Fynd, the unified commerce platform backed by Reliance Retail Ventures Limited, has released its Festive Season Report 2025, highlighting a decisive shift in India’s online retail sector from discount-led expansion to operational excellence and smarter fulfilment strategies.
With e-commerce penetration expected to exceed 11% of total retail sales in 2025, the sector is undergoing accelerated digital transformation. The 2025 festive season—spanning Onam, Navratri, Dussehra, Karwa Chauth and Diwali—saw growth powered by price-conscious shoppers, the rise of Tier 3 markets and the rapid mainstreaming of omnichannel fulfilment.
The report draws insights from more than 60 brands operating across leading marketplaces including Myntra, Flipkart, Amazon, AJIO, Nykaa and Tata CLiQ, tracking performance across apparel, footwear and fashion accessories.
Delhi, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh led the country in order volumes, while Gujarat emerged as a steadily growing demand hub. Southern states, particularly Karnataka, contributed strongly to both demand and fulfilment, with Bengaluru and Hyderabad among the top metro performers. The region also maintained its leadership in digital payments, which accounted for 53% of all festive transactions, even as cash-on-delivery remained widely used in smaller cities.
The 2025 season saw footwear growing from just 7% to 33% of total fashion sales. Tier-2 and Tier-3 markets contributed nearly two-thirds of all orders with Tier-3 cities alone accounting for almost half.
Platform dynamics remained largely unchanged, with Myntra and Flipkart together capturing nearly 90% of total festive order volumes while average markdowns fell from 44% last year to 34% in 2025.
Post-purchase performance saw notable gains, with returns and RTO rates dropping sharply—Amazon, for instance, cut returns to 8% and RTOs to 2%. For the first time, India’s omnichannel ecosystem reached a key milestone: store-led fulfilment overtook warehouse-led dispatch, contributing 51% of deliveries and preventing an estimated 4% of potential sales loss.
Commenting on the findings, Fynd Co-founder Farooq Adam said India’s e-commerce sector was “evolving on its own terms,” led by operational maturity rather than promotional scale. He emphasised that the season showcased the growing importance of “speed, proximity and precision”, with stores operating as micro-warehouses, inventory positioned closer to demand and pricing anchored in everyday value.
He added that the brands best placed for future success would be those that design for India’s regional realities, strengthen fulfilment capacity in emerging cities and continue building prepaid trust—an approach he said is shaping a distinctly Indian model of profitable, resilient growth.
