India’s online festive season sales are projected to grow 27% year-on-year, surpassing ₹1.2 lakh crore in 2025, fueled by stronger consumer confidence and an expanding e-commerce basket. Around 70% of shoppers plan to spend more, with urban sentiment turning positive and rural confidence reaching record highs. Quick commerce is set to account for 12% of sales. Amazon and Flipkart remain the top platforms, with Blinkit gaining momentum. Renewed card spending, product launches, discounts, and gifting are boosting festive demand, likely carrying momentum into 2026.
India’s online festive season sales are expected to jump 27% year-on-year, crossing ₹1.2 lakh crore in 2025, according to the latest Datum Festive Barometer. The strong growth highlights both the recovery in consumer confidence and the widening scope of India’s digital shopping market.
The report highlighted that 70% of online shoppers intend to spend more than they did last year, with 57% setting budgets above ₹10,000 and an increasing number planning to cross ₹25,000. Key drivers for festive spending include discounts, new product launches, and gifting.
For the first time since 2022, urban consumer sentiment has turned net positive. At the same time, the composition of festive purchases is becoming more diverse. While mobiles and lifestyle goods continue to dominate and together account for just over half of the gross merchandise value (GMV), their share has dipped slightly. In contrast, categories such as grocery, appliances, and personal care are gaining momentum, pointing to an expanding festive basket that is no longer limited to traditional big-ticket items.
Quick commerce gains pace
Quick commerce is projected to play a much greater role this year. Its contribution to festive e-commerce sales is forecast to climb to 12% in 2025 from 8% in 2024, reflecting the growing consumer appetite for instant delivery and last-minute convenience during peak shopping periods.
In terms of platforms, Amazon and Flipkart remain the most preferred destinations, with 83% and 79% of surveyed shoppers planning to buy from them. Myntra and Meesho continue to perform strongly in fashion and value-conscious segments, while Blinkit’s rise into the top five demonstrates the rapid growth of quick commerce players.
According to Datum Intelligence’s festive barometer, the platforms are expected to promote beauty products, small electronics, and bundled packs more aggressively this season, even as core categories remain the mainstay of festive sales.
In preparation for the festive season, Amazon India has announced a large-scale expansion of its operations network. The company is setting up 12 new fulfillment centers (FCs) and expanding six existing ones, together adding 8.6 million cubic feet of storage capacity — comparable to 100 Olympic-sized swimming pools. As part of this growth, Amazon is opening its first fulfillment centers in five cities: Hooghly, Tiruvallur, Krishnagiri, Visakhapatnam, and Hubballi. In addition, six new sort centers (SCs) will be established in Hubli, Trivandrum, Rajpura, Gorakhpur, Moradabad, and Prayagraj, spanning a combined area of 500,000 sq. ft.
E-Commerce growth returns after 2024 slump
The surge in online festive season sales comes after a relatively subdued 2024, when inflationary pressures and cautious spending slowed overall growth. During that period, card-based transactions lost ground to UPI, with year-on-year card payment growth dropping to single digits. The trend has since reversed: after a decline in October–November 2024, card-based e-commerce spending rebounded in early 2025, rising 20% year-on-year in March and sustaining double-digit momentum through the first quarter of FY26. In April 2025, card spending grew 18.4% year-on-year, almost double the 10.6% expansion seen in April 2024 and well above April 2023’s 12.9%.
Consumer sentiment is showing a clear turnaround across both urban and rural India. Urban confidence has turned net positive (+0.4 index) for the first time since 2022, with discretionary spending rising from 27.8% in May to 37.6% in August. Rural confidence has reached a record high (+37.2), with more than half of respondents reporting greater non-essential spending.
With 73.6% of rural and 43.6% of urban consumers planning to spend more in the coming year, the present upswing is likely to continue into the 2026 festive season.
