip and Flipkart Travel. Most of the time, we use it very surgically — not as a starting point. Sometimes you uncover unexpected correlations across categories, and that helps, but overt or blanket use often leads to audience misfitment,” explained Arif of Flipkart.
Payments and transaction data are emerging as powerful growth levers for merchants. Payment data used to be treated as hygiene — authorisation rates, success rates, and uptime. “What’s changing is how that data is being fed back into the growth funnel. For SMBs and D2C brands, transaction data becomes a powerful signal to drive targeted campaigns and better ROAS. We’re seeing strong outcomes when payments, affordability and CRM come together, especially for merchants who don’t yet have deep customer data stacks of their own,” Mithun Zachariah of Pine Labs said.
The rise of AI and conversational commerce is also reshaping the funnel by changing the way people buy. “A huge chunk of purchases will soon happen through AI and conversational commerce. Our focus is to ensure the payment step never becomes a broken link, while optimising checkout — like repeat payment methods or seamless address entry — which can often improve ROAS more than any upstream marketing intervention,” Aditi Olemann of Cashfree Payments said.
The need for targeted marketing and consumer engagement extends to even Tier II and III audiences as they also demand nuanced, context-aware approaches. Indus Appstore found that giving users control, avoiding pre-selected defaults and removing friction like mandatory logins helps retention. “For Tier II and III users, don’t make the choice for them — let them explore, let them decide and instrument everything. Personalisation and understanding the context matter more than identity,” Abhishek Thakur of Indus Appstore said.
Product-Market Fit In Driving Scale
Beyond acquisition and technology, growth depends on product-market fit, customer experience and capital-efficient scaling.
For emerging D2C brands, measured expansion is critical. “We’ve always minimised, rather than maximised. We track three core metrics — ROAS, return rates and inventory efficiency. We launched with a single silhouette in multiple colours and waited until return rates dropped to around 5% before expanding. That’s how we knew the product worked,” Khyati Nayyar of Comet shared. According to her, many D2C brands fail because they overstock before validating demand.
Organic growth, on the other hand. Remains a potent lever for horizontal marketplaces. Verma of Meesho reiterated that organic flywheels, referrals and a clear value proposition have driven much of Meesho’s compounding growth. “Paid acquisition is selective. We always check whether a channel is genuinely adding new value.”
Customer experience is equally critical for retention and LTV. Das of Dogsee Chew highlighted the role of empathy and lifecycle marketing, while Singh of upGrad emphasised sustained engagement through high-touch interventions like webinars. Such examples reaffirm that high-quality interaction at the right time often outweighs the sheer scale of acquisition.
Physical experiences remain relevant for high-consideration purchases, as Palla of Urban Ladder noted: balancing digital inspiration with in-store confidence helps convert aspirational buyers.
The Future Of B2C Growth
As the Bengaluru roundtable wrapped up, one point landed clearly: B2C growth in India has become a systems problem, not a single-channel problem. Winning now requires companies to balance acquisition with reactivation and retention, build omnichannel presence without losing measurement discipline, and treat payments, behaviour and intent signals as inputs for decision-making — not just reporting.
The takeaway wasn’t that brands need more tools. It was that they need a sharper growth stack: one that can link spend to incrementality, convert data into action, and keep customer experience consistent across touchpoints. In a market defined by long decision cycles, Tier II and III nuance, and fast-changing buying behaviour, the next phase of B2C scale will come from compounding trust and repeat usage — not chasing volume at any cost.
The post How Indian Consumer Brands Are Rethinking Growth In An Omnichannel, Data-Driven Era appeared first on Inc42 Media.
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