India is heading into its strongest online festive season in five years with retail market set to cross $90 billion in calendar 2026, according to Redseer Strategy Consultants, a Bengaluru firm that tracks e-com sector.
Redseer also projects 25% growth in festive online retail in 2026, against 16% in 2025. Grocery is slated to grow 48-50%, home & furniture 32-35%, BPC (Beauty and Personal Care) 35-40% and fashion 20-22%. Mobiles, which contributed 33% of festive online retail in 2025, is projected to grow 5-7%, while electronics category is expected to grow 15-17%.
The market has expanded by 25% during H126 and the upcoming festive period is expected to add further impetus, it said, adding “H2 will test how much of that pace can endure once the exceptional tailwinds of the first half recede.’
According to Redseer, electronics benefited in H1 from the residual impact of GST cuts, an early summer and the BEE star-rating changeover, while some device purchases were brought forward ahead of anticipated price increases. Mobiles, meanwhile, still face pricing pressure from the sharp rise in memory costs.
“The expected festive momentum is likely to come from quick commerce & value commerce, which continue to outperform despite a large base, and everyday categories (grocery, BPC, home & furniture, general merchandise), which will carry forward the pre-festive momentum,’ said Kushal Bhatnagar, Partner, Redseer Strategy Consultants.
Quick commerce could account for nearly one-fifth of festive online retail this year, after three successive years of near-doubling in H1 market size. That was a meaningful change in the composition of online spending, he said.
Quick commerce has acquired sufficient scale to influence the festive market in its own right. The channel reached approximately $9 billion in H1’26, having roughly doubled for three consecutive years, while monthly transacting users rose from 8 million at the end of H1’23 to more than 60 million in H1’26.
Incremental spends are now a result of the shift of grocery & essentials wallet from offline to online, and creation of new consumption use-cases (energy drinks, packaged coconut water, dark chocolate and premium impulse snacking within packaged F&B) that had little presence online earlier.
During the festive season, quick commerce is projected to grow 110-120% YoY, compared with 16-18% for the rest of e-commerce. Mobiles and electronics could comprise 14-15% of quick-commerce sales during the period, nearly twice their usual 7-8% share, as platforms widen rapid delivery beyond everyday purchases, as per data shared by Redseer.
Finding that demand has been broadening geographically and demographically, it said Tier 2+ markets outpaced metros in fashion and BPC growth (excluding quick commerce) during H1’26, aided by affordable regional assortments led by value commerce, vernacular campaigns and wider access to newer brands and categories. Gen Z accounted for 38-40% of online retail users and 35% of GMV (gross merchandise value) in H1’26, up from 20% and 10%, respectively, in CY22.
Published – September 17, 2026 08:46 pm IST
