Taking an Indian D2C brand into the Gulf: channel, pricing, and the first 100 SKUs.
A wellness brand with strong home-market equity needed a Gulf-specific playbook — not a copy of the India strategy at a higher price point.
SKUs live across 3 channels in year one
Pricing lift vs. INR-conversion approach
First profitable retail door
The Challenge
The founders' instinct was to launch through Amazon.ae and a Shopify site. Both would have worked mechanically and failed commercially: the Gulf's premium personal-care market is heavily influenced by pharmacy-adjacent trust signals the brand had none of.
Regulatory approval for their two hero SKUs was also a nine-month path, not the three months the team had assumed.
Our Approach
We mapped the top 200 competing SKUs across UAE and Saudi retail, then paired that with 40 shopper intercepts across three retail environments to reconstruct the decision journey.
The right entry channel turned out to be a hybrid: two anchor pharmacy chains for trust, one premium concept-store partner for discovery, D2C as a follow-on for repeat purchase. We de-risked the SKU launch by front-loading three fast-approval products and treating hero SKUs as year-two.
Pricing was built ground-up in local currency against local benchmarks — 18% higher than a naive INR conversion, and correctly positioned in the mid-premium band.
The Outcome
The engagement delivered 100 on skus live across 3 channels in year one, 18% on pricing lift vs. inr-conversion approach, and m4 on first profitable retail door — measurable, defensible, and owned by the client team on day one after handover.
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