Festive Ecommerce: The Battle Beyond The Checkout

In last week’s edition of The Checkout, we explored how efficient dark store management will be central to quick commerce platforms’ festive season sales strategies. Therefore, this week, we decided to move to the next layer of India’s ecommerce ecosystem: marketplaces and ecommerce enablers.

Ahead of this year’s festive season, the ecommerce stack appears to be shifting from a basic support layer (payments, storefronts, and logistics) to a more integrated, technology-driven commerce infrastructure.

A case in point is Cashfree Payments, which recently rolled out zero payment gateway fees for eligible new merchants. On the other hand, marketplaces are building tools and infrastructure that go beyond the storefront.

In June, Amazon launched an AI-powered seller assistant in India to help merchants with onboarding, catalogue creation, advertising, inventory management and cross-border expansion.

More money is now flowing through a more complex commerce stack, with more channels and fulfilment points. This means more points where an order can go wrong. A single order depends on everything working smoothly, from inventory and fulfilment to checkout and returns. If any one of these fails, brands can lose the sale despite spending heavily to attract the customer.

So, the marketplace test in 2026 will go beyond attracting traffic. The real challenge will be turning that traffic into profitable sales by getting inventory, fulfilment, customer engagement and payments to work in tandem.

Building A Connected Inventory Network

Festive sales are no longer just about having enough stock. Brands need to know what customers will buy, where they will buy it and how quickly the inventory can reach them. 

According to Achint Setia, the CEO of Snapdeal, answering these questions requires balancing demand and supply across marketplaces, brand websites, physical stores and quick commerce. The task becomes harder when the same inventory pool is shared across these channels without real-time visibility into what has already been sold.

Getting this balance wrong has a direct financial impact. Stockouts result in lost sales, while over-investing in the wrong SKUs raises inventory costs and consumes fulfilment capacity without generating corresponding demand.

Kapil Makhija, MD and CEO of Unicommerce, said that brands need to track SKU-level demand across channels, regional buying patterns, sell-through rates, inventory ageing, return trends and fulfilment performance. AI is also making forecasting more dynamic by identifying demand shifts earlier than traditional planning methods.

“One trend we’re seeing is that brands are increasingly preferring a unified technology solution that provides an integrated view of inventory across multiple sales channels. During high-volume events like the festive season, that visibility becomes a strategic advantage,” Makhija added.

This fits into a larger ecommerce shift. As Inc42 noted in its 2026 ecommerce outlook, true omnichannel retail remains a work in progress, with seamless store-level fulfilment still difficult to execute at scale.

Marketplaces and B2B platforms are therefore moving deeper into kirana networks, which can provide local inventory, fulfilment capacity and neighbourhood demand data. Meesho, for instance, is set to acquire B2B commerce platform Kirana Club for ₹202 Cr. Kirana Club claims to connect more than 4.1 Mn registered retailers with FMCG brands and distributors, largely across tier II, III and IV cities and rural India.

The advantage, then, may not belong to the company holding the most stock. It may belong to the one that can see and move that stock as a single network.

Value Does Not Mean The Lowest Price

One assumption worth challenging is that discounts and the lowest price will always win during the festive season. Customers now face a large number of competing deals. Brands that focus only on discounting may win one transaction but miss the opportunity to build repeat behaviour.

“As a result, investing in product quality and relevance will be crucial this festive season, as consumers have more choices, shop online more often and are becoming more selective about what they consider value,” Setia said.

Another misconception is that higher traffic will automatically translate into proportionately higher sales. Consumer demand remains healthy, but shoppers are becoming more discerning. They compare prices across channels, expect faster deliveries, evaluate return policies and increasingly reward brands that offer a frictionless experience rather than simply the lowest price.

Brands can also underestimate the operational complexity of serving festive demand across several channels. Rising fulfilment costs, inventory imbalances, returns and last-mile logistics can quickly erode margins if operations are not tightly managed.

According to Makhija, the winners this festive season may not necessarily be the companies with the largest advertising budgets. They will be the ones that combine demand generation with operational excellence, using technology and AI to improve every stage of the customer journey, from inventory planning and fulfilment to personalised engagement after the first click.

Beware! A Sale Can Be Lost At The Checkout

From a payments perspective, one of the most important operational decisions is choosing a platform that delivers a strong success rate, helps convert more customers and protects merchants against return-to-origin costs.

“This matters even more during the festive season, when a single window can account for around 40% of a merchant’s entire year’s sales,” said Nitin Pulyani, SVP and head of product at Cashfree Payments.

Operationally, this means ensuring that checkout can handle the festive rush, not merely an average day’s load. One number worth tracking closely is the payment success rate. A checkout that is not built for festive-level traffic can see a significant decline. A brand can therefore be fully stocked and still lose the sale because checkout could not keep up during the minutes that mattered.

“Our data shows payments jumping to 9 to 11 times normal during these moments, and success rates in that window can fall. So the busier and more ‘successful’ a flash sale looks in terms of traffic, the more likely a good chunk of eager buyers simply can’t get their payment through. This also causes reputation problems,” Pulyani said.

The other number worth watching is the share of customers paying cash on delivery versus paying online upfront. COD orders are returned more often, and every return adds costs such as reshipping, restocking and margin loss. This is where checkout design can help.

For instance, Cashfree’s AI-powered RTO intelligence, trained on 2.5 Bn logistics data points, scores RTO risk in real time and nudges the customer towards full or partial repayment, cutting RTO rates by 30%. 

“These matter financially because festive months process about 1.4 times the transaction value of an average month on our platform, so every percentage point of margin counts,” Pulyani said.

AI Moves From The Shop Window To The Operating Core

Speed is now part of the purchase decision, said Avi Kumar, chief marketing officer at FNP. Consumers are buying closer to the occasion because they expect faster fulfilment. This is pushing brands towards dynamic planning, real-time demand tracking and quicker inventory movement.

Brands will therefore need sharper assortments, faster replenishment and more responsive inventory planning.

“It will help predict hyperlocal demand, allocate inventory, improve replenishment and personalise discovery and communication. The real value will come from connecting AI with a cross-functional ecosystem,” Kumar said.

Shipsy cofounder and CEO Soham Chokshi said that AI, in previous festive seasons, on marketplaces and quick commerce platforms largely sat inside search, recommendations and chat. It shaped what shoppers saw.

This year, AI is increasingly making operational decisions: which shipment to reroute when a delay appears, which orders to combine in a single run and which carrier should receive more volume when another begins to slip.

Gartner expects task-specific AI agents to feature in around 40% of enterprise applications by the end of 2026, up from under 5% in 2025. Logistics is one of the clearest applications because its decisions are frequent and measurable.

Arvind Mediratta, founder and CEO of Elixiir Foods, which operates FreshTerra, said AI was previously confined largely to front-end recommendations and ad targeting. In 2026, he expects it to become part of supply-chain orchestration and fulfilment.

According to Mediratta, this will play out in three ways:

• Hyperlocal demand sensing: AI models are analysing neighbourhood-level buying signals, weather variations, and real-time app browsing to predict category surges hours in advance.
• Dynamic fulfilment routing: Platforms are utilising AI to balance fulfilment loads across processing facilities and retail store points to prevent bottlenecking during peak hours.
• Agile backend alignment: At FreshTerra, our live proprietary app works hand-in-hand with our neighbourhood food stores and certified partner manufacturing facilities. We use integrated demand signals to calibrate our direct farm procurement, live preparation rooms (freshly milled flours, live spice grinding, cold-pressed oils), and 60-90 minute delivery dispatch, ensuring absolute freshness without building up stagnant, wasteful buffer inventory.

Thus, if there is one defining rule for festive commerce in 2026, it is this: operational intelligence will matter as much as consumer demand. Companies that have invested in commerce technology, unified inventory, AI-powered engagement and omnichannel fulfilment will be better placed to scale while maintaining the customer experience. The most exposed brands will be those operating with disconnected systems, fragmented inventory visibility or manual fulfilment processes. 

SPOTLIGHT | Inside Lachi’s Personalised Gifting Play 

• The startup is a contemporary Indian design house offering personalised stationery, gifting products, wedding invitations and lifestyle products. Its portfolio spans money envelopes, gift bags, notecards, gift wraps, festive gifts, keepsakes and bespoke wedding stationery.
• The brand operates primarily through its D2C website, offering personalised products across gifting and celebrations, with prices varying by product, customisation and materials.
• Its clientele includes prominent families such as the Ambani, Adani, Tata and Poonawalla families, according to the company. Lachi also offers corporate gifting with brands like Porsche, Dior, Audi, and The Lalit.

The Ecommerce Buzz

• Razorpay’s ChatGPT Gambit: As ChatGPT and other AI assistants move from answering questions to recommending products and facilitating purchases, Indian payments companies are racing to build the scaffolding for this new commerce layer. Razorpay is betting on this shift and ChatGPT commerce as the next big battleground.
• Snabbit Ropes In Klydo Boss: The instant service platform has appointed Klydo cofounder Pradeep Yadav as the head of operations, replacing Vikas Choudhary. Yadav joined Snabbit shortly after Klydo paused its business in July with an ambition to pivot its operations.
• Maharashtra’s Dark Store Crackdown: Maharashtra FDA has suspended licences of 14 dark stores linked to Blinkit, Zepto and Instamart after inspections found food safety violations. This comes as regulators intensify scrutiny of quick commerce platforms’ rapidly expanding fulfilment networks.
• Honasa Posts A Bumper Q1: The Mamaearth parent’s Q1 FY27 net profit more than doubled YoY to ₹90.5 Cr, while revenue rose 27% YoY to ₹755.9 Cr. The company also posted record quarterly EBITDA of ₹110 Cr, driven by broad-based brand growth.

The Deep Dive

The Operator Question

Which operational decision must brands make before festive demand begins in 2026? What data should they monitor to place inventory, reduce stockouts and control returns, and what is the financial consequence of getting that decision wrong?

Speaking with Inc42, the founder of premium food & gifting platform FreshTerra, Arvind Mediratta, said that festive inventory planning in 2026 will need to move beyond broad regional forecasts, with brands focusing on hyper-local demand signals, inventory turn rates and product freshness. 

Mediratta outlined three key measures that can help brands prepare for festive demand: 

Hyper-Local Demand Planning: Brands must decide weeks in advance which micro-catchments and retail stores should receive different inventory tiers. Tracking app search intent, category repeat rates and basket composition can help match inventory with local demand.

Monitor Turns & Freshness: Store and fulfilment turn rates are critical, as slow-moving festive packs can occupy shelf space needed for everyday essentials. For perishables, dairy, clean-label confections and gourmet hampers, brands must also track shelf life, return ratios and supply-chain temperature integrity.

Build Flexible Supply Chains: Direct farm linkages, centralised processing hubs and certified manufacturing partners can help brands scale production without compromising quality or creating excess inventory. Under-allocation can cause irreversible stockouts during peak festive windows, while over-allocation can result in markdowns, reverse-logistics costs and perishable shrinkage.

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