Festive sales drive 18-fold jump in CashKaro GMV to ₹1,003 crore in six days

CashKaro recorded gross merchandise value (GMV) of ₹1,003.3 crore across 38 lakh orders during the six-day festive sale period from October 7 to 12, an approximately 18-fold increase over a comparable business-as-usual (BAU) period. Order volumes rose 654%, while average order value more than doubled to ₹2,639 from ₹1,100. 

The data covers purchases on Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, and AJIO made through CashKaro, a cashback and savings platform. 

Fashion and electronics lead category growth 

Men's ethnic wear recorded the highest order growth, at 28.6 times the BAU level, followed by televisions at 26.4 times and men's branded T-shirts and topwear at 24.9 times. Orders for tablets grew 23 times, while laptops and desktops registered 21.6 times growth. 

Beauty and personal care orders increased 20.8 times, men's sports footwear grew 20.4 times, and watches recorded 17.1 times growth over the comparable period. 

Mobile phones, however, saw a 7-10% year-on-year decline despite remaining the largest contributor to GMV during the sale. CashKaro attributed the slowdown to rising memory chip and component costs, which have pushed up retail prices and lengthened upgrade cycles. Purchases relied heavily on trade-in offers, no-cost EMIs and exchange programmes, the company said. 

Among the prominent deals were the Acer Aspire One laptop at ₹40,990 on Amazon, against an MRP of ₹84,999; PUMA Ferrari sneakers at ₹3,268 on Flipkart, against ₹10,999; and New Balance 530 shoes at ₹4,800 on AJIO, against ₹11,999. The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE was priced at ₹44,999 on Flipkart, against ₹89,999. 

Samsung and LG were the top-selling television brands. Apple also attracted strong interest across offers on the iPhone 17, MacBook, iPad, and AirPods. 

Tier 2 cities record fastest growth 

Tier 2 markets registered 722% GMV growth compared with BAU, followed by Tier 1 cities at 684% and Tier 3 markets at 639%. 

Bhubaneswar led city-level growth at approximately 910%, followed by Pune at 796%, Patna at 777%, Hyderabad at 748% and Bengaluru at 740%. Lucknow recorded 696% growth, Kolkata 692%, Jaipur 683%, Delhi 646%, Mumbai 579%, and Chennai 529%. Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Patna were among the leading contributors to overall GMV during the sale, alongside Delhi and Kolkata. 

More than five lakh deal posts were shared on Telegram through CashKaro's sister platform EarnKaro during the six-day sale, compared with 87,000 during the BAU period. The posts generated over 50 million clicks to partner websites. 

EarnKaro, which enables users to create affiliate links and earn commissions on purchases generated through them, powered 80% of the deal links shared on Telegram, CashKaro said. 

Brands increased their marketing spends on Telegram through EarnKaro by more than 10 times during the sale, with several recording a return on ad spend (ROAS) of over 15 times, according to the company. It identified Telegram as its fastest-growing marketing channel during the festive period. The Telegram figures are based on a separate deal-sharing dataset and are not included in CashKaro's overall GMV. 

Shoppers stack discounts and cashback 

Consumers combined festive sale discounts with bank card offers and cashback earned through CashKaro to lower their effective purchase costs. Some also shared EarnKaro affiliate links with friends, family and social media audiences to earn commissions on purchases generated through them. 

CashKaro said it serves more than 25 million shoppers and works with over 1,000 brands and shopping platforms. Founded in 2013 by Swati Bhargava and Rohan Bhargava, the company and its sister platform, EarnKaro, facilitate cashback savings and affiliate-led commerce. The CashKaro Group said it enabled more than ₹10,000 crore in sales for partner brands in FY26 and has paid out over ₹2,000 crore in cashback to users.