Datum Intelligence figures put the value of India's online festive trade across the four days from 7 to 10 October at between ₹29,800 crore and ₹30,900 crore — a reading that trails the equivalent window a year earlier by roughly 7 to 10 per cent, with the softer start attributed to steeper smartphone pricing and the absence of any GST-driven lift to consumer appetite. Handsets are projected by the research firm to make up 30 per cent of holiday-period purchases this year, a share that trails the 35 per cent recorded in the prior year.

Festive-season expenditure overall is projected to climb by 25–30 per cent across the full month, according to Satish Meena of Datum Intelligence, though he cautioned that the opening week should not be measured against the prior year's pace, when a GST 2.0 policy drove concentrated purchases — particularly in retail — that are unlikely to repeat under current conditions, with demand this time around distributed across product categories and stretched over a longer window rather than front-loaded into the earliest days.

Across several product categories, platform-level data pointed to healthy appetite from buyers even as the headline opening figure came in below expectations. During the opening half-day of Amazon's Great Indian Festival, purchases doubled compared with the same window a year earlier, while Meesho logged a 75 per cent uplift in day-one order volumes over the prior year. During the opening 24-hour window of its Big Fashion Festival, Myntra handled order volumes running at four times its baseline pace, while Flipkart drew 6.3 million users onto its platform at the same moment in its launch hour.

Buyer interest in electronics and appliances held steady, with Amazon noting particularly healthy uptake across large household units, upmarket wearables, and home entertainment gear. Meena noted that handset refreshes were failing to generate the consumer excitement seen in the prior year, pointing out that beyond pricing, the latest models were not drawing much interest either. He noted that phone owners rarely think about the frequency of software updates they are asked to install.

Across the season, demand is forecast to draw on a broader mix of product areas — fashion, beauty, and home goods among them — as Meena anticipates shoppers branching out beyond their initial buying patterns. Pointing out that price increases need to be backed by genuine product improvements, he argued that many brands had raised costs without giving the underlying offering any real thought — and that shoppers who felt let down on quality or effectiveness were unlikely to come back.

Retail analytics firm Datum projects that opening-week purchases will represent around 46 per cent of total festive revenue this season, down from 48 per cent a year prior, with the remaining portion of consumer spending distributed more heavily across the period building toward the November 8 Diwali celebration. Forecasts place quick commerce at roughly 16 per cent of festive-season revenue — a gain of four percentage points over the prior year — driven by a growing tendency among buyers to complete purchases in the days immediately surrounding the celebration.