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Makers of some of the most colourful yet affordable beauty and personal care products at Plum Goodness have confirmed that colour schemes and distinct designs are as central to their business meetings as they are to the consumer's gift hampers.
This focus on both form and function drives the brand, which founder and CEO Shankar Prasad defines as "Chemistry done with heart." According to Prasad, Plum products are a blend of careful formulation and deliberate visual language, aiming to appeal to and cater to "almost 80–90% of the overall $33.08 billion BPC (Beauty Personal Care) needs of Indian consumers."
Plum Goodness was founded by Shankar Prasad, who “began as a chief engineer making soap, detoured into consulting and finance, but never lost my love for science and creating things people truly enjoy. In 2013, that passion became Plum – where chemistry meets heart (and the right shade of purple),” reads the brand's website.
Plum’s design guide: foxes over pandas
Prasad sums up Plum’s carefully curated design philosophy with a simple mnemonic phrase, “foxes over pandas”, explaining how all their product ranges are colour-coded with "one (or two) leading colour(s) and a lot of white", unlike other brands in the category, which follow a "minimalist" approach.
"Having a specific language for ourselves as a brand helps us be distinctive. And be true to who we are over a period of time. Otherwise, it's very easy to get lost in the crowd," notes Prasad.
Plum Goodness has a skincare (2013), makeup (2013), body-care/Plum BodyLovin' (2020) and even a hair-care (2020) range, all of which are colour-coded to stand out.
| Category | Product Example | MRP (INR) |
| Cheapest | Plum Colour Affair Nail Polish Remover (30 ml) | Rs 99 |
| Entry-Level Skincare | Saffron & Papaya Glow Bright Face Wash (100 g) | Rs 275 |
| Mid-Range | Plum BodyLovin' Body Mist (150 ml) | Rs 550-575 |
| High-End Serum | Plum 15% Vitamin C Face Serum (30 ml) | Rs 790 |
| Costliest Single | Plum Bright Years Cell Renewal Serum (30 ml) | Rs 1,575 |
| Costliest Combo | Niacinamide Bright & Clear Skin Combo (5 items) | Rs 2,512 |
Almost all of Plum's products are designed in-house. “Every single artwork you see, every single creative that you see here, is sort of written, made in-house."
Fun Fact: In the initial days of Plum, Prasad sketched some of the brand’s packaging himself.
Since the more vibrant foxes are preferred over the monotonous pandas at the Plum office, the brand is not too happy about using the standard dark/amber bottles for its photosensitive products, like vitamin C serums.
"The amber is not really what I would like. So, we are thinking of ways to get out of amber and still keep it protected from the light. For example, if you see the new Vitamin C serum, it has a beautiful white bottle with an orange ring on it and an orange label on it. So, that again goes back to our philosophy of having solid colours with white."
The brand's body care range, Plum BodyLovin', operates under a separate, more vibrant design aesthetic, with a "riot of colours". Skincare is “a more disciplined category,” with colours denoting which ingredients are added to the product. “So, it is sort of coded for those buying it.”
For example, light green signifies the Plum Green Tea range for oil control and acne; bright orange/yellow is for the Plum Vitamin C-Glow range, signalling brightening and glowing; and light blue/aqua identifies the Plum Niacinamide range (rice water) for targeting blemishes and pore tightening.
The formula for success: honesty in formulation
Prasad asserts that the brand's success stems from its fundamental belief in delivering what it promises.
"I think it was the honesty in the formulation; it's the fact that it works. Whatever we say is delivered. And if you see the packaging, a lot of the narrative is about what goes inside the product and how we formulate it."
Prasad highlights, "Even the slightest of raw material deviations have to go through us to make sure that we are taking the raw material exactly from the source that we said we were going to get it from," adding that even a change of "0.5% in the formulation has a huge impact on the finished product quality, and we can tell that the minute we see it."
This internal belief system is the bran's best advertisement: "So if you ask anybody who works at Plum, they will be using our own product, which is the best signal that we fully believe in what we do."
“I personally am a user of the 5% niacinamide serum,” adds Prasad.
Scaling slow to grow big
More than half of Plum's business comes from beyond the metro cities. "Currently, let's say about 60% of our revenue comes from outside the top 8 cities," notes Prasad. Palakkad in Kerala, Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu and Udaipur in Rajasthan are some of the leading markets for Plum.
This, as per Prasad, is a result of having been in the market for a while, even overcoming initial e-commerce hurdles: "There were pin codes where a BlueDart or Delhivery would not deliver. We had to go to the post office and send it via speed post to India Post."
The premiumisation trend, unrestricted by geography, fuels this growth.
"Premiumisation is a uniform trend across India; people are seeking out better, wholesome, believable and more premium experiences."
While its online business has been the key to Plum’s digital omnipresence, offline expansion is slow, admits Prasad. "Offline retail is not as seamlessly scalable as online retail is. It needs physical presence. It needs to have the right team, the right distribution partners, and the right ways of working in the market," Prasad cautions.
Currently, Plum has a presence in about 150 cities; the focus is on strengthening the existing system rather than rapid, unguided expansion: "Our struggle is to tell people not to expand too fast." As per its website, Plum also ships to “Nepal, Malaysia, Kenya, the UAE and the USA, to name a few.”
Marketing mantra: simplifying the complicated
Plum’s consumer demographic is largely 18–35 and includes both men and women, recognising that "men also do skin care." Geographically, the brand's reach extends across the country, with Plum’s "top selling market” being South India, according to Akansha Baliga, marketing lead, Plum.
In terms of marketing, Baliga states their media mix focuses "typically on YouTube, Meta and creators/influencers", with a deliberate focus on a mix of "regional as well as beauty creators", particularly to reach Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
Addressing the rise of minimalist, ingredient-first brands, Plum opts for an approach that balances transparency with simplification. "We are trying to be transparent in a way that people understand," says Baliga.
She draws an analogy: "Think of your favourite professor in school or college; you like that person because they made the most complicated things simple for you, but they did it with respect; they treated you with a certain level of dignity and then explained things to you. That's what we want to be in beauty and skincare. We want to be able to simplify things for our consumers, not make it scary and confusing."
This belief led to the launch of the podcast 'Plum Skin City', hosted by comedian Rohan Joshi, which blends science with humour to demystify skincare for the masses.
The brand also recently partnered with fitness icon Milind Soman on a campaign promoting their niacinamide serum, aligning with the idea that results come from consistent effort—a theme the brand’s CEO calls "the right chemistry in skincare".
Carving opportunities from challenges
India’s obsession with international skincare brands is common knowledge. However, instead of seeing it as a challenge for the homegrown brand, Baliga sees the influx of global skincare fads like K-Beauty (Korean) and J-Beauty (Japanese) as an opportunity, as it "pushes us to deliver better products and better experiences for consumers."
Plum's niacinamide-based products employ medieval rice fermentation technology from Japan. The brand recently celebrated 10 million consumers for its niacinamide range.
Baliga also points out that consumers are realising that, "more than discounts, it's the value that they want at the end of the day." This value encompasses the entire experience: "It's about how they open the product, what you see inside it, the texture, the application, how you feel while putting it on, and the result."
Looking ahead, hair care is a key focus area, with Prasad noting it is going "very well" and is exciting "because not a lot of work has happened to understand and to work with Indian conditions and consumer needs in hair care."
Discontinued or to be continued?
While the brand did launch makeup previously, including a top-selling kajal, it has since been scaled back. "The reason why we are not very big on makeup right now is because there's a lot to do here, and we decided not to do this," notes Prasad.
However, he leaves the door open: "We might get back to makeup in a much more meaningful way." The brand's acceptance of dropping projects that don't meet their high standards, such as a lip oil that "tanked", further underscores their commitment to product quality and not just chasing market trends.
Plum places a high value on listening to customers, known as "Plumpsters", to drive product development. This strong feedback culture led them to launch the 5% variant of the niacinamide serum (following the original 10%) and introduce a 10% variant in the original 15% vitamin C range. Customer input was also key in developing specific types of face masks, sunscreens, and moisturisers.
