Black Friday goes ‘desi’ as India’s festive shopping stretches beyond Diwali

New Delhi: Black Friday and Cyber Monday are fast-moving from Western retail events to part of India’s extended festive calendar, with Meta-commissioned data showing that Indian shoppers are now hunting deals, discovering brands and buying across a much longer “festive arc” that runs from August to the New Year.

According to Meta’s India newsroom, brands are no longer treating Diwali as the only big moment. Instead, they are building campaigns around a five-month window that now includes global events such as Halloween, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, powered by quick commerce, social discovery and an aggressive hunt for discounts and bundled offers.

For marketers, the most important shift is not just the branding but the behaviour. A Meta-commissioned Emerging Business Report by Alvarez & Marsal India finds that 52% of Indian startups are already expanding cross-border to tap demand for Indian products, with those that export earning about 25% higher margins in key markets due to cost and pricing advantages. 

In parallel, a Kantar study for Meta reports that nearly half of surveyed shoppers made at least one cross-border purchase in the last six months, and more than a third cited personalised ads on Meta platforms as a top reason for those purchases.

Meta’s own 2025 Holiday Guide claims that 58% of shoppers say its platforms are likely to influence their purchase decisions, and that 79% of people who discover products on its apps eventually buy them. 

Two in five holiday purchases are said to be influenced by engagement with AI-powered tools and assistants, underlining how recommendation systems and automated campaigns are shaping festive conversions.

The company frames the “Cyber 5” window, which includes Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Sunday and Cyber Monday, as one of the biggest global peaks for both online and in-store retail, and says Indian shoppers are increasingly participating in these days as global festive culture blends with local behaviour. 

International brands are already targeting Indian audiences with Black Friday and Cyber Monday creatives, accelerating awareness, while Indian brands are using the same moment to reach customers in markets like North America, the Middle East and Europe.

Behind the scenes, Meta is also using the moment to push a full stack of ad products: burst video packages across Reels, Stories and Feed, tools to auto-build vertical Stories, formats that click straight into WhatsApp chats or retailer catalogues, reminder ads for sale drops, and Advantage+ automation to optimise targeting, bidding and creatives. For content and performance teams, this effectively turns Black Friday from a pure “offer banner” event into a multi-surface storytelling and retargeting play.

The case studies in the report underline that shift. InstaAstro, Teabox and other brands quoted by Meta describe using first-party data, Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns and full-funnel optimisation to squeeze 3–4 days of very high-intent performance, rather than just pushing one-off discount posts. 

Agencies talk of “multiplying revenue during Black Friday” by using Meta to track where shoppers are, what time of day they browse and how to hit them with the right creative mix.

For the Indian creator and content ecosystem, the implications are clear. If Black Friday and Cyber Monday are becoming part of the Indian shopper’s vocabulary, there is now a second big seasonal content wave after Diwali where creators, brands and marketplaces can plan drops, live commerce, affiliate pushes and shoppable Reels aimed at both domestic and overseas audiences. 

The focus, however, is shifting from generic “sale” messaging to personality-led recommendations, value storytelling and AI-optimised targeting layered on top.

At the same time, the numbers and examples come from Meta’s own studies and clients, so they represent a platform-centric view of the market rather than an independent picture of all retail. 

But read together, they show how quickly global retail moments are being localised in India and how central social platforms and AI tools have become to that shift.

For marketers planning 2026 festive calendars, the takeaway is blunt: Diwali is no longer the only peak. The extended season now runs across months, and Black Friday weekend is emerging as one of the sharpest, most performance-driven spikes within it, especially for brands that are willing to think cross-border, build for social discovery and treat creators and content as the front door to their festive commerce funnel.