Every festive season, businesses invest heavily in inventory, marketing, and customer acquisition, preparing for weeks that can define the performance of an entire year. One decision, though, tends to get far less strategic attention than it deserves: who actually moves the product once a customer clicks “buy”?
Demand doesn’t behave the way it used to. Festive e-commerce sales in India crossed roughly $14 billion in 2024, up 12% year-on-year, and a large share of that growth came from Tier-II and Tier-III markets rather than the metros that used to carry the season on their own. This matters more than the headline number suggests, because demand is expanding faster in places where logistics infrastructure is still catching up: longer last-mile distances, thinner historical demand data, and far less margin for error.
