Did GST Reforms Make This Year’s Navratri Shopping Cheaper?

Festivals in India are looked forward to, not only for the festivities, good food or for the prospect of celebrating together, it is also exciting for, take a wild guess…the festive sales offering a special discount for priced commodities ranging from automobiles to electronics, household durables and jewellery.This trend has been the norm for many years to boost the demand for products at an affordable price.

For Navratri 2025, sales were marked as India’s highest festive sales in over a decade, with numbers across multiple sectors signalling a genuine record-breaking consumption boom. Well what’s the big deal about this news when such trends are seen for every festival, right? This year’s festive sales were reported by consumer good-makers and retailers as the strongest sales in over a decade. There was a surge of sales between 25% and 100% across various brands, offering much-needed relief to businesses after five to six years of sluggish demand.

In automobiles, Maruti Suzuki led the charge, delivering 1.65 lakh vehicles in just the first eight days of Navratri, with a single-day record of 30,000 car deliveries. The company saw bookings almost double year-on-year, hitting nearly 200,000 during the period, compared to 85,000 last year. Mahindra posted a 60% year-on-year jump in sales, while Tata Motors and Hyundai also reported steep growth, with Hyundai’s SUVs accounting for over 72% of its total festive sales.

Demand for appliances surged: ACs registered a 25% jump, washing machines were up by 22%, and refrigerators by 18% compared to the previous Navratri. Brands like Haier saw an astonishing 85% rise in TV sales, with most large screen models selling out. Reliance Retail reported growth of 20–25% across electronics and appliances. Sales growth in FMCG, household goods, fashion, and jewellery ranged from 25% up to 100%, reflecting robust consumer sentiment and sustained spending across categories.

So, what’s the secret behind the skyrocketing of commodity sales? This extraordinary surge is widely attributed to the recent GST reforms, which cut down rates and streamlined compliance. It is widely considered that GST has unified India’s fragmented indirect tax regime, replacing a web of state and central levies with one harmonized structure at the center.

Over time, this simplification reduced logistical bottlenecks, improved interstate supply chains, and cut compliance costs for organized players. Currently, branded retailers and e-commerce platforms are leveraging faster inventory turnover and smoother credit flows, while consumers benefit from price parity and smoother payment systems, thus creating a ripple effect seen across diverse sectors.

What began as a complex tax transition in 2017 is now paying off in the form of a stronger, more formalized retail economy that thrives mainly on efficiency and transparency, and hopefully this trend continues for the foreseeable future.