Consumer 2030: Trends Shaping the Next Generation of Brands

By the end of the decade, the consumer will be harder to read than ever. The consumer of 2030 will be contradictory. She will demand wellness and indulgence, instant gratification, climate-conscious packaging, as well as privacy and personalisation. The task for brands is to navigate these paradoxes without tripping over them. Brands that succeed will not be the loudest storytellers, but the quietest problem-solvers, embedding health, speed, relevance, and sustainability into consumers’ everyday lives. 

Health, mainstreamed

The wellness economy was valued at $6.3 trillion in 2023 and is projected to reach $9 trillion by 2028, expanding faster than global GDP, according to the Global Wellness Institute. Wellness now stretches far beyond supplements or gyms. It now includes food, sleep, recovery, and even bricks and mortar, with “wellness real estate” generating over $584 billion in revenues last year.

Household staples are being recast as health guardians. In India, cookware maker The Indus Valley sells cast iron and stainless steel pans as toxin-free alternatives to cheap non-stick wares. Sleepy Owl positions cold-brew coffee as a mindful ritual for urban workers. GO DESi reimagines traditional jaggery sweets for a modern audience, trading on provenance and nostalgia.

Wellness is shifting from aspiration to assumption. For brands, the challenge is no longer to persuade consumers to care about health, but to make healthier products more accessible and frictionless.

Convenience, bifurcated

If health is the new baseline, convenience is non-negotiable. The share of food delivery in restaurant spending has more than doubled since 2019. In India, quick commerce already accounts for over two-thirds of online grocery orders and is projected to grow more than 40% annually through 2030, according to Reuters. The sector, worth $6–7 billion in 2024, is forecast to triple by 2027, says the Times of India. Some see even bigger horizons: Bessemer Venture Partners projects a $30 billion market by FY30, while Morgan Stanley pegs the total opportunity closer to $57 billion.

Yet this appetite for speed is accompanied by ruthless thrift. McKinsey notes a growing “value bifurcation”: households economise on staples while paying premiums for small luxuries. That explains why refill packs and store brands rise alongside indulgences like speciality coffee or AI-powered appliances such as upliance.ai, which automates cooking with minimal fuss.

Brands must cater to both ends of the spectrum: credible down-trade formats for the budget-conscious, and compelling upgrades for the occasional splurge.

Personalisation, on permission

The next frontier in consumer experience will be defined less by capability than by constraint. A 2025 Qualtrics survey across 23 countries found that around two-thirds of consumers prefer to buy from companies that personalise offers. Yet tolerance depends on the data used: almost half are comfortable with brands using purchase history, but fewer than one in five accept the trawling of social posts, and only 13% approve of financial data being mined.

Trust is the lubricant. When consumers believe firms use data responsibly, their comfort with personalisation rises by eight percentage points. In practice, this means leaning on first-party data (what happens on owned platforms) and steering clear of the “creepy” inferences that invite backlash.

The implications extend to media economics. India’s digital ad market is projected to continue growing at a rate of 15% annually through 2029. But rising costs and tighter regulation mean that brands relying solely on rented audiences will see their margins squeezed. Loyalty programmes, apps, and subscription models will be more valuable than elaborate targeting tricks.

Climate, packaged

Packaging is the most visible arena where climate concerns meet consumer choice. A 2025 McKinsey survey found that between 40% of Japanese and 85% of Indian shoppers are willing to pay more for sustainable packaging. Yet price, safety, and convenience still rank higher in most purchase decisions, especially in affluent countries.

This creates a narrow path. Sustainability cannot be an add-on or a compromise; it must feel like better design. Beco, which sells bamboo-based home-care products, does not market eco-friendliness as a sacrifice but as performance. The Indus Valley ships with plastic-free, durable packaging. GO DESi shortens supply chains, wrapping provenance into its appeal.

The sector is on track to be worth $390–450 billion by 2030. By then, sustainable packaging will be less of a differentiator than a licence to operate.

Localisation, decisive

Global brands have long sought scale; by 2030, they will need to prove relevance. The Indian market shows why. Quick commerce is creating an “everywhere shelf,” where discovery, search, and purchase occur inside aggregator apps in seconds. India already has 270 million online shoppers, with most of the new growth coming from smaller cities, according to Reuters. That figure could reach 500–600 million by 2030, according to India Briefing. E-commerce’s share of retail, at 8% in 2024, is projected to climb to 14% by 2028, with a total market value of $300 billion by 2030, says IBEF.

Products that thrive here are “India-first” by design: smaller pack sizes, heat-tolerant formats, and localised flavours. Fast-food chain Burger Singh thrives not by replicating Western menus, but by serving masala fries and paneer burgers.

Local adaptation is not parochialism; it is a matter of survival.

 

Diverging paths: rich-world restraint, emerging-market leapfrogging

The trajectory of consumer demand will not be uniform. In mature markets, wellness and sustainability are becoming saturated expectations. European shoppers, for instance, tell McKinsey that recyclability is the most critical attribute in packaging. American households are more likely to trade down to private labels in times of inflation, but continue to indulge in “affordable luxuries” such as speciality coffee or premium pet food. Growth is incremental, and loyalty is harder to shake.

In emerging markets, the story is less about refinement and more about leapfrogging. India’s e-commerce penetration, which accounts for less than 10% of retail, is expanding at a rate of nearly 20% annually, according to Morning Context. Quick commerce has skipped stages that took decades in Europe, implanting new habits in months. Consumers are younger, more digitally native, and paradoxically more willing to pay for climate-aware packaging than their Western counterparts.

This divergence creates a dual challenge for global brands: mature economies demand ever-greater differentiation at the margin, while emerging ones reward bold localisation and agility. Venture capital firms in India reflect this split in their portfolios. In Europe or America, disruption often originates from niche categories. In India or Southeast Asia, it stems from the creation of categories altogether.

The consumer of contradictions

By 2030, consumers will expect wellness built into habits, convenience without compromise, personalisation without intrusion, climate-conscious packaging without added cost, and local nuance at a global scale.

The implications for brand-builders are clear:

• Health should be the default, not an aspiration.
• Value will bifurcate, offering credible trade-offs and indulgent upgrades.
• Data use must be transparent and minimal.
• Sustainability should be engineered into design, not grafted onto it.
• Localisation will decide who earns digital shelf space.

Rukam Capital, as one of the top venture capital firms, illustrates these shifts in microcosm: toxin-free cookware, bamboo cleaning products, provenance-first snacks, ready-to-drink rituals, AI-powered appliances, and Indianised fast food. Each reflects a fragment of the consumer paradox. 

AntiNorm, in particular, is carving out a niche in India’s cluttered D2C beauty and personal care market. While most brands peddle sprawling 10-step regimes and over-engineered routines, AntiNorm wagers that less is more. In a space crowded with choice, its bet is simple: consumers don’t need more products, they need fewer that actually work.

The next generation of brands will be built not on louder advertising, but on quieter, problem-solving solutions. For consumers juggling contradictions, simplicity may be the ultimate luxury.

And behind many of these emerging consumer stories lies venture capital, which fuels experimentation and scale. As venture capital firms in India continue to back bold localisation plays and sustainability-led models, the brands of 2030 will be shaped not just by consumer demand, but also by where smart money flows.