In today's deep-dive, we explore how India's influencers are becoming retailers, building brands, selling products and earning commissions. Through real stories, business numbers and global examples, we examine how creators are reshaping e-commerce, why Amazon, YouTube and Flipkart are betting on them, and whether these businesses can remain profitable beyond their founders' popularity.

In 2017, actor Parul Gulati and her mother began making hair extensions in their Mumbai apartment. They had a sewing machine, a small collection of products and very few customers. Gulati sometimes visited potential buyers at their homes to demonstrate how the extensions worked. Her first year produced just ₹40,000 in sales from roughly four pieces. Most people didn't understand the product, and traditional advertising was an expense she couldn't afford. So she began explaining and demonstrating hair extensions on Instagram, answering questions and gradually building an audience that trusted her recommendations.

Nine years later, her company, Nish Hair, is a serious consumer business. Revenue rose from roughly ₹14 crore in FY24 to ₹34.66 crore in FY25, with net profit of ₹8.43 crore. Gulati says the business generated around ₹50 crore in FY26. What started in a living room now sells through online marketplaces, quick commerce and physical retail, including a store in Dubai. Her Instagram account remains an important source of customers, but the business has become much bigger than the account that helped sell its products.

Gulati's story captures a change taking place across India's digital economy. For most of the past decade, influencers made money by promoting other people's businesses. Brands paid them to post a photograph, mention a product or produce a sponsored video. The creator supplied the audience, the brand handled the sale, and neither side could always establish whether the promotion actually made customers buy anything. That arrangement is gradually changing. Creators are now earning commissions on purchases, building online storefronts and, increasingly, launching products themselves. Some are becoming retailers without carrying inventory. Others are turning themselves into consumer brands.

The change also explains why India's largest shopping platforms are paying so much attention to creators. Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, YouTube and Meta have spent years attracting shoppers, collecting data and improving delivery. But bringing a customer to a product remains expensive, particularly when thousands of sellers offer similar things. A creator who has already earned the confidence of an audience can make that introduction more naturally than an advertisement. Instead of paying simply for exposure, platforms and brands can increasingly pay when that recommendation produces a transaction.

The numbers coming from YouTube offer an indication of how quickly this business is developing. In September 2026, the company disclosed that average affiliate payouts to Indian creators had increased more than 160% between the first quarters of 2025 and 2026. More than half of eligible Indian creators had joined its Shopping programme by May, enrolment was growing rapidly, and products had been tagged in more than 19 million videos since the programme launched in October 2024. In June 2026 alone, more than 450 million logged-in Indian users searched for shopping-related content on YouTube.

Those figures describe an enormous amount of shopping interest, but they need careful interpretation. YouTube hasn't disclosed the actual rupee value of the commissions paid or the amount of merchandise purchased through creators. A 160% increase in average payouts sounds impressive, but ₹100 becoming ₹260 is very different from ₹10,000 becoming ₹26,000. Equally, someone watching a mobile phone review isn't necessarily about to purchase the phone. The figures establish that participation and payments are growing, not that every participating creator is earning a meaningful income.

Amazon is seeing similar momentum. In October 2026, the company said its Indian Influencer Program had grown to two lakh creators, twice the previous year's number. It also reported that creators had helped nearly 40 million customers shop on Amazon.in during the year. Eligible creators can now recommend Amazon products through YouTube and Pinterest, alongside their personalised Amazon storefronts. A beauty creator might assemble a collection of skincare products, while a technology reviewer might recommend laptops, accessories and desk equipment. The customer buys from Amazon, the creator earns a commission on a qualifying purchase, and Amazon manages the transaction and delivery.

Myntra is going a step further by turning its existing customers into potential sellers. Its Ultimate GlamClan programme had attracted more than six million sign-ups by May 2026, with over 500,000 creators publishing content each month and more than 100,000 smaller creators earning through the programme. In October, Myntra said its Instagram affiliate integration had crossed one million sign-ups within a month, while its Facebook integration had recorded 1.3 million. Across the two platforms, creators had published around three million posts. According to Myntra's management, creator-led commerce already contributes roughly 10% of the company's revenue.

The most interesting part of Myntra's approach is that someone doesn't necessarily need to become a famous influencer before earning money. A customer who buys clothes, posts styling photographs and helps others find similar products can become part of the company's sales network. Myntra's affiliate feature offers commissions of 8-12%, depending on the creator's tier. For the company, this means a much larger pool of people recommending its merchandise. For creators, it offers a way to earn without launching a business, purchasing stock or negotiating individual advertising contracts.

The economics, however, vary sharply between product categories. Amazon India's published October-November 2026 affiliate schedule offers 8% on beauty products and 7.5% on apparel and accessories, compared with 2.8% on electronics. Mobile phones generally attract 1%, while all iPhone models are listed at 0%. Flipkart's October schedule offers 8% on fashion and lifestyle, 5% on books and general merchandise, and 3% on core electronics. A creator recommending a ₹1,500 beauty product at an 8% commission can earn ₹120 on a qualifying sale. One hundred sales would produce ₹12,000 before taxes, expenses and adjustments. A technology creator could generate considerable sales of certain expensive phones and receive no commission at all.

This helps explain why beauty, fashion and personal care are becoming particularly attractive categories. Products are easy to demonstrate, frequently purchased and often better suited to commissions. A customer may need to compare ten smartphones before spending ₹70,000, but might purchase a recommended lipstick or kurta much more casually. The creator who understands what an audience regularly buys can therefore be more commercially valuable than someone with a much larger following but fewer purchase-ready viewers.

One of the clearest examples of this emerging business is Wishlink, founded in 2022 by Divyansh Ameta, Chandan Yadav and Shaurya Gupta. Wishlink helps creators turn the products featured in their posts into shopping links. A fashion creator can publish an outfit video, direct viewers to the same or similar products, and earn commissions when purchases happen through participating retailers. Wishlink handles much of the linking and tracking, while earning commissions from partner brands and sharing a portion with creators.

The company's 2024 figures are revealing. Ameta disclosed that more than 25,000 creators had published over 720,000 pieces of content through Wishlink, generating nearly a billion clicks and more than ₹1,500 crore in attributed gross sales. Collectively, these creators earned over ₹40 crore. The three highest-earning creators each made more than ₹70 lakh, and all three came from Tier 3 cities or smaller places. For an industry accustomed to measuring success through Instagram followers and celebrity collaborations, that last detail is particularly important.

It suggests that the ability to sell online isn't restricted to Mumbai influencers with professional studios. Someone explaining affordable fashion in a regional language may have a smaller audience but a stronger understanding of what that audience wants to purchase. A creator discussing everyday products with people who share similar budgets and lifestyles may be more persuasive than a celebrity promoting something beyond their reach.

Yet the Wishlink numbers also expose a problem with how creator earnings are discussed. Dividing ₹40 crore by 25,000 produces a simple illustrative average of ₹16,000 a creator for the year, although the company reported both figures as minimums, so that isn't an actual average payout. More importantly, the top three creators earned at least ₹2.1 crore between them. The available data doesn't tell us what the median creator received, how many earned consistently or how many made almost nothing. It would be a mistake to use a few exceptional earners as proof that content creation has become a dependable profession.

Wishlink has nevertheless grown considerably. In February 2026, it raised $17.5 million in a funding round led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India. By then, the company said more than 40,000 monthly active creators were helping generate over six million orders and ₹350 crore in monthly sales for partner retailers. That is a substantial commerce operation, even though the full value of those sales doesn't belong to Wishlink. The company earns a share of the money generated, pays creators their commissions and retains the remainder to cover its own costs and build the business.

There is another reason to look beyond the success stories. A 2026 study by the Indian School of Business and Hashfame estimated that India's creator population had grown from 960,000 in 2020 to 4.12 million in 2025. Around 66% came from non-metro markets. But the research also found that roughly 85% of non-metro creators completed no paid brand campaigns in a year. This doesn't mean they earned nothing from affiliate sales or other sources, but it demonstrates the gap between the number of people producing content and the number able to make a living from it.

Affiliate programmes could help close some of that gap because creators no longer have to convince a brand to sponsor every post. But the opportunity comes with a trade-off. When a creator promotes somebody else's product, they receive only a small portion of the sale. They don't own the product, control the price or necessarily build a relationship with the customer. If the platform changes its commission rates, the creator's income can fall overnight. Those limitations explain why some of the most successful influencers are moving beyond commissions and creating businesses they own.

Kusha Kapila's Underneat is among India's most interesting recent examples. Kapila built her audience through comedy videos and relatable characters before establishing herself in entertainment. When she co-founded the shapewear and innerwear brand with Vimarsh Razdan in April 2025, she didn't simply put her name on a collection of garments. Before the launch, she had begun publishing content discussing innerwear, fitting problems and shapewear. The products arrived after she had already developed a conversation with potential customers.

Underneat reported ₹80 lakh in gross merchandise value during its first month. By November 2025, monthly GMV had reached approximately ₹12 crore. In June 2026, the company announced that it had sold more than nine lakh units to over 6.5 lakh customers and reached an annualised revenue run rate of ₹200 crore. That last figure needs qualification. Annualising recent sales doesn't mean the business has already recorded ₹200 crore in a completed financial year. Nevertheless, the reported growth is substantial for a company barely over a year old.

What makes Underneat especially interesting is the partnership behind it. Kapila brought public recognition, an understanding of her audience and the ability to explain the product. Razdan brought experience in the fashion business and the operational work required to develop and distribute products. Underneat has moved beyond its own website to Myntra and Blinkit, while planning physical retail expansion. The company has also raised outside capital, including a $6 million round in December 2025. It is therefore developing like a conventional consumer company, even though its initial advantage came from the audience of one of its founders.

There is a difficult question hiding inside that success. How much of Underneat's demand comes from customers genuinely preferring its products, and how much comes from Kapila's ability to attract attention? For a young brand, the distinction can be impossible to establish immediately. Strong launch sales demonstrate demand at that moment. A lasting business requires customers to return, recommend products and continue purchasing even when the founder isn't actively promoting every collection. Shapewear also brings complicated sizing, returns and product-development challenges that an Instagram following cannot solve.

Gaurav Taneja has taken a similar route in a different category. The fitness and lifestyle YouTuber co-founded sports nutrition brand BeastLife with Raj Vikram Gupta in 2024. The fit between his content and the product was obvious. Someone who has spent years discussing workouts, supplements and fitness can introduce protein products to an audience already interested in them. BeastLife reported approximately ₹36 crore turnover in FY25 and ₹100 crore in FY26. In April 2026, it raised ₹20 crore at a reported valuation of ₹320 crore, with plans to expand its online and offline distribution.

But protein is a competitive business. Established companies such as MuscleBlaze, Optimum Nutrition and GNC already compete for the same customer. A successful first purchase may depend on the creator's recommendation, but the second purchase depends much more on taste, price, product quality and results. As the company grows, Taneja's audience becomes an advantage in attracting customers, not a substitute for running a competitive nutrition business.

Diipa Büller-Khosla's indē wild offers a different perspective because it has expanded beyond the geography of its founder's audience. Launched in 2021, the beauty company built products around Indian skincare and haircare traditions. Its Indian operating entity reported revenue of approximately ₹11.1 crore in FY24 and ₹25 crore in FY25. The company raised $5 million from investors led by Unilever Ventures in March 2025 and expanded through Nykaa, Tira, its own website and international retailers.

In March 2026, indē wild entered 178 Sephora stores in the United States. That milestone is more significant than another viral product launch. A founder's followers may buy directly from her website because they know her, but products displayed in an American beauty store must compete against established international brands for the attention of shoppers who may never have heard of Büller-Khosla. It is an opportunity to make the brand less dependent on its founder's popularity, while also taking on the costs and demands of traditional retail.

Not every creator business follows the same dramatic growth curve. Beauty and lifestyle YouTuber Sarah Sarosh launched Impulse Coffees, which she says generated around ₹1–1.2 crore in annual revenue during its first three years without substantial paid marketing. More interestingly, she reported that 60–65% of its sales came from repeat customers. The company sells through its own website and has entered Amazon and Blinkit. Impulse Coffees may be much smaller than some celebrity-backed brands, but repeat purchasing is an important sign that customers are buying more than the founder's personality.

There are also businesses where the financial picture is less attractive than the excitement around a launch. Tech YouTuber Shlok Srivastava, better known as Tech Burner, has built consumer ventures including clothing brand Overlays and technology brand Layers. A company-data provider reports that Overlays Ent generated around ₹4.83 crore in FY25 revenue but recorded a net loss of approximately ₹3.21 crore. His Anarc smartwatch, meanwhile, reportedly generated ₹3 crore in first-day sales. The numbers illustrate why it is important to separate the response to a launch from the profitability of the business that follows it.

Ankur Warikoo provides perhaps the clearest publicly disclosed comparison between different creator income sources. In January 2025, he revealed that his businesses generated ₹16.84 crore in revenue during calendar year 2024. His education platform WebVeda contributed ₹9.56 crore, brand collaborations ₹2.76 crore, speaking engagements ₹2.38 crore, books ₹1.65 crore and affiliate income ₹48.22 lakh. He estimated overall business profit at 20-25% after expenses. In other words, the largest part of his business wasn't advertising or affiliate commissions. It was selling educational products to an audience he had spent years developing.

The difference matters. A creator earning a commission helps another company sell a product. Warikoo's education company, Gulati's hair business and Kapila's shapewear company sell products of their own. These businesses can build teams, introduce new products, expand distribution and potentially acquire customers outside their founders' audiences. They also carry much greater responsibilities. Inventory, product complaints, refunds, employees and working capital are less glamorous than filming videos, but they determine whether the operation becomes a sustainable company.

India isn't the first market to see this development. In the United States, TikTok Shop has already demonstrated how powerful the connection between entertainment and transactions can become. According to EMARKETER, its American sales were expected to reach $15.82 billion in 2025, up 108% from the previous year. In Southeast Asia, Momentum Works estimated that shopping driven by video and other content generated $49.7 billion in merchandise sales during 2025, representing around 32% of major e-commerce platforms' combined sales value.

The striking difference is how shopping is built into the platform. On TikTok Shop, a creator can demonstrate a product, attach it to a video or livestream, and allow viewers to purchase without moving through several unrelated websites. Brands can recruit large numbers of smaller creators and offer commissions rather than negotiate individual sponsorship deals. This makes a network of ordinary people commercially useful in a way that traditional celebrity advertising rarely was.

An American example reported by Rest of World shows both the promise and unpredictability. Brandy Leigh, a mother of six from Indiana, started making simple product demonstration videos with approximately 1,000 TikTok followers in 2024. Within months, her audience had grown beyond 30,000, and she reported earning around $95,000 in affiliate commissions. One video demonstrating packaged noodles reportedly earned her more than $8,800. Another creator, Temeka Valentine, promoted the same noodles and earned just $138 from 24 orders. The product was similar, but the commercial outcome was completely different.

More recently, Business Insider reported on Talon Krebs, a young American creator who began with inexpensive product demonstrations and eventually earned a six-figure annual income from TikTok Shop affiliate work, supported by a tax document reviewed by the publication. But his work involved publishing as many as 20–30 videos daily across several accounts. That sounds considerably less like passive income and more like running a demanding sales operation. Krebs has also begun directing some of his earnings toward building a product business of his own, recognising the limitations of depending entirely on affiliate commissions.

Live shopping takes this model further. British beauty brand P.Louise generated approximately $2.7 million in sales during a 14-hour TikTok Shop livestream in August 2025, receiving more than 31,000 orders. The event involved hosts, entertainment, exclusive products and special bundles. It resembled a modern version of television shopping, except the audience could interact and purchase immediately. For Indian companies experimenting with live shopping, this is evidence of what the format can achieve, although such record-breaking events should not be confused with typical daily sales.

At the other end of the business sits MrBeast, whose chocolate company Feastables has become commercially important in its own right. According to investor documents reported by Bloomberg, Feastables generated around $250 million in sales and more than $20 million in profit in 2024. MrBeast's media operations generated a similar amount of revenue but reportedly lost nearly $80 million. The contrast is remarkable. The entertainment operation that made him famous was losing money, while the chocolate business built on that fame was profitable.

Hailey Bieber's beauty brand Rhode offers another lesson. Founded in 2022, it built a substantial business around a relatively focused collection of skincare and makeup products. By March 2025, Rhode had generated $212 million in net sales over the previous 12 months. In May, e.l.f. Beauty announced an acquisition valued at up to $1 billion, including a potential $200 million payment dependent on future performance. The deal demonstrated that a personality-led business could become valuable enough for an established consumer company to acquire, provided it had customers, products and financial performance to justify the purchase.

There is a warning from the same global market. Prime Hydration, the drinks brand associated with internet personalities Logan Paul and KSI, became a sensation after its 2022 launch. Demand was initially so strong that products frequently sold out. Yet the company's UK revenue fell from £112.2 million in 2023 to £32.8 million in 2024, a decline exceeding 70%. Its UK pretax profit also dropped sharply. A creator can make a product fashionable very quickly, but fashion doesn't always produce lasting demand. Prime's experience is a reminder that massive attention and long-term commercial success are two different things.

India's version of creator commerce will develop differently from TikTok Shop because purchasing is spread across several platforms. Discovery may happen on Instagram or YouTube, product links may be managed by Wishlink, and the actual purchase may take place on Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra or a brand's website. That arrangement gives several companies a role in the transaction, but also creates competition over commissions, shopping data and the relationship with the customer.

For marketplaces, creators can become an additional source of sales without every recommendation requiring an upfront advertising payment. For consumer brands, they offer access to specific communities that broad advertising may struggle to reach. For creators, commissions offer a way to earn from content they might already be producing. But these benefits are not necessarily shared equally. The marketplace controls the transaction and much of the customer data. The brand retains the product margin after its costs. The creator generally receives a commission whose rate and eligibility rules can change.

Consider a hypothetical ₹2,000 product sold through a creator at an 8% commission. The creator earns ₹160 on a qualifying purchase, while the merchant receives the sale proceeds from which it must cover that commission, product costs, shipping, discounts, taxes and returns. If another intermediary also takes a share, the merchant's remaining margin becomes smaller. The sale may still be attractive if the creator brought in a genuinely new customer who returns repeatedly. But paying a commission on a purchase that would have happened anyway is much less valuable.

This is where the next phase of competition will become interesting. Platforms will need to demonstrate that creators generate additional purchases rather than simply take credit for existing demand. Creators will want better commissions and more reliable earnings. Brands will try to identify creators who bring profitable customers, not simply the most clicks. The struggle over who receives credit for each sale will become increasingly important as the sums involved grow.

There is also a conflict of interest that the industry cannot ignore. A creator's influence comes from an audience believing that recommendations are useful or trustworthy. But when payment depends on sales, the creator has a direct financial incentive to recommend more products. A favourable review may be genuine, financially motivated or some mixture of both. India's Advertising Standards Council already requires appropriate disclosures when influencers have a material commercial relationship with brands. As more ordinary creators become commission-based sellers, clear disclosure and credible recommendations will become even more important.

For investors, the distinction between a creator who sells products and a creator who owns a business should also matter. An affiliate creator may generate significant income but often has little to sell when the account stops producing content. A creator-owned brand can have inventory, products, customer relationships, distribution and potentially a business that continues operating without the founder's daily participation. Yet those assets are valuable only if they produce sustainable earnings. A company shouldn't receive an attractive valuation simply because its founder has millions of followers.

The size of the opportunity is undeniable, although the forecasts require some caution. Boston Consulting Group estimated in 2025 that India's 2–2.5 million monetised creators influenced $350–400 billion in consumer spending. That is spending influenced, not sales earned by creators. In April 2026, Google and Deloitte projected that one in ten Indian online purchases could be directly attributable to a creator storefront by 2030, against an expected e-commerce market of $250 billion. These forecasts suggest substantial potential, but they are not evidence that those transactions have already materialised.

The larger question is what kind of businesses India will produce from all this activity. It is tempting to imagine thousands of influencers following the same path as Nish Hair or Underneat. In reality, the outcomes will probably be much more uneven. Most creators may remain occasional commission earners, a smaller group may develop substantial affiliate income, and only a fraction will have the products, capital and operating ability to build lasting consumer companies. That doesn't make the opportunity any less important. A network of thousands of small sellers can change how products are discovered and purchased even if most participants never become wealthy.

The most interesting possibility is that the next generation of Indian consumer brands could begin with content rather than advertising campaigns. Founders may spend months discussing a problem with an audience before developing a product to solve it. They may have customers before they have a warehouse, and a distribution network before they can afford traditional marketing. Parul Gulati's journey from sewing hair extensions at home to running a business with tens of crores in revenue shows that this can happen. Kusha Kapila and Diipa Büller-Khosla demonstrate how much faster the process can become when creators already have established audiences.

But the successful companies will eventually need to outgrow the very audiences that gave them their start. A customer who buys a product because of a familiar face must find enough value in that product to buy it again. The founder's popularity can shorten the difficult journey to the first sale. It cannot permanently replace quality, pricing, distribution and customer service.

India's influencers are becoming shopkeepers, salespeople and business owners, often all at once. Amazon, YouTube, Meta and Flipkart have good reasons to encourage that development because it gives them new ways to bring customers to their platforms. The creators have good reasons to participate because sales offer another source of income beyond advertising. Yet the greatest value may eventually belong to those who use that income and attention to build something they control.

The first generation of influencers was rewarded for getting people to watch. The next is being paid to make people buy. The ones who build enduring businesses will be those whose customers keep coming back, even when there is no new video telling them to.