bl interview. Quick commerce is one of the flag-bearers of our growth: Colgate-Palmolive’s Ruchir Bhatnagar

What we are seeing at the entry-level of the price points where there are consumers who are intermittent users of the category or are pressed for the monies they have, and therefore restrict themselves to a 10 rupee or a 20 rupee product range, they also want multiple assortments available in the 10s and 20s range.

From a time where any 10 rupee product would be fine, to a time that my 10 rupee product needs to be present, that’s a big change that we are seeing. This is impacting not just rural, but urban India. Unlocking the capability and the ability to technically make sure 4-5 right products are present not only frees up the capital but also allows us to capitalize on market share opportunities and business opportunities with the consumer. 

 Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen almost every single state increase the penetration in oral care to near-universal household penetration of the category, which was not the case a couple of years ago. That’s at the very entry level of the spectrum.

Consumers today want solutions that are suited to their needs. People are okay to have multiple products in their house being present, which may suit multiple consumers in that household. And the expectation from the organizations is to cater to them. The evident mega trend emerging in the oral hygiene space are multi-benefit, holistic well-being and whitening benefits which almost every consumer is looking for. 

Brushing twice a day is a long drawn-out phenomenon. It takes a lot of behaviour change and attitude change. We are trying to make sure that we constantly drive the message across to the right set of consumers.

Our ‘brush twice a day’ initiatives are restricted to the urban areas where the category is very well adopted and the ability for people to understand the importance of that is high. We are also partnering very closely with our modern trade partners to make sure that we do in-store initiatives to remind people to brush twice a day.

It is too early for us to say whether it’s giving us results or not. We are convinced that it will give us results. It’s a proven model in other parts of the world. If one consistently sticks with the idea, with the overall wellness being on top of the minds of consumers, it will catch up.

Quick commerce is one of the flag bearers of growth, not just only in the Colgate ecosystem but also within the new retail which is modern trade and e-commerce put together. Quick Commerce is almost about 30 per cent of our ecommerce business, and in a short span of two years to become 30 per cent is the first, ever.

E-commerce today itself contributes to high single-digits to our overall organization sales. These numbers are even higher in highly penetrated pin code markets like Bangalore Hyderabad Mumbai and Delhi. 

Quick commerce has very high front-end interfaces, it allows you to not just provide the product that the consumer is looking for, but also give them options. We are realizing that as you offer the power of choice to the consumer, they end up buying a different assortment on Quick Commerce than what they would have bought in a mom-and-pop store.

We have partnered with our Quick Commerce partners to launch new brands, create new brands and drive awareness about new brands. Very recently, one of our recent launches became a fairly good share in a Quick Commerce platform, purely because we were able to offer it to the right set of consumers immediately. We have a product called Visible White Purple.

It is a purple colour toothpaste that gives you a visible whitened pair of teeth with first use. And that resonated very well with our Quick Commerce consumers because those are high-end premium consumers who are willing to try things out. 

We have started to see that impact happen both in urban and rural markets. Consumers exercise their choices upwards or downwards from our product portfolio depending upon their economic situation, and we started to see that impact.

Almost across all types of retail environments, whether it is traditional or modern trade, we started to see some bit of impact of a slowdown coming. We have started to take corrective measures, we have started to make sure that we do the right things by driving the right portfolio, and mixing our assortment in the right direction so that we continue to meet the needs of the consumers.

The largest selling packs in modern trade also are 500-gram toothpaste packs, which for a family of 5, would last them for a couple of months. So, therefore, it doesn’t lend itself to becoming a very mega-sized category opportunity.

So, therefore, we are not seeing that drastic impact happen. At the starting end of the spectrum, you do see interactions between 10 rupees, and 20 rupees, consumers ideally would want to exercise a down pricing. We are not seeing significant changes yet.