Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath recently stated that he has stopped buying ultra-luxury brands due to what he perceives as arrogance in their marketing tactics. Speaking on his podcast “WTF is with Nikhil Kamath” in an episode titled “WTF Goes into Building a Fashion, Beauty, or Home Brand?”, Kamath shared his opinion that ultra-luxury brands make customers go through hoops, such as building a relationship or getting on a list, to purchase their products, not because they can’t produce more, but because their “strategy of being arrogant” has been successful.
“In the last 3-4 years, I have completely stopped buying from ultra-luxury brands like Hermes and Louis Vuitton because I feel they play you. Their entire marketing strategy seems to be to offend and get some kind of a reaction out of you and then buy from them. The most offensive thing is to go to a shop where they are marking up a product one is to 1,000 times and then say you can’t buy this product until you build a relationship with us or get on a list or all of these hoops that you have to jump through,” expressed Nikhil Kamath.
He further explained that it’s not because they can’t manufacture more of these products; they can make a million of them. However, the strategy of arrogance has worked well for them, and people need to be aware of that.
During the podcast, Kishore Biyani, the founder of Future Group, who was a guest, highlighted the difference between his approach with Big Bazaar and the ultra-luxury brands. Biyani mentioned that Big Bazaar’s foundation is built on fear, greed, and altruism. He explained that greed comes from offering products at lower prices, while fear arises from the possibility of not being able to find the product later. On the other hand, Biyani stated that ultra-luxury brands focus on appealing to ego and vanity.
The podcast episode, which lasted approximately 3.5 hours, discussed various aspects of scaling fashion, beauty, or home brands from zero to hundred crore rupees and beyond. Guests talked about brand names, logos, community building, SEO, and marketplace strategies.