We measured the Amazon sunscreen shelf twice, five weeks apart. The total did not move. One listing did.
On 19 August we measured the sunscreen shelf on Amazon India: four fixed searches, three pages each, 150 products verified. On 22 September we ran the same searches with the same code. Nothing changed in how we read it, so a difference is the market. This is the first shelf we have read twice, and this post is what the second read shows.
How the two reads compare
Both reads used the same four searches, the same three pages per search, the same crawler, the same product verification and the same ownership map. The search list is the shelf definition. If it changes, the shelf changes, and a comparison across it reads a method change as a market change. So it did not change.
Amazon showed more distinct products per page in September: 410 organic listings against 365 in August, on the same twelve pages. Shares below use each read’s own top 150 products by revenue, exactly as the August report did. 132 of August’s 150 products are still on the shelf. Price and badge comparisons use only those.
The shelf did not move
| 19 Aug | 22 Sep | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Units a month (badge sum) | 358,000 | 353,400 | -1.3% |
| Revenue floor, annualised | ₹197.3 cr | ₹200.9 cr | +1.8% |
| Brands in the verified set | 64 | 67 | |
| Top three brands, share | 22.1% | 20.5% | -1.6 pts |
| Median discount | 14% | 15% | +1 pt |
The badge sum is a floor: Amazon’s “bought in past month” figure is a lower bound over a trailing 30 days. Two reads are two floors over two windows, not two months of sales. Mid-monsoon to post-monsoon, the floor moved -1.3%. If there is a sunscreen season on Amazon, it is not between August and September.
Ownership held to the decimal
| Owner group | 19 Aug | 22 Sep | Change | Brands |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indian D2C | 51.5% | 51.3% | -0.2 pts | 22 → 19 |
| Indian pharma | 17.0% | 17.1% | +0.1 pts | 12 → 12 |
| Global MNC and pharma | 18.1% | 17.2% | -0.9 pts | 10 → 12 |
| Korean | 5.9% | 5.5% | -0.4 pts | 2 → 2 |
| Indian large-cap and legacy | 1.2% | 1.6% | +0.4 pts | 4 → 5 |
| Unclassified or unverified | 6.2% | 7.3% | +1.0 pts | 14 → 17 |
Indian D2C brands held 51.5% of shelf revenue in August and 51.3% in September. The brand count under that group fell from 22 to 19. Three small D2C brands left the shelf and their share went to the D2C brands that stayed. The D2C figure is a floor; the unverified group is its ceiling, 58.6% in September.
Under a flat total, one listing moved the table
| Brand | Rank | Units a month | Share | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Re’equil | 2 → 8 | 35,600 → 16,000 | 6.6% → 4.5% | -2.1 pts |
| Reginald Men | 14 → 7 | 6,000 → 10,000 | 2.4% → 4.8% | +2.4 pts |
| Deconstruct | 6 → 3 | 24,000 → 29,000 | 5.2% → 5.9% | +0.7 pts |
| Fixderma | 12 → 21 | 11,000 → 4,500 | 2.7% → 1.3% | -1.4 pts |
| Neutrogena | 9 → 14 | 11,300 → 9,800 | 3.8% → 2.4% | -1.4 pts |
Re’equil went from second to eighth without losing a product. One listing, a 20 g gel at ₹150 that sold 20,000 units a month, stopped appearing in the first three pages of any of the four searches. We loaded the page by hand the same day. It is live, it is in stock, and the price is now ₹327. More than half the brand’s volume went with that one listing. We do not know why it stopped surfacing, and we will not guess. A seller dashboard shows a brand its own listing. It does not show that the listing has become invisible to a shopper who searches.
Reginald Men is the largest gainer. A men’s sunscreen priced from ₹479 to ₹1,349, up from 6,000 to 10,000 units a month and from 14th to 7th. The biggest move up on the shelf is a positioning, not a formulation.
Four brands left and four entered, each with one listing. Out: three small D2C brands and Cipla. In: ISDIN, Heliocare, Alkem and one brand we could not verify. Derma houses in, small D2C out. Four is too few to call a pattern. It is the first point of one.
Prices: the median is zero and a fifth of the shelf moved
125 products were priced in both reads. The median price move was +0.0%. 24 of them moved by more than 10%: 10 up, 14 down. The largest moves are promotions ending or starting, not list prices changing. If you watched the median you saw nothing. If you watched the products you saw a fifth of the shelf reprice.
| Brand | Product | 19 Aug | 22 Sep | Move | Discount |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biotique | Biotique Bio Sandalwood Sunscreen Ultra Soot | ₹192 | ₹275 | +43% | 65% → 50% |
| NIVEA | NIVEA Sun Protect And Normal Moisture 125Ml | ₹335 | ₹457 | +36% | 52% → 8% |
| Pilgrim | Pilgrim 5% Vitamin C Brightening Serum Sunsc | ₹296 | ₹396 | +34% | 40% → 20% |
| Bioderma | Bioderma Photoderm Crème Claire SPF 50+ PA++ | ₹1,169 | ₹1,499 | +28% | 10% → — |
| PERSONAL TOUCH SKINCARE | Personal Touch Sunscreen SPF 50 PA+++ for Fa | ₹399 | ₹299 | -25% | 43% → 57% |
| Neutrogena | Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Sunscreen SPF 50+ PA+ | ₹647 | ₹490 | -24% | 17% → 37% |
| Dermatica | Dermatica All Skin Ray Protect Barelyon Flui | ₹859 | ₹678 | -21% | 20% → 37% |
| BLYNDS PRO | Sunscreen Gel, SPF 80+ PA+++, UV/IR & Blue L | ₹625 | ₹499 | -20% | 26% → 33% |
Where the ten largest brands sit on the search for “sunscreen”
| Brand | 19 Aug | 22 Sep |
|---|---|---|
| Dot & Key | page 1, slot 1 | page 1, slot 5 |
| Brinton | page 1, slot 29 | page 1, slot 35 |
| Deconstruct | page 1, slot 4 | page 1, slot 3 |
| Beauty of Joseon | page 1, slot 26 | page 1, slot 28 |
| Minimalist | page 1, slot 2 | page 1, slot 1 |
| The Derma Co | page 1, slot 3 | page 1, slot 2 |
| Reginald Men | page 1, slot 36 | page 2, slot 9 |
| Re’equil | page 1, slot 17 | page 1, slot 12 |
| WishCare | page 1, slot 16 | page 1, slot 10 |
| La Roche-Posay | page 2, slot 30 | page 2, slot 12 |
Sponsored slots are excluded. A brand’s position is its best-placed organic listing on that search. Rank on the head search is the number a brand watches most closely, and it moved for most of the top ten.
The badge, checked against an independent signal
Every revenue floor we publish rests on Amazon’s “bought in past month” badge. Reviews accrue on their own. Across 106 products present in both reads, reviews gained and units sold rank together with a Spearman correlation of 0.68, and the median product gained about one review per 30 units sold. Two independent signals on the same rows agree. This validates the badge’s ranking of products. It does not say anything about the level of any one figure.
| Brand | Product | Units a month | Reviews | Gained |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minimalist | Minimalist Sunscreen SPF 50 PA++++ with | 20,000 | 35,100 → 35,900 | 800 |
| Deconstruct | Deconstruct Gel Sunscreen for Oily skin | 17,000 | 17,100 → 17,900 | 800 |
| Re’equil | RE’ EQUIL Ultra Matte Dry Touch Sunscree | 15,000 | 10,700 → 11,300 | 600 |
| Dot & Key | Dot & Key Vitamin C + E Super Bright Sun | 14,000 | 14,600 → 15,100 | 500 |
| Dermatouch | DERMATOUCH Multivitamin SPF 50 PA++++ Su | 12,000 | 4,200 → 4,400 | 200 |
| The Derma Co | The Derma Co 1% Hyaluronic Sunscreen Aqu | 10,000 | 41,200 → 41,900 | 700 |
| WishCare | WishCare Niacinamide Oil Balance Fluid S | 10,000 | 6,900 → 7,200 | 300 |
| FoxTale | Foxtale Glow Sunscreen SPF 50 PA++++ wit | 9,000 | 9,100 → 9,400 | 300 |
Reviews are pooled across a product’s variants, so variants that share a count are treated as one listing. Amazon regrouped 9 listings between the reads; a count that falls, or jumps by half, is a regrouping and not accrual, and those are excluded.
What this post cannot tell you
Whether a price move is the brand’s or Amazon’s. Both set prices on this shelf and the page does not say which one did.
Why a listing stopped surfacing. Out of stock, delisted and outranked look the same from the search page. A hand check tells live from gone. It does not tell why.
Anything about the unverified brands beyond their count and share. Ownership is researched by hand and a brand we cannot confirm is counted as unconfirmed.
Amazon only. A brand’s competitive set is different on every platform. This is one platform, read twice.
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impuls8 tracks category shelves on a cycle: who repriced, who launched, who lost a listing, who is climbing the search page. One read tells you where you stand. The second tells you what moved.
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