The Gen Z marketplace: how India’s youth are rewiring e-commerce
In India, a new, digital-native generation is intent on reclaiming tradition while embracing modern convenience
In a bustling student hostel in Bengaluru, Swaksha Gupta scrolls through her favourite shopping app.
She skips past the household names filled with artificial ingredients that her parents grew up with, instead finding inspiration from older generations by filling her cart with turmeric-infused face washes and Ayurvedic hair oils in biodegradable tubes.
“Even a product like ubtan comes in a tube these days,” Gupta said, referring to the traditional paste of herbs and lentils once ground in family kitchens, now reimagined by start-ups like Mamaearth. “They tend to last longer, are better for my skin and good for sustainability.”
They browse, buy and broadcast online, demanding products that are clean, transparent and culturally rooted while rejecting the uniformity of multinational giants.
The numbers suggest something of a consumer revolution. More than two-thirds of urban Indians now check ingredient lists before buying food, while 80 per cent actively avoid additives, according to a report released last month by Deloitte and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.