VMPL
New Delhi [India], September 8: The festive season is when ecommerce brands expect their biggest sales and sometimes their biggest headaches. More shoppers, bigger carts and aggressive campaigns can create a powerful growth window. But the same surge can expose problems that remain hidden during regular months: rising COD orders, checkout abandonment, address errors, delivery uncertainty and revenue lost between “Add to Cart” and “Order Confirmed.”
And the opportunity is getting bigger. India’s online festive sales were projected to cross ₹1.2 lakh crore in 2025, growing nearly 27% year-on-year, according to Datum Intelligence.
For ecommerce brands, the question isn't simply how to get more festive traffic. It is how to convert more of that traffic into profitable orders.
Here are 10 festive ecommerce problems brands need to solve and how fastrr Checkout can help.
1. High festive traffic, but low checkout conversion
Festive campaigns can bring thousands of shoppers to your website, but traffic alone does not guarantee revenue.
A complicated checkout, too many fields, forced account creation or payment friction can turn a ready-to-buy shopper into an abandoned cart. Baymard's research puts average global cart abandonment at 70.22%.
fastrr Checkout reduces this friction with a faster checkout experience, one-click login, Smart Cart and intelligent address handling, helping brands turn more of their festive traffic into completed purchases.
2. COD orders increase and so does RTO risk
Festive sales attract a large number of first-time shoppers, particularly from Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets. That can increase reliance on Cash on Delivery.
During the 2025 Diwali period, COD order volume grew 22% year-on-year, while COD GMV increased 35%, according to data cited from Unicommerce.
The challenge? COD orders carry significantly higher RTO risk than prepaid orders.
fastrr's advanced RTO prediction helps identify risky orders, while its intelligent COD and payment experiences help brands make better decisions before an order becomes a potential loss.
3. Brands want more prepaid orders but Customers prefer COD
Simply removing COD isn't the answer. Customers have different levels of trust, payment preferences and purchase intent.
Instead, brands need to increase prepaid adoption without alienating COD shoppers.
fastrr helps achieve this through prepaid nudges, personalised payment experiences, Early COD and Partial COD, giving shoppers more relevant payment options while helping brands improve payment quality and reduce COD dependency.
4. Festive shoppers abandon carts while comparing offers
Festive shoppers are often deal hunters. They may add products to their cart, open another website to compare prices and return later or never return at all.
With the average ecommerce cart abandonment rate above 70%, recovering even a portion of these shoppers can have a meaningful revenue impact.
fastrr's Smart Cart and recovery journeys help brands bring shoppers back into the purchase journey instead of letting valuable festive demand disappear.
5. Incorrect addresses turn successful orders into failed deliveries
Festive traffic also means more first-time buyers and more opportunities for incomplete, inaccurate or poorly formatted addresses.
An incorrect address can result in delivery failures, customer frustration and eventually RTO.
fastrr's Address Intelligence helps improve the quality of address information captured at checkout, reducing one of the preventable causes of failed deliveries.
6. Customers don't know if their order will arrive before the festival
During a normal shopping period, delivery in a few days may be acceptable.
During Diwali, Raksha Bandhan or a major gifting occasion, the date matters.
A shopper buying a gift wants to know whether it will arrive before the celebration—not simply whether the brand ships quickly.
fastrr's real-time Estimated Delivery Date (EDD) gives shoppers greater visibility at checkout, helping them make purchase decisions with more confidence.
7. One checkout experience doesn't work for every shopper
A first-time customer buying a ₹500 product shouldn't necessarily receive the same checkout experience as a returning customer purchasing ₹10,000 worth of products.
Festive traffic can include loyal customers, first-time visitors, high-intent shoppers, COD buyers and customers from different regions—all with different expectations.
fastrr's QuickPay personalisation enables brands to create a more relevant payment and checkout experience based on shopper context, rather than treating every customer identically.
8. Last-minute shoppers expect speed and certainty
Festive shopping increasingly happens closer to the occasion. The rise of quick commerce is reinforcing this expectation: Datum Intelligence estimated that quick commerce could account for 12% of online festive sales, up from 8% in 2024.
This means ecommerce brands need to communicate delivery expectations clearly and intelligently.
fastrr combines real-time EDD with hyperlocal logic, helping brands provide a more relevant delivery promise based on the shopper's location and order context.
9. Brands get festive sales but don't know where revenue is leaking
During peak season, looking only at orders and GMV isn't enough.
Brands need to know:
- Where are shoppers dropping off?
- Which payment methods convert better?
- How much revenue is being lost to abandonment?
- Which customer segments have higher COD or RTO risk?
- Which checkout experiences perform best?
fastrr's deep analytics gives ecommerce businesses greater visibility into checkout and payment performance, helping teams identify revenue leaks and optimise faster during the sale period.
10. Festive shoppers don't come back after the sale
Getting a customer to place one festive order is only the beginning.
A shopper acquired during Diwali could become a repeat customer but only if the brand continues the relationship after the sale.
fastrr helps brands build this longer-term value through loyalty, personalised recovery journeys and subscriptions, allowing businesses to move beyond one-time festive transactions and work towards repeat purchases.
Turn festive traffic into profitable growth
The festive season can deliver an enormous spike in ecommerce demand. In 2025, Amazon India alone reported 276 crore customer visits during its Great Indian Festival, with 70% of visits coming from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
But more traffic also magnifies every weakness in the checkout journey.
The brands that win the festive season won't necessarily be the ones spending the most on acquisition. They will be the ones that can convert more visitors, encourage better payment behaviour, prevent avoidable RTOs, deliver with greater certainty and retain more customers after the sale.
That's where fastrr Checkout comes in.
From one-click checkout and Smart Cart to RTO prediction, Address Intelligence, personalised payments, real-time EDD, recovery journeys and deep analytics, fastrr helps ecommerce brands optimise the part of the customer journey where traffic becomes revenue.
Because festive growth isn't just about getting more shoppers to your store. It's about making every checkout count.
(ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by VMPL. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same.)
