Quick commerce and food delivery platforms saw a surge in demand for festive food, sweets, ethnic wear and puja essentials during Navratri, as consumers turned to online platforms for both traditional celebrations and last-minute purchases.

Swiggy reported a 36.4 per cent increase in orders for traditional sweets between October 17 and 20, compared with a similar festive period last year. Rasgulla emerged as the most-ordered sweet, averaging 495 orders an hour, with Delhi, Mumbai and Gurugram driving demand. Gulab jamun, kaju katli, jalebi and rasmalai were among the other popular choices.

A Mumbai customer placed an order worth ₹9,870 for assorted sweets, including coffee rasgulla tiramisu, making it the platform’s largest rasgulla order during the four-day period.

Fasting Foods

Fasting foods also recorded strong demand. Swiggy delivered an average of 1,794 sabudana dishes an hour across India during the weekend of October 17-18, with sabudana khichdi and sabudana vada emerging as favourites. Demand for khichdi was particularly strong in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune and Jaipur.

Vrat thalis, including combinations featuring singhara poori and rajgira poori with aloo hing, were also popular. A customer in Noida placed an order worth ₹11,072 for 13 Navratri special vrat thalis with singhara poori. Meanwhile, Zepto Cafe served 12,500 portions of sabudana vada and falahari mixture during the festive period.

Quick commerce platform Zepto also reported a spike in demand for festive essentials, clothing and accessories, reflecting the growing use of such platforms for last-minute preparations.

Clothing and Jewellery

Demand for traditional lehenga cholis debuted on the platform, with Bengaluru leading orders. Festive wear orders grew 400 per cent across key cities, while sales of oxidised jewellery surged 40-fold during Navratri.

The last-minute rush was evident in demand for dandiya sticks, which peaked at 6 pm on October 16, ahead of Garba celebrations. About 70 per cent of festive essentials were ordered on the same day as Garba events, Zepto said.

Demand for fasting ingredients also increased sharply compared with last year’s Navratri period. Buckwheat flour orders rose 16.4-fold and singhara flour 16.1-fold, while serving plates and bowls recorded increases of 8.6-fold and 4.7-fold, respectively.

The celebrations also drove demand for recovery products. Band-Aid sales rose 20 per cent and Moov sales increased 15 per cent in Ahmedabad and Mumbai, while Fast&Up and other oral rehydration solution products saw sales peak around 9 pm.

Published on October 22, 2026