Necessity or Nudge? Behavioural Economics Insights from Nykaa’s Pink Friday Sale

Time-bound e-commerce promotions have emerged as critical tools for influencing consumer behaviour, particularly in emerging markets. This study investigates the application of behavioural economics principles within Nykaa’s Pink Friday Sale, a major online retail event in India’s beauty and personal care sector. Using secondary data from Q3FY22 to Q3FY24, the research applies a behavioural framework—encompassing scarcity, anchoring, loss aversion, hyperbolic discounting, and the endowment effect—to analyse the relationship between marketing strategies and consumer responses. The analysis reveals that scarcity cues and urgency mechanisms significantly boost early conversions; strike-through pricing increases average order value; “last chance” prompts enhance final-day sales; and exclusive bundles lead to faster sell-out rates than individual items. These findings support the practical effectiveness of psychological nudges in driving e-commerce performance and extend behavioural economics theory to a high-growth, non-Western retail context.However, the findings are subject to limitations including reliance on secondary data sources and the absence of direct consumer-level tracking or experimental validation.