Festive spending is moving closer to Diwali
The findings come at a time when festive shopping is both large and late. A recent LocalCircles study projects that urban households will spend about ₹1.97 lakh crore on festive purchases this season. Even after a moderation from last year’s GST-boosted high, that is about ₹12,000 crore more than in 2024. 57% of urban households plan festive purchases, at an average of nearly ₹20,000 each, led by clothing, footwear and accessories (72%), home appliances and furniture (45%), travel (45%) and gourmet foods and gifting (39%). With 83% planning to dip into savings, households are weighing every rupee, which puts value at the centre of festive choices.
LocalCircles has also observed a clear shift in timing this year. Amid economic uncertainty, many households are holding back purchases until closer to the festival. That bodes well for quick commerce. For a family that needs sweets, gifts, puja items, diyas or décor in the final days before Diwali, an app that delivers to the doorstep is an easy alternative to crowded markets, packed parking lots and long billing queues.
A category in overdrive
Quick commerce enters the final stretch of the season at record scale. In July–September 2026, Blinkit’s net order value rose 79% year-on-year to ₹20,940 crore, and Swiggy Instamart’s gross order value rose 31% to ₹9,230 crore from 13 crore orders. Zepto’s revenue more than doubled to ₹22,624 crore in the year ended March 2026, on over 64 crore orders. The newer entrants are scaling even faster: Amazon Now has crossed US$1 billion in annualised gross sales and doubled its reach to over 120 cities in two weeks, while Flipkart Minutes has grown fourfold in a year to about 1,200 micro-fulfilment centres across 150+ cities.
The festive sales have added momentum. Amazon reported its biggest-ever opening for the Great Indian Festival, with products ordered up 100% year-on-year, and said that in the 120+ cities where Amazon Now is operational, it delivered products in minutes. Flipkart Minutes order volumes rose 3.5 times over a normal day at the start of the Big Billion Days, and by the close of the sale Flipkart’s orders were reported to be up about 20–22% year-on-year.
The networks behind these numbers are expanding just as quickly. Eternal added 308 Blinkit dark stores in July–September, taking the network to 2,751, and expects to cross 3,500 by March 2027. Swiggy Instamart runs 1,240 dark stores across 133 cities, Zepto operated 1,139 dark stores as of March 2026, BigBasket has 497 dark stores in the top 10 cities, and JioMart delivers groceries in under 30 minutes across 5,500 PIN codes. Growth is spreading well beyond the metros: Flipkart says its Minutes customer base in smaller cities such as Ambala, Bhagalpur, Kanpur and Siliguri has grown nearly 25 times year-on-year, and Amazon Now is on track to reach more than 300 cities by the end of the year. The festive rush is creating jobs too, with TeamLease Services expecting festive temporary hiring to rise 15–20% over last year.
Value and quality beat speed
Asked which factors (up to three) will matter most when choosing a platform for festive shopping, 71% of users picked best prices or overall value and 65% product quality. 46% cited availability of products when needed, 43% low or no additional charges, 38% offers and discounts, 31% a wide range of festive products and 28% reliable delivery. Fast delivery came last at 22%, while 3% could not say.
The festive basket explains why. It is full of gifts, sweets, puja items, décor, beauty products and electronics accessories, where getting the right product at a fair price matters far more than saving a few minutes. Product quality alone is 19 percentage points ahead of the next factor, product availability.
Everyday buying follows a similar pattern. For regular purchases, 75% rank product quality among their top three factors and 72% product prices, followed by offers and discounts (54%), getting most or all items in one order (52%), reliable delivery (43%), no hidden charges (41%), ease of using the app (40%) and cashback (21%). Notably, offers and discounts fall from 54% for everyday purchases to 38% for festive shopping. Users appear to treat festive deals as a given across apps and focus instead on what they finally pay and what they get.
This fits with how the industry itself has moved. Earlier this year, after meetings with the Union Labour Minister on delivery-worker safety, Blinkit dropped its “10 minutes” delivery claim, and Zepto reportedly followed. With delivery in minutes now the norm across platforms, speed has become an expectation rather than a reason to choose one app over another.
Extra fees remain the biggest irritant
The study asked how often delivery, handling, small-cart or other fees make the final amount higher than expected. 42% said very often and 18% often, taking the total to 60%. 12% said sometimes, 14% rarely and 12% never, while 2% could not say. In other words, only 26% of users say extra charges rarely or never push their bill up.
Fee structures vary widely across apps and change often. Common charges include delivery fees, handling fees, small-cart fees on orders below a minimum value, late-night and surge fees during peak hours or bad weather, and platform fees, and the bar for free delivery has risen, with minimum orders of around ₹199 now common on major platforms. Platforms that avoid handling, convenience, surge or rain fees appear to build a stronger association of trust with consumers, which also shows up in the ratings.
Regulators are watching. Drip pricing, where charges appear only at checkout, and basket sneaking are among the 13 dark patterns listed in the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023, and the CCPA has so far imposed penalties of about ₹1.1 crore on 47 e-commerce platforms. The Legal Metrology Department and FSSAI have also committed to enforcing display of the Best Before Date on quick commerce apps.
Still a ₹200–₹999 habit
Despite the festive rush, quick commerce remains a small-ticket habit. 69% of users typically place orders worth ₹200–₹999: 20% spend ₹200–₹399, 27% ₹400–₹599 and 22% ₹600–₹999. 7% spend under ₹200 per order, while only 16% spend ₹1,000 or more (9% at ₹1,000–₹1,499 and 7% at ₹1,500 or more), and 10% could not say.
This is in line with company data: Blinkit reported a net average order value of ₹518 in April–June 2026, Amazon Now reports about ₹575 and Swiggy Instamart reported ₹708 in July–September. At these order sizes, even a small handling or small-cart fee is a noticeable share of the bill, and the 27% of users who spend under ₹400 per order are the most exposed. The share spending ₹1,000 or more is expected to grow as platforms add electronics, beauty and gifting products.
Where users will shop
Users spread their festive orders across several apps. For last-minute festive shopping and essentials, Amazon Now is the most preferred platform at 22%, followed by Blinkit at 19%, Zepto at 14% and BigBasket at 12%. Swiggy Instamart was chosen by 9%, Flipkart Minutes by 8% and JioMart Quick by 4%, while 12% could not say. With four platforms at 12% or more, no single app dominates festive buying, and many users are likely to decide on prices, fees and availability at the moment of ordering.
For everyday purchases, Blinkit is the most used platform at 31%, backed by the largest dark store network. Amazon Now, despite being a late entrant, is catching up fast at 25%, while BigBasket is at 12% and Flipkart Minutes and Zepto at 11% each. Swiggy Instamart was chosen by 3% and JioMart Quick by 1%, while 6% could not say. The gap between everyday use and festive preference suggests that users may switch platforms for festive purchases based on value, range and fees.
How users rate the platforms
In the ratings exercise, users rated seven quick commerce platforms out of 5 on seven parameters: selection, quality, value, customer service, transparency of charges, product exclusivity and speed. The overall scores and the scores on each parameter are shown below.
Leaders on each parameter:
- Selection: Blinkit and BigBasket lead at 4.5, followed by Amazon Now and Zepto at 4.
- Quality: Amazon Now, Flipkart Minutes and BigBasket lead at 4.
- Value: Amazon Now, Zepto and JioMart Quick lead at 4.
- Customer service: Amazon Now, Zepto and BigBasket lead at 3.5.
- Transparency of charges: Amazon Now and Zepto lead at 4.5, followed by JioMart Quick at 4.
- Product exclusivity: BigBasket leads at 4.5, followed by Amazon Now at 4.
- Speed: Blinkit leads with a full 5, followed by Zepto at 4.5 and Flipkart Minutes at 4. Each platform also showed distinct strengths:
- Zepto (27.5/35): shares the top overall score, with 4.5 on transparency of charges and speed, and 4 on selection and value.
- Amazon Now (27.5/35): shares the top overall score, with 4.5 on transparency of charges and 4 on selection, quality, value and product exclusivity.
- BigBasket (26/35): leads on product exclusivity (4.5) and shares the top selection score (4.5), with 4 on quality.
- Blinkit (23.5/35): leads on speed with a full 5 and shares the top selection score (4.5).
- Flipkart Minutes (23.5/35): scores 4 on both quality and speed.
- Swiggy Instamart (22/35): scores a steady 3.5 on selection, quality, product exclusivity and speed.
- JioMart Quick (19.5/35): scores 4 on both value and transparency of charges.
The ratings echo the survey. Platforms that score well on value, including cashbacks and offers, and on transparency of charges rank highest overall, reinforcing that users care more about a fair final bill than about saving a few minutes. Customer service is the one area where all platforms have room to improve: no platform scores above 3.5, and four score 3 or below.
“Quick commerce has become the festive shopper’s last-minute lifeline, especially this year, when many urban households are holding back purchases until closer to Diwali,” said Sachin Taparia, Founder, LocalCircles. “But the data is clear that speed is no longer the deciding factor. Consumers want the best value, reliable quality and a final bill that matches the price they first saw. Platforms that show all charges upfront and keep them low will win the last leg of festive orders.”
What platforms, the Government and users can do
Based on the findings, platforms can take five steps to win user trust this festive season:
- Show the final price, including delivery, handling, small-cart and platform fees, on the product page and not only at checkout.
- Keep fees low and simple during the festive season, when order frequency and basket sizes rise.
- Improve product range and availability so that users can find what they need when they need it.
- Display the Best Before Date and complete product information for every listing, especially for perishables, sweets and packaged food.
- Strengthen quality checks for festive products and make refunds and replacements quick and simple when products do not meet expectations.
For the Government, the findings support closer monitoring of quick commerce apps through the festive season, particularly for dark patterns such as drip pricing, bait and switch, and forced action. Users, too, can protect themselves this festive season:
- Check the final amount at checkout before paying.
- Remove items or memberships added to the cart without their consent.
- Compare the total bill, rather than the product price, across apps.
- Report dark patterns to LocalCircles or the National Consumer Helpline.
As festive sales enter their last leg and households hold back purchases until closer to Diwali, quick commerce platforms are competing for a larger share of festive spend than ever before. The LocalCircles findings, drawn from a large consumer base, show that the winners will be those that offer the best value, consistent quality and a final bill that matches the price first shown, not just the fastest delivery.
Study Demographics & Methodology
The survey received over 204,000 responses from users of quick commerce services across 130 districts of India. 63% of respondents were men and 37% women, while 45% were from tier 1, 31% from tier 2 and 24% from tier 3 and 4 districts. The ratings exercise received 11,275 ratings from users across 100 districts, with at least 1,000 ratings for each of the seven platforms; 37% of participants rated more than one platform. All participants were validated citizens registered with LocalCircles, and only survey participants were invited to the ratings exercise.
The survey was conducted using the proprietary LocalCircles stratified sampling methodology, with minimum participation targets of 30% for each gender and 15% for each of three location groups (tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 and 4 districts). All polls were run until they reached steady state and have a margin of error under 5% at a confidence level of over 95%. The ratings were collected over four weeks on the LocalCircles rating engine, based on users’ experience in the last 12 months, and have a margin of error under 10% at a confidence level of over 90%.
About LocalCircles
LocalCircles, India’s leading community social media platform, enables citizens and small businesses to escalate issues for policy and enforcement interventions and enables the Government to make policies that are citizen and small business centric. LocalCircles is also India’s #1 pollster on issues of governance, public and consumer interest. More about LocalCircles can be found on http://www.localcircles.com
Media Contact: media@localcircles.com
Disclaimer: This is a sponsored press release. The publisher does not in any manner whatsoever endorse/subscribe to the contents of this article and/or views expressed herein. Reader discretion is advised.
