The Indian festive season is no longer just a Diwali moment, but it’s a five-month celebration wave from August to the New Year, marked by shopping, discovery, and delight. In this extended festive window, global retail moments such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday are gaining popularity in India, among Indian shoppers and local brands vying for growth beyond borders.

Amidst the shift, the way people discover brands, engage with content and shop has also evolved. Consumers are no longer waiting for a single festival to look for deals. They are shopping across moments, driven by:

• A longer festive mindset that stretches over several months
• A rising appetite for deals, drops, and limited-time offers
• Global cultural influence – from Halloween to Black Friday & Cyber Monday
• The rise of Quick Commerce, which has reshaped expectations around convenience and instant gratification

At the same time, brands are actively seeking distinctive moments to connect with consumers in more meaningful, emotion-led ways.

“Indian shoppers are heading into the festive season with a laser focus on value – actively hunting for the best deals, exclusive offers, and immersive shopping experiences. Global shopping moments like Black Friday and Cyber Monday are rapidly reshaping shopping trends in India, transforming these events into major opportunities for brands to connect with customers nationwide and internationally. To win in this expanded festive landscape, brands must adopt a strategic approach: targeting diverse audiences both in India and abroad, and tailoring their outreach to distinct shopping behaviors. This is the key to unlocking meaningful business growth during the festive surge.”- Arun Srinivas, Managing Director and Country Head for Meta in India 

A Big Moment for Indian Brands To Reach International Customers 

According to the Meta-commissioned Emerging Business Report by Alvarez & Marsal India (A&M India), Indian businesses are scaling internationally at a rapid pace, with 52% of startups expanding cross-border to tap into large global markets and rising demand for Indian-origin products. The study also showed that this is leading to 25% higher margins for startups in key export markets via cost & pricing edge.

Another Meta-commissioned study by Kantar showed that nearly half of the surveyed shoppers made a cross-border purchase in the last 6 months and more than a third of shoppers cite personalized ads on our platforms as a top reason for a cross-border purchase.

“This Black Friday, we want to give personalized offers to our users which are backed by data and also show a seamless journey across Meta ads and apps, especially WhatsApp. With the help of Meta, we are able to reach and identify high-intent users across the globe.” – Nitin Verma, Founder & CEO, InstaAstro 

As these shifts reshape the festive landscape and make moments like Black Friday more relevant than ever, our AI-powered solutions help brands navigate this complexity, enabling hyperlocal relevance in global markets, powering personalised discovery at scale, and helping businesses turn high-intent moments into meaningful commercial outcomes.

“With the right strategy in terms of optimization for your funnel and creative testing, we understood that our clients could multiply their revenue during these three-four days of the Black Friday sale. Meta as a platform exactly knows where the shoppers are and what kind of shopping behaviour they demonstrate, and what time of the day the ad needs to reach them. This makes Black Friday the best time to scale your brand and your business on Meta.” – Vatsal Rajgor, Co-Founder, Digimaze & Strique AI 

 An Emerging Shopping Moment for Indian Consumers

Meta’s 2025 Holiday Guide shows that 58% of shoppers say our platforms are likely to influence their purchase decisions, making it the leading platform driving holiday buying. Discovery is increasingly taking place on social media, and we are at the forefront of this: 79% of shoppers who discovered products on our platforms say they ultimately purchased them. Additionally, two in five holiday purchases are influenced by consumers engaging with AI-powered tools and assistants.

In this whirlwind of holiday shopping, two things matter most: winning hearts and boosting carts. Success sits at the intersection of emotion and commerce, where compelling stories, creator-led inspiration, and shoppable formats guide decisions. This is where we help brands show up: blending AI-powered personalisation, thumb-stopping creative and seamless shopping pathways to help businesses tap into the magic of the season and convert festive intent into outcomes.

As global festive culture continues to influence India’s expanded shopping season, “Cyber 5” – the five-day shopping window including Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Sunday and Cyber Monday, has become one of the biggest peaks for online and in-store retail worldwide. Indian shoppers are increasingly participating in this window as global festive culture blends with evolving domestic behaviour.

“In addition to A+SC for prospecting, we are also running re-marketing campaigns for our customer list so that they also know about the opportunities or discounts which we are running at this point of time.”  – Kausshal Dugarr, Founder and CEO, Teabox

What’s driving the change?

• A longer festive arc that keeps consumers in a celebratory mindset for several months.
• A growing appetite for discounts, deals and value-first purchases, extending beyond Diwali
• Brands actively create new moments of connection to engage shoppers across the season.
• Increasing global influence, with Halloween, Black Friday and Cyber Monday becoming part of India’s festive vocabulary.
• International brands are already targeting Indian audiences with Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns, accelerating awareness and adoption.

To help brands show up meaningfully during Cyber 5 and the broader festive season, we offer a suite of solutions designed for performance, discovery and cultural relevance:

• Meta Moment Maker – Short, burst video-buy package that runs across Reels, Stories, Feed and In‑Stream to maximize reach and frequency over a few days.
• Meta Storybuilder – Tool that helps quickly build vertical, mobile‑first Story creatives from templates and existing assets for Facebook and Instagram.
• Meta Surround Sound – Planning approach that ensures a brand appears across multiple Meta surfaces to reinforce recall with the same audience.
• Click to WhatsApp Ads – Ads on Facebook and Instagram that open a WhatsApp chat instead of a website, used to drive conversations, leads, or sales in messaging
• Collaborative Ads –Ad solution that lets a brand run performance campaigns that click directly into a retailer or delivery partner’s catalog and website.
• Reminder Ads – Ad format that lets people opt in to get notifications for upcoming events, drops, or launches directly from Meta surfaces.
• Advantage+ – Suite of AI‑driven automation products that optimize targeting, bidding, creatives, and placements (e.g., Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns).
• Partnership Ads – Ads run from a creator or partner’s handle using their content (with permissions) to combine influencer authenticity with Meta’s ad targeting.

As India embraces new festive moments and global shopping milestones, we remain committed to helping businesses of all sizes navigate this evolving landscape. With AI-powered tools, immersive formats and performance-driven solutions, we are enabling brands to tap into emerging demand, reach high-intent shoppers across borders and convert seasonal interest into measurable growth.