The acceleration is being powered by digital-enabled models that are launching products faster, iterating quicker, and using online channels as primary growth engines rather than secondary distribution arms.
“Historically, it took a lot of investment, time and effort to build distribution scale, but now that equation has got democratised because it is easier to reach a high number of high-spend consumers through e-commerce and quick commerce,” said Parul Bajaj, India leader- marketing, sales and pricing practice, BCG, explaining how time taken by brands to scale has almost halved.
As per the report, online-forward brands – those focused primarily on digital sales – are launching 1.5 to 3 times more new products than offline-forward peers. This rapid innovation cycle is allowing them to capture emerging consumer trends faster and test demand at lower risk.
The gap is particularly sharp in beauty and personal care. Between 2021 and 2025, online-forward beauty and personal care brands launched around 60 new products, compared to about 20 launches by offline-forward brands – a threefold difference. In food and fresh categories, online-forward brands introduced 45-50 new products, roughly 1.5 times more than offline-led peers, which launched 30-35 over the same period.
This faster product churn offers structural advantages in digital distribution, including faster feedback cycles, optimised inventory and supply chains as well as real-time performance analytics, as per the report.
This rapid innovation is taking place within a steadily scaling market itself.
