E-commerce platforms are reducing deep discounts during this year’s mid-year sales to protect margins, as consumers remain cautious, leading to more modest growth forecasts despite steady demand across categories.
E-commerce platforms are expected to scale back the deepest discounts during this year’s mid-year sales events as they come under pressure to protect margins, even as consumer spending remains cautious and growth eases from last year’s pace. Analysts say the sales, which arrive ahead of Raksha Bandhan and the main festive season, are still likely to generate healthy traffic, but the gains may be more modest than in previous years.
Satish Meena, an analyst at Datum Intelligence, said companies are increasingly being pushed to demonstrate profitability and cannot afford blanket discounting. He said price cuts are unlikely to vanish, but are more likely to be narrower and concentrated in specific categories where they can still stimulate demand. Meena expects sales growth during the upcoming events to come in at about 8% to 10% year on year, well below the 20% to 25% often associated with such promotions.
The softer outlook for the mid-year sales does not necessarily point to a broader slowdown in online shopping. Meena said demand remains solid across categories, but that timing has become a factor, with many consumers holding back purchases for the larger Diwali sales later in the year. That view is supported by recent U.S. market data showing that e-commerce growth can be driven as much by pricing and promotional timing as by a genuine rise in volumes, with analysts at Marketplace Pulse noting that first-quarter growth in 2026 was helped by higher prices and increased buy-now-pay-later use.
Higher living costs are also making shoppers more selective in higher-value categories such as smartphones and laptops, where buyers may wait for bigger offers or new product launches. Meena said smartphone shipment volumes could soften even if sales value holds up because of elevated prices. Harish Bijoor, a brand strategist, told the newspaper that consumers are now more careful with spending, adding that higher fuel costs have fed through into essentials such as food, clothing and housing.
Quick commerce is taking a larger share of last-minute purchases, particularly in toys, gifts, stationery, home décor, small appliances and electronics, Meena said. That shift has brought rapid-delivery platforms into closer competition with established online marketplaces for convenience-led buying. Even so, analysts expect spending to strengthen during the main festive period, when purchases are more planned and platforms are likely to reserve their sharpest discounts for the biggest shopping weeks.
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