Resources
Indian D2C benchmarks, and why we don't trust medians
Published benchmarks for Indian D2C brands are thin, mostly self-reported and rarely broken out by category. The figures we can attribute, such as Honasa Consumer's gross margin of about 70% and an estimated 60 to 65% of Indian e-commerce orders placed by cash on delivery, describe large or aggregate businesses, not a seed-stage brand. We list only what is sourced, and rebuild each client's numbers from raw data instead.
Why medians mislead
A median gross margin for "beauty" blends a brand selling on its own site with one selling through quick commerce at a different commission. A median RTO rate blends prepaid-heavy metros with COD-heavy pin codes. A median repeat rate rarely says over what window, or whether marketplace buyers are counted. The brands that report numbers are usually the ones still around to report them. Comparing your number to a median tells you very little. Comparing your rebuilt number to what a fund expects for your channel mix tells you a lot. That second comparison is the work.
What the public record shows
Gross margin
- Beauty and personal care. Honasa Consumer (Mamaearth), about 70% (SP Tulsian, IPO analysis of Honasa Consumer, 2023. Secondary source, confirm against the Honasa RHP).
Marketing spend and CAC
- Beauty and personal care. Mamaearth advertising at 31% of revenue in Q1 FY24 (SP Tulsian, 2023. Secondary source, confirm against Honasa quarterly disclosures). This is marketing as a share of revenue, not CAC per customer.
COD share and RTO
- COD share of Indian e-commerce orders, 60 to 65% (ET Prime Research, 2024, as cited by Razorpay).
- RTO on COD orders, 25 to 30%, against 2 to 3% on prepaid (Razorpay, primary source not named. Indicative only).
- Around 40% of brands on GoKwik's network cut COD RTO by up to 18% in 2023 (GoKwik, company-released data, 2023).
What these numbers can't tell you
Listed company figures come from scale, offline distribution and negotiated platform terms a seed brand doesn't have. Payment and logistics providers publish data from their own networks, which skews toward brands already using them. None of it is your number. Your number is in your settlement reports and courier files, and it is usually different from the one on your dashboard.
Why we rebuild from raw data
A fund's analyst will not take a founder's margin on trust. Neither do we. We rebuild it from source files, then read it against what investors expect for your category and channel mix. Whether your CAC is good depends on your repeat rate, your margin after RTO and your cash cycle together. A benchmark answers one of those at a time. What we compare against, and where the lines sit, stays in the review.
Questions
FAQ
What is a good gross margin for an Indian D2C beauty brand?
There is no reliable public median for seed brands. Honasa Consumer reports about 70%, at a scale and channel mix a seed brand doesn't share.
What is the RTO rate for COD orders in India?
Commonly cited at 25 to 30% for COD against 2 to 3% for prepaid (Razorpay), though the primary source is not named. Category figures are not reliably published.
Why doesn't Avan publish its own benchmarks?
Our client data is confidential, and a published median would invite exactly the comparison this page warns against.
Where do these figures come from?
Named public sources only, listed beside each figure. Anything we could not attribute is left out.