Diwali 2026 checklist for your online store — what to do each week before 8 November

TL;DR

• • Stock: count it now, reorder now, and buy packaging now.
• • Couriers: get the real cut-off from your courier. Your order-by date is that date minus your packing time.
• • Offers: one clear offer with an expiry date. Coupons are free; Buy X Get Y is on Growth.
• • COD: keep it, but with a COD charge, order limits and a WhatsApp check on big orders.
• • WhatsApp: one main broadcast two weeks out, one last call before your order-by date.
• • Gifts: a gift-message field at checkout, and no prices inside the parcel.
• • Returns: write the rules before the rush, not after it.

The dates at a glance

This is the operations side: stock, couriers, offers, payments and returns. For the marketing side (which products to push, creatives, ads and broadcast copy), read your Diwali campaign, planned by AI alongside this.

Six weeks before (this week): stock and packaging

• Count what you really have, including stock still with a tailor, a printer or a supplier.
• Put a stock number on every product and every option (each size, each colour). On SitesPlaced the store stops selling an item when its stock reaches zero, so you never take an order you can’t fill.
• Reorder your bestsellers now, and ask each supplier for their own last dispatch date before Diwali. They are having a busy month too.
• Buy packaging now: boxes, tape, filler, labels, gift cards. Running out of boxes in the final week costs you days you don’t have.
• Archive products you can’t restock instead of leaving them up as sold out on your Diwali pages.

More on keeping stock honest in inventory management for small sellers.

Six weeks before: ask your courier three questions

Every courier and aggregator sets its own festive dates, and they change year to year, so don’t rely on last year’s dates or on anyone else’s list. Ask yours, in writing:

• 1. What is the last hand-over date for delivery before 8 November, for each zone you ship to (your city, metros, the rest of India, remote pincodes)?
• 2. Which days will pickups run around Dhanteras, Diwali and the days after?
• 3. Are there festive surcharges, and do I need to top up my wallet balance before the rush?

Your order-by date is their cut-off minus the days you need to pack. If you book through Shiprocket or Shipmozo from your SitesPlaced orders (free on every plan), ask the aggregator the same questions for the couriers it will use. A worked example of this sum is in how to sell Diwali gift hampers online.

Four weeks before (11 October): offers, gift notes and policies

Pick one clear offer. Buyers understand “10% off above ₹999” in a second. Three overlapping offers make them stop and think, and some leave. On SitesPlaced, coupon codes are free: percent or flat off, with an optional minimum order, a cap on the discount, a limit to one category, and an expiry date so the offer ends itself on the night you choose. You also decide how a coupon treats items already on sale, so a sale price and a coupon don’t stack by accident. On the brand-style templates and the General Store you can show a code to every shopper on the product page and in the cart. The free-shipping bar (“add ₹200 more for free delivery”) is free too. Buy X Get Y offers, such as Buy 2 Get 1 free, are on the Growth plan at ₹499/month.

Before you publish any offer, check what it leaves you. Our discount calculator shows the price after the discount; compare that with your full cost per order, including delivery and the payment fee.

Turn on a gift-message field.Under Settings → Checkout → Checkout form fields, switch on Order Notes and rename it, for example “Gift message and recipient’s phone number”. Diwali buyers often send to another address, and the courier needs a number that answers. For a message printed on a card with a specific product, use the text note under that product’s Personalisation & extras, where you can also add paid extras like gift wrapping. Pack the invoice separately: send it to the buyer on WhatsApp, not inside a gift.

Update your returns policy now, while you are calm. More on this in the last section.

Three weeks before (18 October): test order and order-by date

Open your store on your phone, as a stranger would, and buy something. Check each step: the product page, the coupon, the delivery charge, the COD option and charge, an online payment through your gateway, the confirmation email, the order appearing in your dashboard, the invoice PDF, and booking the courier. Fix anything that surprised you. Then cancel the test order.

Publish your order-by date in the announcement bar at the top of every page (Settings → Branding) and in the description of your Diwali products. Write it as a date, “Order by 28 October for delivery before Diwali”, not as “order soon”.

Two weeks before (25 October): the broadcast and COD checks

WhatsApp broadcast timing. A broadcast from the WhatsApp Business app only reaches people who have saved your number, and each extra message risks a mute or a block. So plan two sends, three at most: one main message around the weekend of 24 and 25 October with your offer, your link and your order-by date, and one last call a day or two before your order-by date. On Diwali itself, a short greeting with no offer is fine. Send at the time your customers usually reply to you; your own chat history shows it better than any general rule. On the AI Co-founder plan, Broadcasts sends to your subscribers and past buyers from the dashboard. More ideas in how to sell on WhatsApp.

Cash on delivery at peak. A festive COD order can be refused at the door by a recipient who wasn’t expecting to pay, and a refused parcel costs you delivery both ways. Keep COD if your buyers want it, but set it up with care. Add an extra COD charge (Settings → Checkout), so paying online is cheaper. Leave spam and abuse protection on: by default it allows five orders per phone or email a day and three unpaid COD orders open at once per buyer, and you can block a number that keeps refusing. Confirm big COD orders on WhatsApp before you ship. The full method is in how to reduce RTO and fake COD orders, and the COD vs prepaid calculator shows what a refused parcel really costs.

Final week (1 to 7 November): keep the promise

• Pack and dispatch every day. Don’t batch orders for the weekend in the last week.
• Move each order along (confirmed, shipped, out for delivery) so buyers can follow it on your Track Order page instead of messaging you.
• On your order-by date, change the wording. Swap the announcement to “Orders now ship after Diwali”, offer express delivery at an extra charge (Settings → Shipping → Delivery speed options) only if your courier can really make it, or pause ordering for a few days (Settings → Checkout → Pause ordering). Shoppers can still browse a paused store; nobody can place an order until you untick it.
• Be ready for the spike. Your last-call message sends many people to the store at once. On every paid plan (Starter at ₹199/month and up), a store’s pages answer about 4× faster than on the free plan: about 75 ms instead of about 330 ms, in our 28 September 2026 measurements on live paid stores. “Answer” is the moment the page starts arriving on the phone, before the photos load. Stock and price changes still show at once.

After Diwali (from 9 November): returns and what you learned

Gifts come back for reasons everyday orders don’t: a wrong size, a duplicate present, a colour the recipient didn’t like. Your policy should already say, in plain words, how many days after delivery a buyer can ask, which items can be returned and which can only be exchanged, who pays for return delivery, and how refunds are made. If festive items like diyas, sweets or personalised gifts can’t be returned, say so on the product page before anyone pays. Refunds for online payments are made through your payment gateway’s dashboard. The free return policy generator writes a first draft, and our return and refund policy template explains each clause.

Then, while you still remember, write down three things: what sold out, what didn’t move, and which day orders peaked. That note is next year’s plan. Thank your buyers with one message, and restock the bestsellers before the wedding season.

The checklist, with where to find each setting

Frequently asked questions