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As India's online fashion and lifestyle market is projected to reach $40–45 billion by 2028, the creator-led commerce economy is expanding at an unprecedented scale. With more than 3.5 million creators across e-commerce platforms now influencing how the country shops every day. From Amazon’s two crore shoppers who bought after watching creator content to Meesho’s one lakh monthly affiliates earning from low-ticket product reviews, and Myntra’s 10 percent revenue coming from social commerce, India’s online shopping funnel is being rebuilt around creator influence. As consumers shift to video-first discovery and brands tighten their focus on measurable outcomes, creator commerce has moved from experimental to foundational.
Brands See Creators Becoming Bottom-Funnel Drivers
Marketers say the journey from inspiration to purchase has compressed dramatically. Zahid Khan, Director, Shopping Initiatives for India and Emerging Markets at Amazon, said, “Creators have become central to our media planning because consumers are discovering, comparing and purchasing inside their content itself. We are seeing more qualified buyers coming through creator videos than through traditional digital ads. The halo effect is immediate and measurable. For us, creators are no longer a supporting channel. They are a primary sales engine.”
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Khan also added that creator metrics are now viewed the way performance marketing once was. “Earlier we asked what a creator’s reach was. Today we ask how many minutes of watch time they drove and how many sales they generated within the hour. The shopping journey is collapsing, and creators are the new storefronts.”
Creator Videos Drove Purchases for Over Two Crore Shoppers
“In 2025, two crore shoppers browsed and made their shopping decisions by watching content by creators on Amazon, which led to the sale of 1 crore products. This is a growing phenomenon and is prominent during major shopping events,” Khan revealed.
He also added, “Viewership grew 42 percent taking it to half a billion live views. We observed a superior halo effect and content-driven discovery rate of videos. Category-initiated videos, especially electronics, saw the highest customer retention rates. Shoppers were either buying the products they saw in videos or discovered other related products. They have also bought products from the creators and their associates within 24 hours to 7 days.”
Beauty and lifestyle categories, once secondary, are now among Amazon’s fastest-growing creator-led segments. “First-time buyers overwhelmed video discovery in beauty and fashion. A curated set of influencers helped merchants by shooting creative content. Our bundles and lookbook strategy also helped artists, musicians and lifestyle influencers,” Khan said.
Amazon’s interface has been quietly redesigned to prioritise video. Short 30-second clips, horizontal carousels and personalised creator feeds have contributed to what Khan describes as a “22 percent higher engagement rate and incremental brand clicks by nearly 50 percent on brand stores.”
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Scaling Creator Commerce
Myntra is scaling creator commerce through volume. Its 3.5 million shopper-creators are powering one of India’s largest fashion content ecosystems. About 20 percent of the user base now interacts with social content on the app, with 25 to 28 percent higher conversions than typical platform traffic.
The platform has more than three billion UGC posts and an affiliate network of 1.6 lakh influencers driving nine billion monthly impressions. Long-form content around 15 minutes performs better than shorter formats on Myntra. The upcoming GlamStream Fest 2025 is expected to host 3,000 creators, 5,000 customers and 30 brands, signalling Myntra’s ambition to deepen community-led fashion discovery.
Social commerce contributes 10 percent of Myntra’s total revenue, growing 50 percent in the last four months, positioning it as a core business vertical rather than a marketing extension.
Sunder Balasubramanian, Chief Marketing Officer, Myntra said, “With millions of creators fuelling this movement, we’re building an ecosystem where inspiration and commerce co-exist seamlessly. The success of GlamStream and the growing creator community reflect this shift from transactional shopping to experience-led engagement. As we scale further, our aim is to make every shopper a creator too, making the shopping journey more personal, inclusive and culturally connected.”
India’s Fastest-Rising Mass-Market Creator Engine
Another e-commerce player, Meesho, is quietly shaping one of India’s most accessible earning models for everyday creators. The Meesho Creator Club has grown into a high-volume affiliate ecosystem where small-ticket products under Rs 999 generate steady income for lakhs of creators.
According to internal program data shared with agencies, top-performing affiliates earn between Rs 25,000 and Rs 60,000 per month through consistent content across WhatsApp, Instagram and YouTube Shorts. New creators from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities report early earnings of Rs 3,000 to Rs 10,000 within their first 45 to 60 days by promoting kurtis under Rs 499, beauty essentials under Rs 299 and kitchen tools below Rs 999.
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Meesho attributes this momentum to the platform’s unusually high conversion rate on value-first products, with several items selling out within seconds once a Reel, Short or WhatsApp broadcast gains traction. More than one lakh creators now actively use the Creator Club dashboard every month. The company is building what industry executives describe as India’s largest affiliate-driven commerce ecosystem, powered not by celebrity influencers but by everyday creators with hyperlocal trust.
Advancing Creator-Led Commerce
Last month, Nykaa partnered with YouTube to advance creator-led commerce through the YouTube Shopping Affiliate Programme. With 500+ beauty creators and onboarding them into its revamped Nykaa Affiliate Program (NAP), a push aimed at strengthening discovery-led shopping ahead of the wedding and holiday season.
The platform is now rolling out structured commissions and category-wise payouts to expand its creator funnel across beauty, skincare, personal care and luxury market.
A Nykaa spokesperson said, “Creators have been the engine behind Nykaa’s marketing and brand strategy, influencing how millions of Indian consumers discover, learn about, and purchase beauty and lifestyle products. Today, over 10,000 creators are part of our NAP, generating measurable impact for brands and driving content-led commerce at scale. Partnering with YouTube Shopping is a natural evolution as it allows us to empower the next generation of creators while connecting with India’s rapidly growing audience for shopping-driven content.”
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For now, the creators are allowed to tag and recommend Nykaa products directly within their YouTube videos, connecting content with instant purchase options for millions of viewers.
Different Strategies, Same Realities
While Amazon, Myntra and Meesho approach creator commerce differently, the strategic shift is identical. Amazon is building depth through videos embedded directly into the shopping journey. Myntra is building scale through a cultural layer of community-led discovery. Meesho is building velocity through mass-market, low-ticket commerce that rewards frequency over virality.
Across all three, creators are no longer top-of-funnel entertainers. They are full-funnel influence engines whose content directly drives platform sales, order value and retention.
Small-Town Creators Are Driving the Next Phase of Growth
The rise of Tier 2 and Tier 3 creators is one of the strongest unifying trends. On Amazon, two-thirds of creators come from smaller towns and drive 70 percent of creator-led sales. Myntra is seeing a similar wave of Gen Z creators from non-metro markets powering its UGC flywheel.
Meesho’s ecosystem is built almost entirely on small-town creators who use WhatsApp broadcasts, family groups and hyperlocal audiences to drive conversions. Their authenticity, relatability and price awareness align perfectly with India’s mass shopping behaviour.
2025 Will Be the Breakout Year for Creator Monetisation
The next phase of creator-led commerce will be driven by structured monetisation and platform-side infrastructure. Amazon plans to open its network of 1.25 lakh creators to brands through a self-serve collaboration system that enables campaign discovery, briefing and execution inside the Amazon ecosystem.
Looking ahead, Myntra aims to grow its creator base by 3X, while driving a 2X contribution to overall platform revenue through social commerce in the next 12- 18 months. Meesho is scaling its affiliate ecosystem with a focus on predictable monthly earnings for creators who produce content consistently rather than sporadically. By combining low-price products with high user intent, the platform is turning micro-review creators into repeat earners.