You are walking down the road near your house in late September or early October. The post-monsoon air is cooler and there is a sense of excitement everywhere. The many small kirana stores and retailers are decked up in bright lights selling diyas, fireworks, colourful decorations, lanterns, sweets and gifts.It’s festive season — shopping season — in India.AdvertisementFestivals are about family, rituals and renewal. This has often meant buying something new. In 2025, the mechanics look different with apps, flash sales and quick commerce, but the underlying habit is old. Gifts, new clothes, appliances, or even a home upgrade.This year more than ever, there is a lot of excitement around festive shopping. The GST rate cuts have breathed new life into sales. With Donald Trump’s tariffs and global uncertainty looming, in a consumption-driven economy such as India’s, the hope is that the consumer will come to the rescue this festive season.Looking backBy the 1990s, brands were building festive ads around warmth and gifting. Titan’s ad made “the joy of gifting” a recurring theme and turned their watch into a festival gift. I always associate Cadbury’s Dairy Milk ads and the jingle “Kuch khaas hai” with the festive season, because of their gift boxes.AdvertisementThese weren’t the aggressive ads with discounts that you see today in the e-commerce world. They were grounded in culture. The product sat inside a festive moment. The idea was rooted in spreading festive excitement more than asking people to purchase.The shift to e-commerceFrom the 2010s onward, the script shifted. Flipkart’s first Big Billion Day was all about packing the entire festive season into a single day. This was a turning point even though Flipkart crashed under demand and ended up issuing a public apology. Today, it’s a multi-week process that kicks off India’s online festive calendar.This calendar is now firmly set. Flipkart Big Billion Days, Amazon Great Indian Festival and Myntra Big Festival run almost parallelly, starting in late September this year. Quick commerce has joined the party with platforms chasing a slice of festive spending.E-commerce has not just changed how we shop; it has changed what we shop for, too. Twenty years ago, the typical festive shopping may have been new clothes and a TV or a fridge occasionally; today, it’s open season with portals pushing consumers to upgrade everything — from wardrobes, to phones, to home décor to cars, jewellery and appliances. This is the season when Indian consumers can do a complete makeover of their lives if they so wish.Shopping during the festive season is an old tradition, though it may not always have been so commercially driven. Festivals have long been a time for visiting people, exchanging gifts and wearing new clothes across India. Buying gold on Dhanteras is an old practice tied to ideas of prosperity.For long, households bought new clothes only around festivals. That still happens, but the urban middle class now shops round the year. Yet the festival peak has survived because it bundles many motivations at once — ritual buying, planned upgrades, or an indulgent treat.The calendar may vary according to regions with Onam in Kerala or Durga Puja in Bengal being the peak of festive celebrations. But the idea remains the same.With e-commerce, the way we give gifts has also changed. People of a certain age will remember those casseroles that were gifted at offices and the dry fruit assortments in shiny colourful packaging. It was common to be gifted a shirt by your aunt or uncle. But clothing is no longer seen as a gift; it has gone out of fashion. As the Indian consumer has gotten more prosperous, the gifts have become more select. They could now be expensive spirits or international wines, premium chocolates or handmade stationery.Brands and the festive seasonAround this time, demand is concentrated. Large categories hit their yearly highs at this time of the year. For durables, the season can be a decisive share of the annual revenue.Competition is visible. Ad spends rise accordingly with estimates suggesting festive campaigns contribute 30 per cent of annual spends for many categories.E-commerce platforms and large retail chains amplify the momentum with discounts, bundle deals, flash sales, bank offers, exchange programmes, and no-cost EMIs. Some brands use this season to acquire new customers. Gifting categories such as chocolates, beauty, small appliances, or fashion use the window to seed first-time customers who can be retained after the festive season.What changed, what didn’tE-commerce made festive buying national with apps, trackers and deals. It also made price discovery brutal. Everyone sees everyone’s price in real time. It has pulled categories like large appliances and premium phones into the impulse buying territory.most readWhat e-commerce has not changed is the emotional connect or raw excitement of the festival. Gifting remains the entry point for many categories, and the most effective ads still connect to family, home, and belonging — the same ground Titan or Cadbury occupied in the past.So, is Diwali India’s Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Christmas rolled into one?As a shopping moment, yes that’s a fair shorthand. Industry veterans were calling Diwali “India’s Christmas” even in 2011 when consumer durables routinely did 30 per cent of their annual sales in this window. Today, with Black Friday-style playbooks such as countdowns, the comparison is much closer. The cultural core though is Indian, with religious events, parties, visiting friends or family, lights and fireworks.The writer is founder, The Brand Ignition Co