The pages of the calendar have turned, and the festive season is upon us. As October arrives, India enters a celebratory mood, with a multitude of festivals unfolding across the country.
This auspicious period is associated with new beginnings, prosperity, and celebratory spending. People make big purchases, from buying their first vehicle to upgrading expensive gadgets and kitchen appliances.
Aware of these traditions, retailers, digital marketplaces, and local showrooms try to make the most of this opportunity. Weeks before the festive season actually begins, e-commerce firms, brick-and-mortar stores and vehicle dealerships alike launch a blitzkrieg of marketing campaigns and unbelievable price slashes. For instance, the Flipkart Big Billion Days sale is expected to start on October 9 (October 8 for early access members), while the Amazon Great Indian Festival is likely to start between late September and early October 2026, and run through the Diwali season.
3 September 2026
Get the latest issue of Outlook Money
Consumers, on their part, want to make the most of this discount season. However, beneath the eye-catching ads and rapidly ticking countdown timers of limited time offers, there’s a complex retail ecosystem in which genuine value and real discounts often rub shoulders with marketing illusions, aggressive upselling tactics and, at times, outright scams. The government has just amended the e-commerce rules to curb dark patterns on online marketplaces and quick commerce platforms. However, the new regime will come into effect from January 2027.
As consumers and sellers mature, bargain hunting alone cannot get you the best deal, you have to look out for potential traps while budgeting strategically so that today’s festive joy does not become tomorrow’s financial hangover. We list the things you should watch out for before you go out shopping this festive season.
Start With The Basics
It’s easy to get beguiled by the barrage of discounts and offers. Besides, the social pressure of keeping up could also lead you into spending beyond your means. Before you start browsing or plan that shopping trip, acknowledge these pressures, and strategise to counter them.
Draw Up A Budget: For salaried professionals managing metro living expenses, establishing a strict spending limit before the sales begin is the best way to safeguard finances.
Says Rahul Banerjee, CFA and founder and managing director of PGP Academy, a financial education and training platform: “For an urban salaried professional, I prefer setting a hard ceiling before the festive season starts. As a rule of thumb, total festive spending across gifts, apparel, travel, home upgrades, and other categories should remain within half of a month’s take-home salary.”
You may be tempted to liquidate smaller investments, but that’s not advisable unless you started some of those for the short-term goal of festive spending. Banerjee adds that dipping into your investments in an unplanned manner can have a major opportunity cost. “The opportunity cost is not simply the amount you spend today, but also what that money could have contributed towards your future goals. Even if you prematurely liquidate a fixed deposit, there will be a direct financial cost.”
Filter Needs From Wants: Separating genuine needs from marketing-induced wants requires stripping away the psychological illusion of discounts. Banerjee says to avoid falling into the trap of impulsive buying, shoppers need a reliable mental framework to strip away the marketing hype. “Remove the word ‘discount’ from the decision. Ask yourself: ‘If this product were available at the same price three months from now, would I still need it?’”
Banerjee suggests another test: adding a mandatory cooling off period. This forces a buyer to evaluate their choices objectively before clicking on that purchase button.
He says: “Give yourself a mandatory 72-hour waiting period. If you still want the product after three days, ask yourself one more question: if a stranger offered me either this product or the equivalent amount of cash, which would I choose? If you take the cash, the purchase is probably a want rather than a genuine need.”
Choose The Right Website
Mind The Generative AI Threat: Festive season sales create a sense of urgency, driving bargain hunters to search across the Internet for the lowest price. Cybercriminals exploit this trait by laying out online traps, including setting up fake e-commerce websites that resemble genuine ones.
Manish Mimani, founder and CEO of Protectt.ai, a mobile threat defence and cybersecurity firm, says relying on old methods to spot fake websites is not enough in this era of advanced artificial intelligence (AI). “Generative AI has made cloned websites indistinguishable from the original. Poor grammar and distorted logos are not reliable tells. Consumers should examine how they reached the page rather than the page itself,” he says.
Wait for three days before buying to see whether it is a genuine need or a want. If you still think of buying, ask what you would do with the money in case you do not buy
Genuine festive offers sit on a brand’s verified application, not within a forwarded message or a text demanding immediate action. Also, the threat landscape during festive sales extends far beyond basic phishing links to malicious shopping applications, tampered QR codes, and fake refund schemes.
Says Mimani: “Once a user sideloads a malicious app, attackers gain remote device access to read incoming SMS messages and intercept one-time passwords (OTPs). From there, SIM swaps and rapid transfers through mule accounts happen in minutes, making funds nearly impossible to recover.”
Know The Risk Of Unknown Websites: If you are a regular social media user, you would come across new shopping websites every other day. These often offer large discounts to get new customers. While they may be genuine, they may offer limited features because of their limited operations or other reasons. These may include no return or refund facility, returns at a cost, exchange-only feature, or no-cash delivery.
Delhi-based professional Neha, 27, who did not wish to reveal her real name, loved a shirt she found on a shopping website she reached through a social media platform during the last sale season. She immediately clicked buy. The shirt was delivered to her two months later after multiple email follow-ups (there was no customer care number). Also, when she opened the packet, she found the fit, material and colour very different from what was displayed on the website. Her return request went unanswered.
She didn’t follow it up as it did not cost much, and she assumed the founders started working on the product only after the order was placed. Neha says: “It was a lesson for me. I have stopped shopping from unknown websites anymore. If I do click through social media, I check the number of followers and the terms and conditions carefully, apart from details like helpline number and return and refund policy.”
Check Deliveries Quickly
Even deliveries from known websites can spell trouble. As mega e-commerce chains handle tens of millions of shipments every single day during this period, the surge in volume strains logistics networks, third-party delivery hubs and warehouse sorting facilities, leading to certain vulnerabilities that can potentially ruin the festive vibe.
Each year during the festive season sales, some version of the same e-commerce horror story goes viral, where an individual orders a flagship smartphone, a premium tablet, or a high-end camera, only to unbox a bar of soap, a piece of tile, or just an empty box. Transit theft, courier tampering, or accidental return-inventory mix-ups are some of the potential causes.
For high-value electronic items, select e-commerce platforms that provide an open box delivery option instead of simply chasing the lowest price possible
While you cannot completely prevent a situation like this, it is essential to take precautionary steps to avoid being scammed. For high-value electronic items, select e-commerce platforms that provide an open box delivery option instead of simply chasing the lowest price possible. In these kinds of deliveries, the delivery personnel opens the outer seal and physically turns on the device in your presence before you share the final delivery passcode. This not only ensures that you receive the right product, but also shows whether the device received is functional or not before you accept the delivery.
If this option is unavailable, record a single, continuous video of the unboxing process. In the event of a delivery dispute arbitration with the retailer’s customer service or consumer courts, an unedited unboxing video can serve as the most decisive piece of evidence.
Anant Aditya Patro, an advocate who specialises in civil disputes and litigation, notes that video evidence significantly alters the dynamics of dispute resolution. He says: “A video isn’t a guarantee, but a continuous, unedited recording—ideally starting from the moment of delivery or at least before the package is opened—carries high evidentiary value. It should, however, clearly show the sealed package, the label with the order number, and the contents as they are being unboxed. In my experience, emailing this video to the grievance officer often resolves the dispute, particularly in the case of established platforms. If the platform still refuses a refund, the same recording significantly strengthens the consumer’s case before the Consumer Commission.”
There are also cases where an item is shown delivered, but never reaches you. Choosing websites that mandate OTPs before delivery can help avoid such situations.
Be Prudent About Loans
More often than not, you may end up taking loans for funding large items. One of the major draws here is the zero-interest equated monthly instalment (EMI). But apply a bit of math, and you will realise the interest waived by the retailer is frequently offset by upfront bank processing fees and other costs. In many cases, opting for a flat, instant upfront card discount yields higher net savings than breaking the purchase into EMIs.
Earlier in September 2013, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a circular banning all “zero per cent interest” EMI schemes on credit cards. It observed the concept of zero per cent loan was non-existent, and some banks were passing on the interest in the form of inflated processing fees, which violated pricing transparency.
However, to keep festive sales rolling without violating RBI rules, e-commerce websites and retailers devised the “interest subvention” or “merchant discount” model which later came to be known as the “zero-interest EMI” scheme. Under this, the bank officially charges its standard rate of interest on the purchase but the merchant hides it from you.
Says Banerjee: “‘No-cost EMI’ does not mean the entire transaction is free of additional costs. In many cases, the merchant provides an upfront discount equivalent to the interest charged by the bank (this fact is hidden from you).” As this discount cancels out the interest you would have paid, your principal EMIs add up to the original sticker price of the product. The bank may still levy 18 per cent GST on the interest component without you realising it, along with processing fees and other applicable charges. “Customers should check the upfront discount, interest amount, GST, processing fee, foreclosure charges and any cashback conditions,” Banerjee adds.
In a no-cost EMI, the bank charges the standard rate of interest but provides an upfront discount equal to the interest. Still, processing fees and GST will apply
Let’s take the example of the new Apple iPhone 18 Pro Max (2TB). It has a base price of Rs 3,29,900. Let’s assume a buyer is evaluating a six-month loan at a rate of interest of 15 per cent per annum. Over six months, this comes to Rs 14,584. In a zero-interest EMI, the retailer will give you an upfront discount of Rs 14,584. However, the bank will charge 18 per cent GST on Rs 14,584, which comes to Rs 2,625. When you add a standard bank processing fee of Rs 235 (Rs 199 plus 18 per cent GST), your hidden out-of-pocket expenses will come to Rs 2,860.
However, the no-cost EMI does save you some money compared to a standard EMI. In a standard EMI, you pay the base price of the product, plus the full bank interest, plus the GST and processing fees. In a no-cost EMI, you save on interest subvention (see No-Cost EMI vs Standard EMI).
Plan In Advance
Ideally, you must plan how to finance a high-ticket purchase in advance. Also, to determine whether an advertised festive discount is genuine or merely an inflated reference price, consumers must track baseline market rates before the sales commence. The same price tracking discipline should be applied to high-ticket personal gadgets, where generational discounts on previous-year processors must be evaluated against genuine price cuts on current-generation hardware. That may also involve considerable planning, but may be worth it.
Banerjee cautions about taking these promotional percentages at face value. “Artificially increasing a product’s reference price before announcing a discount can create a misleading impression of savings. A discount percentage alone does not establish whether a purchase represents good value. For instance, a product advertised as being reduced from Rs 10,000 to Rs 6,000 may appear to offer a 40 per cent discount. Yet, if the product was regularly available for Rs 6,500 before the sale, the actual saving is considerably smaller than the headline suggests,” Banerjee adds.
Festivals in India are a celebration of family, prosperity, and shared joy. Indulging in upgrades that improve your standard of living is a part of that celebration and the overarching tradition of festivals. This season, add mindful spending to your family’s festive tradition.
ayush.khar@outlookindia.com
