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Bengaluru: The newly-reduced GST prices, discounts and surge in quick deliveries have boosted this year's festive season as sales reached about Rs 60,000 crore in the first week alone.
A report by market intelligence firm Datum Intelligence revealed that ecommerce platforms generated Rs 60,700 crore gross merchandise value (GMV), up 29% y-o-y. It projects total festive sales to grow 27% y-o-y to cross Rs 1.2 lakh crore.
Earlier, Redseer’s latest analysis projected ecommerce sales during the 30–35 days leading up to Diwali to cross Rs 1.15 lakh crore GMV, growing 20–25% y-o-y and nearly double that of last year’s pace.
Datum Intelligence pointed out that the GST rate cuts announced in September, reducing taxes on several large appliances and mid-priced apparel, created an additional tailwind by making many products 6–8 % cheaper at checkout. It further said that the festive season started with a surge in sales activity. September 22, 2025 emerged as the largest single-day of sales in the entire first week, it said.
Ecommerce majors such as Flipkart, Amazon and Meesho began their festive sales last week. According to the platform's data, mobiles took the leadership position in the largest GMV category (42 % share) but grew 27.2 % YoY, slightly below the market average.
With expanding quick commerce penetration compared to last year, grocery (44% YoY) was the fastest-growing category, and it is expected to remain a key driver.
Appliances (41 % YoY) saw a notable lift from the GST cut and there was a strong demand for refrigerators (20 %), dishwashers (15 %) and inverter batteries, data showed.
Rather being concentrated only in the opening sale days, quick commerce demand is expected to be more evenly distributed across the month.