How did Black Friday, a post-Thanksgiving American tradition, hijack the Indian retail calendar? Simple. Money trouble and a stunning lack of imagination.
For decades, November was a "dead month" for Indian retail, a revenue void sitting awkwardly between the Diwali spending spree and the End-of-Season Sales (EOSS) in January. Retailers looked at their warehouses, saw piles of unsold festive inventory, and panicked. Their solution was to import Black Friday as a tactical "clearance event."
It seeped in slowly, first via global giants like Zara and H&M, then through e-commerce platforms needing a GMV spike, and finally, it trickled down to homegrown D2C brands. What started as a way to clear dead stock has mutated into a mandatory "festival" of overconsumption.
Herd Mentality
This widespread adoption has revealed a troubling lack of imagination. By indiscriminately plastering "Black Friday Sale" on everything from hand-block printed kurtas to toothpaste, has turned the retail landscape into a pastiche of borrowed gestures and aesthetic confusion. The strategy is no longer about value; it is about fear, the fear of being left out.
But this copy-paste strategy has come at a cost. The fatigue is palpable. As one discerning shopper recently noted:
"I actually unfollowed a few Indian brands because I was tired of them using no brain and just copying what everyone else is doing."
This sentiment signals a critical fracture. The "herd mentality" of deep discounting is starting to erode brand equity. Customers are beginning to see these sales as acts of desperate overconsumption that insult their intelligence.
While brands were busy playing the volume game, trying to sell as many cheap items as possible, the Indian consumer data from the 2024 season reveals a massive structural shift toward Conscious Consumption:
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Order volumes (the number of items bought) grew by ~17%.
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But the Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) surged by ~24%.
This 7% gap is the "Premiumization Delta." In a traditional clearance sale, value usually grows slower than volume. The fact that value outpaced volume proves that Indian shoppers didn't use Black Friday to buy more cheap junk that ends up in a landfill; they used it to buy better things: durable tech, high-efficacy skincare, and quality staples.
Amidst the screaming discounts, brands like The Summer House, Okhai, and other conscious labels chose to opt out, issuing statements urging customers to "buy responsibly" rather than succumb to the frenzy.
Strategically, this is brilliant. By refusing to participate in the "race to the bottom," these brands signaled three critical values:
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Integrity: Their pricing is fair year-round, not artificially inflated just to be slashed.
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Sustainability: They refuse to encourage impulsive overconsumption that hurts the planet.
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Respect: They respect their artisans (whose labor costs don't drop on Fridays) and their customers.
For the modern consumer, this "anti-sale" stance generates more desire than a 50% discount ever could. In an era of copycats, "No" is the most powerful marketing message a brand can send.
The story of Black Friday in India is about who can stand for something.
The brands that will survive 2026 are the ones that are building enough brand respect to make full-price desirable again.