Colgate-Palmolive India has entrusted Bombay Shaving Company with managing Palmolive’s online and direct-to-consumer business, signalling a strategic shift to digital-first growth and start-up collaboration amid branding challenges.
Colgate-Palmolive India is turning to Bombay Shaving Company to run the consumer-facing side of Palmolive’s e-commerce and direct-to-consumer business, in a sign that the personal-care label has not delivered as hoped and that the company wants outside help to sharpen its digital strategy. The move links Colgate’s scale in product development, supply chains and marketing with a start-up that has built its name on digital-first sales and subscription-led grooming products.
Prabha Narasimhan, the managing director and chief executive, told the company’s Analyst Meet 2026 that Palmolive had fallen short of expectations. She said Colgate had struggled to make the brand work online, even as about 60 per cent of its advertising spending now goes to digital channels. The company has also pointed to early signs of progress, including a leading position in premium hand wash, while saying it is bringing Bombay Shaving Company’s online learnings into Palmolive to help the brand grow.
Under the new arrangement, Bombay Shaving Company will handle consumer-facing advertising and customer relationships for Palmolive’s e-commerce and D2C business, while Colgate keeps control of innovation, product quality and supply chain management. Jacob Madukkakuzhy, the whole-time director and chief financial officer, said the mandate is limited to online channels, with modern trade, traditional trade and conventional advertising remaining with Colgate.
The collaboration builds on a longer relationship between the two companies. Regulatory filings and past deal records show Colgate-Palmolive invested about ₹18 crore for a 14 per cent stake in Bombay Shaving Company in 2018, its first investment in an Indian consumer brand, and later took part in another funding round. Founded in 2016, Bombay Shaving Company has expanded from a niche men’s grooming start-up into a broader personal-care business, and Colgate now appears to be betting that its digital-first approach can help unlock Palmolive’s online potential.
That bet is supported by Colgate’s own online economics. In its investor presentation, the company said e-commerce is growing at high double-digit rates, carries margins about 400 basis points higher than the wider business and draws a greater share of premium products than offline channels. Narasimhan described the channel as “growth accretive, margin accretive, premiumisation accretive, share accretive”, with quick commerce reinforcing those trends. For Colgate, the Palmolive tie-up is now a live test of whether a partner from the start-up world can help build a repeatable D2C model across the wider group.
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