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This year’s festive season has been nothing short of transformative for India’s advertising ecosystem. From brands increasing budgets in retail-media environments to quick-commerce platforms becoming high-intent ad destinations, the battle for consumer attention has intensified across digital touchpoints. Direct-to-consumer brands, too, are leaving no stone unturned. They are tightening supply chains, sharpening performance strategies, and preparing for peak-season surges.
Signalling this shift, GoKwik data shows a 46.8% YoY surge in orders on brand-owned websites, reflecting a growing movement of shoppers bypassing marketplaces and buying directly from the labels they trust. According to Chirag Taneja, Co-Founder & CEO, GoKwik, the platform also saw a significant uplift in repeat-purchase behaviour across categories, with fashion, baby care, and beauty recording 20–23% higher repeat rates compared to last year. Combined with widespread festive discounting and further amplified by GST relief, these signalled a season where D2C brands built deeper and more loyal customer bases.
All of this is now forcing several brands to rethink where and how they spend. The split between marketplace budgets and owned-channel budgets is changing, especially as D2C commerce tightens its grip on festive consumption. Many experts told e4m that while traditional brands still spend around 30–40% on digital, many D2C brands now channel over 50% into it, a share that grew even further this festive season as the promise of high-intent.
Also read: Festive rush: D2C brands double spends on regional markets, CPMs up 30% across platforms
Why Are Brands Moving Festive Budgets Toward D2C-Led Activities?
Brands across categories are beginning to re-evaluate how much festive money flows into marketplaces versus owned channels, and this year’s numbers indicate a gradual but visible shift. According to Chetan Asher, Founder & CEO of digital agency Tonic, India’s festive e-commerce sales are estimated at ₹1.2 lakh crore, up about 27% from last year. Within that, D2C brand sites grew orders by nearly 30%, suggesting that around 5–8% of festive budgets have moved toward owned channels compared with 2024.
Experts say the shift is driven by three fundamentals: higher margins, control over first-party data, and stronger loyalty-building.
Direct channels let brands keep more revenue, target customers more efficiently, and create personalised journeys that marketplaces can’t match. As Asher puts it, “D2C supports data ownership and higher margins, retail media delivers precision at scale, and traditional digital maintains reach. Brands now understand they need all three, but D2C is becoming the strategic layer where relationships are built.”
The festive season also changed the timing and pacing of campaigns. Instead of concentrating spends around marketplace-led flash peaks, brands distributed budgets across early discovery, retargeting phases, and personalised mid-funnel journeys, particularly on D2C, where they had more control over messaging and experience.
For Renu Bisht of Datum Intelligence, festive AdEx is expected to close between ₹45,000 and ₹50,000 crore, with digital contributing nearly half. She added, “D2C-first brands naturally spend more than 50% of their digital budgets on retail and commerce media, but for traditional advertisers, the share remains lower.”
On why more brands are shifting festive budgets toward D2C, she explained, “It gives brands better margins, ownership of customer data, and the ability to build lifetime value instead of one-off marketplace sales. Marketplaces are great for scale, but D2C is where brands can truly influence the narrative, personalise the journey, and drive higher repeat behaviour.”
Also read: Why ‘experience’ is emerging as the new media for D2C brands
How Brands Rewired Festive Strategy Around D2C
For many brands, D2C became the nerve centre of festive communication, experience design, and long-term customer value, while marketplaces continued to deliver scale and high-intent festive discovery.
Tonic’s CEO noted that this shift is reshaping festive planning across categories. “Festive communication is becoming more value-driven than discount-driven. Loyalty programmes, prepaid bundles, and curated offers are replacing deep-discount campaigns, and D2C is where this new sensibility is most visible.” The spike in direct orders has pushed many brands to rethink timing too, spreading spends across early discovery and retargeting instead of pouring everything into marketplace-led flash-sale peaks.
For fashion and lifestyle brands, the D2C pivot was even more pronounced. At Miss Mosa, nearly 90% of the festive marketing budget went to its own website, one of the strongest D2C skews among all respondents. Co-founder Akanksha Sethi explained the rationale, “On our own website, we go far beyond performance marketing. It’s about curating a festive experience—reworking the homepage, user journey, and product presentation so every touchpoint feels intuitive and immersive. Marketplaces are great for visibility, but you don’t control the story there.”
At Indo Era, festive spending leaned into a balanced but experience-first model: 45% on performance, 35% on influencer storytelling, and 20% on long-term brand IPs. Co-founder & CEO Srishti Tanwani said the season demanded more emotional depth, “Festive campaigns must evoke emotion before they drive action. Our focus this year was on spaces where we control the narrative and the emotional hook.”
Beauty and wellness brands took a dual-channel approach but with sharply defined roles. Pilgrim increased overall festive marketing budgets by 50% YoY, directing 70% of its spends to marketplaces while using D2C as a storytelling and retention engine. “Marketplaces lead festive conversions, but D2C is key for trust and long-term relationships,” says founder Anurag Kedia, adding that investments in performance, influencers, and brand-building grew by 30–50% this season.
New-age wellness label Be.Life approached festive strategy through a similar lens. Around 70% of its spends went to marketplaces for efficient trials, while D2C was used to deepen education around bio-innovation and long-term wellness routines. “Marketplaces deliver scale, but our highest retention comes from D2C, where we guide customers through routines and outcomes,” the brand shared.
Some brands like Littlebox, who are a 100% D2C fashion brand, channelled all its festive spends into its own site and app—performance, creator-led storytelling, and WhatsApp CRM. Festive ad spends grew 35% YoY, delivering 3.4X ROAS and a 20% jump in engagement, with campaigns built around co-ords, metallics, and shimmer dressing tailored to Gen Z’s “new age festivities.”
Bags & Accessories brand Miraggio also strengthened its D2C push, allocating 38% of its festive ad spend to its own platforms, significantly higher than previous years, as per Mohit Jain, CEO and founder of Miraggio. Exclusive website-only launches, limited-edition clutches, and personalised festive content drove stronger brand association. The brand increased its overall festive budgets substantially to scale reach and recall. “Performance brought conversions, but creative collaborations helped us build long-term equity,” he shared.
As Bisht from Datum Intelligence puts it, “Brands are moving more festive budgets toward D2C because it gives them better margins, ownership of customer data, and the ability to build lifetime value instead of one-off marketplace sales.”
Fashion Leads This Festive Season
If marketplaces have traditionally powered mass festive conversions, 2025 showed that D2C has become the home for brand storytelling, emotional persuasion, and sharply targeted festive journeys.
This year, fashion emerged as the strongest driver of the D2C wave, fuelled by shoppers who increasingly prioritise depth, personalisation and trust, something that marketplaces cannot fully replicate. Experts have shared that fashion houses, premium labels, and new-category creators leaned most aggressively into D2C this year, “Many of these brands expanded SKUs, added new lines and sizes, and launched targeted collections that convert significantly better on their own platforms,” Bisht told e4m.
For many fashion brands, D2C became a creative playground rather than a mere transaction channel. Indo Era saw its D2C festive campaigns deliver 1.6X higher engagement and 1.3X more repeat behaviour than marketplace-led efforts. Miss Mosa took this ethos further, directing nearly 90% of its festive spends to its own platform. “We don’t just run ads, we build an immersive festive universe,” said its founder Sethi.
At Littlebox the season was about owning the full funnel—from discovery to repeat purchase. Limited-edition drops, creator-led styling, and deeper performance optimisation delivered 3.4X ROAS. “Our data showed high festive intent around co-ord sets, corset tops, and shimmer partywear. We built our campaigns around these—vibrant reds, metallic accents, and statement fits that blended festive energy with global aesthetics,” shared Alok Paul, COO of Littlebox.
Miraggio Co-founder Jain noted, “We’re seeing a clear rise in consumers choosing to connect and shop directly from the brand, so investing in our own digital ecosystem has been a key focus.” The brand also ramped up festive spending to boost recall and capture high-intent demand across touchpoints.
Together, these shifts reveal a broader transformation in festive commerce. While marketplaces will continue to command high-volume demand, D2C is fast emerging as the strategic centre of how brands build trust, shape identity, and craft personalised festive journeys.
Festive 2025 has clearly made one thing clear that consumers are not just buying more, they’re buying more deliberately. It looks like, going forward, D2C will no longer be just a support pillar in festive strategy, D2C will be the strategy.