Amazon sees festive cheer as smaller cities power growth
Festive season shopping remains one of the biggest annual opportunities for brands, driven by cultural calendar, gifting traditions, lucrative discounts dished out, and consumer appetite for new and seasonal products.
Amazon India is "excited" about the festive season, its optimism bolstered by strong Prime Day sales last month and rising demand from smaller cities, the ecommerce giant's India Head Samir Kumar has said, adding the company has stepped up supply-side readiness to meet expected festive demand.
Festive season shopping remains one of the biggest annual opportunities for brands, driven by the cultural calendar, gifting traditions, lucrative discounts dished out, and consumer appetite for new and seasonal products.
According to the 2025 edition of the JioStar Festive Sentiment Survey, 92% of Indian consumers plan to continue or increase their festive spending this year, signalling robust consumer confidence and a golden opportunity for brands.
"I can tell you that as Amazon, we are preparing well for the event, including fulfilment capabilities. We are enabling sellers to send their products to our fulfilment centres, and we are getting ready for that. So I'm really excited about the entire festive season," Kumar told PTI.
Referring to the Prime Day sales metrics, Kumar said the "good uptake" was recorded, with especially strong contributions from Tier II and Tier III cities.
"There was a good uptake and... Tier II and III cities performed really well.
"So the portion of business that we got from there was really high. As we go past that, we had our freedom sale, and now it's coming up to the festive season. It's already started, and we look forward to the next few months. So the supply side is in place," he said.
Amazon last month said that Prime Day this time had more members shopping than any previous Prime Day event in India. According to the ecommerce firm, about 70% of new Prime sign-ups before the event came from Tier II and Tier III cities and towns. The number of small and medium businesses receiving a sale during Prime Day 2025 reached an all-time high across all editions, the company had said, adding that over 68 per cent of SMBs participating in the event were from tier 2-3 cities and beyond.
When asked about demand indicators fuelling optimism for festive season sales, Kumar pointed to the customer sentiments on Amazon platform, healthy traffic, Prime uptake and deals.
"...the customer sentiments on Amazon...we are seeing decent traffic, Prime uptake is really good and the kind of deals and the prices that we'll have on the platform...and our sellers are excited about it," he said.
According to JioStar Festive Sentiment Survey, Millennials are expected to spend more than Gen Z, with higher budgets and category intent, while women shoppers are seen driving variety. The survey indicates that women will shop across more than two categories, including apparel, beauty, gadgets, and home decor.
Apparel and fashion (33%), mobiles (27%), electronics (18%), followed by holidays, jewellery, and beauty, were among top product categories, as per the survey.
Early indicators point to strong festive momentum driving growth in online platforms. Zepto Co-founder and CEO Aadit Palicha, in a recent post on LinkedIn, said that the quick commerce platform had touched a peak of 820 rakhis sold per minute this time, 2.5X growth compared to last year's levels.
According to Unicommerce, with brands and marketplaces setting the tone for this year's festive season, Independence Day Sale 2025 has witnessed an e-commerce order volume growth of 14% in 2025 as compared to the previous year.
Based on 35 million-plus transactions processed by Unicommerce's flagship platform Uniware during the 15-day period (July 31- August 14, 2025), this order volume growth was accompanied by a year-on-year gross merchandise value (GMV) growth of 12% this year.
"Tier III cities emerged as the biggest growth story, recording around 14 million order items—nearly double the volumes from Tier II cities.
"Meanwhile, Tier II cities posted an impressive 26% jump in order volumes compared to last year, underscoring the rising digital adoption and purchasing power beyond metros," Unicommerce said.
Categories such as home decor, health and pharma, electronics and home appliances, and FMCG drove overall order volume growth during this Independence Day Sale, it added.