Once seen as a western retail phenomenon, Black Friday has now firmly found its place in India’s online shopping calendar. What began as discount-driven excitement has evolved into a trusted sale period for Indian consumers planning both festive and everyday purchases.
According to Unicommerce’s 2025 data, overall order volumes during Black Friday week grew by nearly 27 per cent compared to 2024. Interestingly, this growth was not led by big-ticket electronics or fashion alone, but by essentials, FMCG, especially healthy foods, beauty and personal care, and home products, highlighting a noticeable shift in Indian consumers towards value, wellness, and necessity-led shopping.
From Discounts To Daily Needs
India’s ecommerce landscape witnessed a notable shift during the latest Black Friday sale period, with online shopping activity registering a clear uptick across categories and regions. Overall order volumes rose by approximately 27 per cent compared to 2024, underscoring the growing relevance of Black Friday in India’s retail calendar.
The strongest momentum came from essential-led categories rather than purely discretionary spends. FMCG emerged as the fastest-growing segment, recording an 83 per cent year-on-year increase, driven largely by rising demand for healthy food products. Beauty and personal care followed with 77 per cent growth, while home products posted a robust 63 per cent increase, reflecting consumers’ focus on wellness and household upgrades.
Despite the surge in essentials, fashion and accessories continued to dominate in scale, clocking over 3.4 million orders during the sale period. Geographically, Tier 1 cities contributed around 40 per cent of total volumes, Tier 2 cities 23 per cent, while Tier 3 cities and smaller towns accounted for nearly 37 per cent, with over 4.3 million order items, nearly matching Tier 1 participation.
Babita Baruah, CEO, VML India, says, “The surge in essentials, FMCG, home and beauty categories shows that consumers are no longer waiting for festive moments to shop. Black Friday has become a value-discovery window. Brands must move from deal-led acquisition to building everyday trust through simplified pricing, problem-solving messaging and reliable fulfilment.”
Why Black Friday Looked Different In 2025
The Black Friday sales trends reveal a clear shift in consumer priorities, with essentials taking precedence over extravagance. The sharp rise in FMCG, beauty, and home categories indicates that shoppers focused more on everyday needs, self-care, and home maintenance rather than purely discretionary spending. This behaviour reflects a more value-conscious and purpose-driven approach to online shopping.
Another defining trend was the evolution of Black Friday into an extended “Cyber Week.” As highlighted by Unicommerce, the sale was no longer limited to a 2–3 day window in 2025. Instead, a longer sale period allowed consumers greater time for product discovery, while enabling brands to plan fulfilment and logistics more efficiently.
Equally significant was the growing contribution from Tier 3 cities and smaller towns, which accounted for nearly 37 per cent of total orders, with over 4.3 million items sold. This surge underscores rising digital adoption, stronger logistics networks, and increasing purchasing power beyond metros.
Vikas Iyer, Head of Marketing, Lenexis Foodworks, explains, “Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities have become key accelerators of growth for us. Our expansion into markets like Surat, Ludhiana, Nagpur, Coimbatore, Kochi and Vijayawada reflects a consumer base that is digitally mature, quality-conscious and increasingly exploratory. The Black Friday data only reinforces this shift.
Despite the focus on essentials, fashion and accessories continued to record high volumes, with 3.4 million orders, signalling balanced demand and a steadily maturing Indian ecommerce market.
Implications For Brands & Ecommerce Players
The evolving Black Friday trends carry important implications for brands and ecommerce players across the ecosystem. For FMCG, beauty, and home-products brands, the data highlights a clear strategic opportunity. Black Friday is no longer limited to fashion or gadgets; everyday essentials are increasingly being purchased online, making this period crucial for visibility and volume-driven growth.
For marketplaces and logistics partners, the strong demand from Tier 3 cities and smaller towns signals the need to strengthen supply chains, expand warehousing closer to non-metro regions, and invest in efficient last-mile delivery to ensure timely fulfilment.
From a marketing perspective, the expansion of sales windows calls for a shift in strategy. Brands must move beyond short-term flash campaigns to early promotions, longer engagement cycles, and more targeted communication tailored to non-metro consumers.
Baruah“Cyber Week has fundamentally changed how brands plan for Black Friday. It’s no longer a 48-hour spike but a week-long journey. Media strategies now require phased storytelling—early education, mid-week comparison and end-cycle conversion—supported by CRM, creators and shoppable formats across platforms.”
For D2C and emerging brands, especially in FMCG, beauty, and home categories, this phase presents a critical opportunity to build trust and long-term loyalty among first-time online shoppers from smaller cities, potentially shaping future growth trajectories.
How India Is Rewriting Online Shopping Habits
The latest Black Friday trends point to a clear shift in how Indian consumers are shopping online, especially beyond metro cities. With overall online order volumes rising by around 27 per cent year-on-year, consumers across Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities are increasingly turning to ecommerce not just for discretionary purchases, but for everyday essentials such as FMCG, beauty, and home-care products.
The data shows that Tier 3 cities and smaller towns alone contributed nearly 37 per cent of total orders, with over 4.3 million items purchased, highlighting growing trust in online platforms and improved delivery reach.
For consumers, this rising adoption translates into access to better discounts, a wider product assortment, and doorstep delivery, benefits that were earlier limited largely to metro markets. However, as online sales of essentials accelerate, shoppers must remain mindful of product quality, authenticity, and delivery timelines.
This also places greater responsibility on brands and marketplaces to ensure transparency, reliable fulfilment, and consistent consumer experience, particularly for first-time online buyers in non-metro regions.
Black Friday As A Marker Of India’s Ecommerce Maturity
Black Friday 2025 marked a clear turning point in India’s ecommerce journey. What was once dominated by fashion and electronics discounts has now evolved into a major sales moment for essentials, with FMCG, beauty and personal care, and home products driving the strongest growth.
The overall 27 per cent rise in order volumes, along with sharp gains across key categories, reflects the growing maturity of India’s digital retail ecosystem. It points to deeper market penetration, wider participation across demographics, and a consumer mindset that increasingly values convenience, wellness, and everyday utility.
Looking ahead, as more shoppers from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities come online and extended sale windows become the norm, India’s “sale season” is likely to stretch well beyond traditional festive periods.
For brands and marketers, this shift opens new opportunities and challenges to stay relevant across longer, more frequent shopping cycles. CMOs and growth leaders will need to rethink calendars, messaging, and regional strategies to win in this evolving landscape.
