Quick commerce platforms emerge as the most disruptive force of festive season: Report

India’s festive e-commerce market in 2025 revealed a sharp behavioural fracture, with consumers splitting decisively between immediate, low-ticket purchases and planned, high-value investments, according to The Great Indian Commerce Shift, a report by LS Digital analysing over 1.5 million orders across 30+ enterprise brands.

The findings indicate that growth is no longer driven by scale alone. Instead, speed, timing and platform-specific intent are emerging as the primary determinants of efficiency and profitability during peak shopping periods.

The End of the Linear Funnel

Festive 2025 marked what marketers are calling the death of the traditional linear purchase funnel. Shoppers moved fluidly between urgency and consideration, sometimes within the same session, forcing brands to abandon one-size-fits-all strategies.

Marketplace conversion rates rose from 4.4% to 6.1%, but the gains were uneven. While several direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands improved return on ad spend (ROAS) by 55%, they did so by cutting ad spends by nearly 10%, signalling a decisive shift from volume chasing to contribution-led growth.

Early Branding Becomes a Cost Advantage

One of the clearest shifts was the front-loading of display advertising. Brands that invested in awareness as early as July, around Prime Day, were able to build intent ahead of the festive rush. Display ad spends during this period surged 5–7 times year-on-year.

Those who delayed branding until October paid what marketers described as a branding tax, as inflationary bidding environments eroded efficiency during peak weeks.

Inflation Isn’t Everywhere, But Where It Exists, It’s Brutal

Contrary to popular belief, advertising inflation in 2025 was category-specific rather than systemic.

Personal care witnessed a 77% spike in cost-per-click (CPC), while home and décor categories saw CPCs rise 71%, driven by intense competition for high-intent shoppers. In contrast, innerwear and household supplies emerged as efficiency pockets, with CPCs declining 33% and 46% respectively.

Health categories continued to operate in structurally expensive acquisition zones, with CPCs nearly 10 times higher than fashion, making repeat behaviour and retention critical to profitability.

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Quick Commerce Collapses the Consideration Window

Quick commerce platforms emerged as the most disruptive force of the festive season, particularly for items priced under ₹500.

Data shows that quick commerce delivered 3–5 times higher conversion rates than traditional marketplaces by eliminating comparison shopping and collapsing the consideration phase altogether. Staples, wellness OTC products and daily essentials increasingly shifted from monthly stock-ups to weekly top-ups.

This shift has begun to cannibalise traditional e-pharmacy traffic, where ROAS remains stuck near 1.2x, while quick commerce platforms are growing at twice the pace for impulse-driven categories.

Tier 2 and 3 India Drives Growth, Stores Build Trust

Non-metro India continued to power festive demand, with 65% of all orders originating from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. However, speed rather than discounts proved to be the decisive trust signal.

For the first time, store-fulfilled orders, at 51%, overtook warehouse deliveries, significantly reducing delivery timelines and return-to-origin (RTO) risks. Data shows that RTO rates spike by 140% once delivery exceeds three days, especially in high cash-on-delivery (COD) regions like the Northeast, where COD accounts for 67% of transactions.

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Premiumisation Is Real, But Only at the Extremes

The much-discussed premiumisation trend played out in a K-shaped manner. Jewellery revenues grew 70–80% year-on-year, aided by EMI adoption and gold’s positioning as an investment asset.

Meanwhile, mass fashion saw flat average selling prices, constrained by GST thresholds that discouraged price upgrades. The middle of the market, aspirational but price-sensitive, continued to feel the squeeze.

What This Means for 2026

The festive data points towards a future where allocation matters more than aggression. Industry experts suggest reallocating 20–30% of digital budgets to quick commerce, expanding store-led fulfilment and measuring performance through blended CAC and ROAS rather than channel-level metrics.

As India’s e-commerce ecosystem matures, the winners will be brands that recognise that shoppers are no longer moving down a funnel, but jumping across platforms, timelines and price bands with intent-driven precision.