From food delivery to streaming and shopping, India Inc is discovering that loyalty isn’t enough. The new mantra: go premium — and then go premium again.
You get home hungry, open Zomato and, as a Gold member, expect the usual perks — free delivery, extra discounts. But just before checkout, a new temptation flashes: add “VIP Mode” for a small fee and unlock the fastest delivery, premium support, top-rated delivery partners and even refunds on delays.
Dinner sorted, you switch to Prime Video for the latest blockbuster. Your Amazon Prime membership grants access — but a few seconds of ads interrupt the experience. Want them gone? Pay a little more. Even premium now comes with layers.
Welcome to India’s emerging “premium-within-premium” economy, where platforms are stacking paid privileges atop existing memberships to monetise speed, certainty and status.
Stratified Subscriptions
At Amazon, the shift is deliberate. After introducing ads to Prime Video in India last year, customers were given a choice: stay on the ad-supported plan or pay extra for an uninterrupted experience. According to Abhinav Agarwal, director and head of Prime India, that flexibility has been a success.
India has also served as a testing ground for tiered Prime memberships — an “India-first approach that is now influencing global thinking within Amazon,” Agarwal says. The logic is simple: Prime members shop over five times more frequently than non-members, and the top 10% save 8.5x their membership fee, reinforcing stickiness while opening new monetisation layers.
The strategy isn’t limited to one platform. At Flipkart, the paid membership “Black” sits above the existing Plus loyalty programme, bundling exclusive shopping, travel and entertainment benefits for frequent transactors.
Meanwhile, Swiggy has taken the idea further with Swiggy One BLCK — an invite-only tier positioned as the “business class equivalent” of its regular Swiggy One membership. Members get faster deliveries, on-time guarantees and concierge-style support. According to co-founder Phani Kishan, it is built for users who demand the highest levels of speed, reliability and personalised care.
The economics are compelling. Nearly 80% of Swiggy One members use two or more services on the app and spend three times more than non-members. A higher tier promises even greater wallet share from the most engaged users.
Exclusivity Over Discounts
Consultants say this layered approach reflects a maturing digital market. Naveen Malpani, partner and consumer & retail industry leader at Grant Thornton Bharat, notes that globally, subscription-led e-commerce is expanding rapidly as platforms use differentiated pricing to offer priority access, faster fulfilment and ad-free environments.
In India, the model allows platforms to move beyond uniform benefits to graduated value propositions, where customers pay incrementally for greater service assurance. The result: more predictable recurring revenues at a time when customer acquisition costs are rising and competition is intense.
Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Bank of Baroda, sees both push and pull factors at play. On the supply side, platforms are nudging premium products and memberships more aggressively because margins are higher and logistics efficiencies improve with larger ticket sizes. On the demand side, consumers — particularly in urban India — are shopping more confidently, seeking bargains but also willing to trade up.
There is also psychology involved. “Premium within premium” makes customers feel special, Sabnavis argues. Paying extra signals differentiation. Add a dash of FOMO — the fear of missing out — and the willingness to upgrade grows stronger.
The broader shift is structural. As India’s e-commerce market matures, consumers are increasingly equating value not just with lower prices but with better experiences — speed, predictability, reduced friction and status. Average order values in several non-essential categories are rising faster than order volumes, suggesting shoppers are trading up within categories rather than merely buying more.
WPP Media India, in its recent playbook “Beyond Price Tags: The Power of Premiumisation in India’s E-commerce Boom,” argues that the future of digital commerce in India is not just digital — it is distinctly premium. Consumers, it says, are seeking superior quality, enhanced experience and aspirational value.
For platforms, the message is clear: discounts drive traffic, but differentiation drives margins. In a crowded marketplace where everyone offers free delivery and cashbacks, exclusivity has become the new currency.In India’s app economy, the question is no longer whether you are a member. It is which class you are flying.