is handing the consumer-facing operations of Palmolive’s e-commerce and D2C business to Bombay Shaving Company, as it seeks to revive a personal-care business that management acknowledges has been a disappointment and crack a digital-first model it has struggled to master on its own.
The experiment combines Bombay Shaving Company’s D2C expertise with Colgate’s product, supply-chain and marketing muscle at a time when roughly 60 per cent of Colgate’s advertising money is already directed to digital.
“I must confess that this has been an area of disappointment. We have not done a great job with Palmolive,” Prabha Narasimhan, Managing Director and CEO, Colgate-Palmolive India, said at the company’s Analyst Meet 2026.
Colgate-Palmolive management , however, pointed to “green shoots”, including leadership in premium hand wash, and said Colgate was bringing Bombay Shaving Company’s digital learnings into Palmolive to help grow the brand.
The new arrangement goes beyond using Bombay Shaving Company as a digital adviser. It gives the digital-native company responsibility for consumer-facing advertising and customer relationships for Palmolive’s e-commerce and D2C operations, while Colgate retains innovation, product quality and supply chain.
“We believe that they have a better understanding of how this entire D2C flywheel works. It’s not a flywheel that we understanding as a company, to learn from Bombay Shaving companys digital first experience, Narasimhan said during the analyst Q&A.
Jacob Madukkakuzhy, Whole-time Director and CFO, clarified that Bombay Shaving Company’s “end-to-end” mandate is limited to e-commerce and D2C. Modern trade, traditional trade and traditional advertising will continue to be managed by Colgate.
D2C experiment
The scale of Colgate’s digital business provides the backdrop to the experiment. Narasimhan said about 60 per cent of its advertising money now goes to digital, with the balance largely going to television as media-consumption patterns change.
E-commerce has also crossed double digits as a contribution to Colgate’s business, Madukkakuzhy said, although the company did not disclose the precise share.
The economics of the channel explain why Colgate wants to improve its D2C execution. Its Investor Day presentation shows e-commerce growing at high double digits, with margins around 400 basis points higher and premium products contributing more than 50 per cent of online sales. Colgate’s market share in e-commerce is also around 400 basis points higher than its broader market position.
Narasimhan described e-commerce as “growth accretive, margin accretive, premiumisation accretive, share accretive”, with quick commerce reinforcing those trends.
Investor becomes operating partner
The relationship between the companies predates the Palmolive arrangement. Regulatory filings and deal records show Colgate invested ₹18 crore for a 14 per cent minority stake in Bombay Shaving Company in 2018 and subsequently participated as an existing investor in a 2019 funding round.
The latest partnership therefore takes that relationship beyond investment into operations, pairing Bombay Shaving Company’s digital consumer capabilities with Colgate’s innovation, product quality, supply chain and traditional distribution network.
Colgate’s Investor Day presentation describes the partnership as a route to bring “digital-native data-driven growth thinking” into the company and create a “replicable D2C ecosystem.”
For Colgate, Palmolive is therefore more than a revival project. It is a test of a new operating model, pairing Colgate’s products, supply chain and marketing reach with the D2C capabilities of a company it has invested in, with the potential to replicate the playbook across its wider business if it succeeds.