A CEO once told me that Indian customers aren’t loyal and will leave the moment a competitor offers a better price. I hear this from founders constantly. But if that were true, how did Zerodha, Nykaa, Wakefit, and CaratLane become market leaders? Why do people queue up for iPhones instead of buying the cheapest phone available?
The truth is simpler: loyalty isn’t missing, it’s unearned. When a brand’s LTV drops or repeat purchases stall, founders blame the customer instead of the product’s weak positioning.
Take toothpaste. Sensodyne solves a specific problem, sensitivity, so it’s dentist recommended and hard to replace. Colgate and Pepsodent, competing on identical freshness and whiteness claims, get bought on whatever’s cheapest that week. Same logic applies to phones: at ₹80,000, identity (iPhone, Samsung) drives the sale. At ₹20,000, specs and offers do.
The pattern: strong utility or strong identity creates loyalty. Weak differentiation creates price shopping.
Three things separate brands from commodities:
- A clear reason to choose you. Can a customer finish the sentence “I like this brand because…”?
- Identity, not just performance ads. Ads drive sales; only brand memory drives search demand when the ads stop.
- Respect for the customer. Indian buyers aren’t cheap, they’re value conscious, and they notice every broken promise, from bad stitching to fake no questions asked returns.
Before blaming disloyal customers, agencies offering digital marketing services should ask whether the brand itself gave anyone a reason to come back.
Ankur Sharma is the founder of Brandshark, a digital marketing and growth agency that helps high-growth brands scale through performance marketing, SEO, and data-driven growth systems.
He has over a decade of experience helping D2C and B2B companies build scalable customer acquisition systems. His expertise includes performance marketing, SEO, conversion optimisation, and growth strategy.