How to get your first Diwali orders on a new store with no followers

TL;DR

• • Get the store ready first: prices, delivery area, payment options and a last order date.
• • Write a list of names and message each person by name.
• • Post on WhatsApp status every day until your last order date.
• • Ask group admins before you post, and post once.
• • Ask for office and family orders: one buyer, many boxes.
• • Film the packing. It is proof, even with no followers.
• • Give a first-order code privately, and ask every buyer for one referral.

Why Diwali orders are different

In an ordinary month, you have to give people a reason to buy. Before Diwali, they already have one. They are making a list: parents, in-laws, neighbours, a teacher, the team at work. Your job is to be the easy answer to some of that list.

Three things follow from that. People buy several gifts at once, so one good conversation can become a large order. They have a deadline, so a clear last order date helps them decide. And they are buying for someone else, so they care about how the gift looks when it arrives.

This page is about the festive weeks only. The general method for any new store, in any month, is in how to get your first 10 orders. Read that for the basics of a contact list and reviews; we don’t repeat it here.

Before you message anyone: five checks

You will only get one first look from each person. Make sure the link you send can take an order.

• 1. Every product has a real price and a clear photo.
• 2. The delivery charge, and the places you deliver to, are stated.
• 3. A buyer can pay by UPI or cash on delivery without messaging you.
• 4. Your last order date is in the bar at the top of the store.
• 5. You have one link that opens your Diwali gifts, not your whole catalogue.

On SitesPlaced all five are free to set up. Make a category called Diwali Gifts; it gets its own link. If the store is not open yet, how to start an online store before Diwali takes one evening.

Seven sources of first orders

1. Your own contacts

Open your phone’s contact list and write down names. Start with anyone who has bought from you or asked about a price. Then family and close friends. Then neighbours, colleagues, old classmates, the parents you know from school. Don’t decide for them whether they would be interested.

Message each person separately, by name, and ask the gifting question. A forwarded message with no name reads like an advertisement. A message with their name in it reads like a friend telling them some news. Here is an example you can change:

More wording for every stage of the season is in Diwali WhatsApp messages for customers.

2. Your WhatsApp status

Your status is shown to people who have your number saved and whose number you have saved. For a new seller that is exactly the right audience: people who know you. It costs nothing, and nobody feels messaged.

• • Post every day until your last order date. One product, its price, and the link.
• • Mix in proof: a box being packed, a parcel handed to the courier, a thank-you from a buyer (ask before you share it).
• • Say your last order date often. People forget.
• • When someone replies to a status, answer with the product link, so they can order in the same minute.

What to post, and how often, is covered in how to sell on WhatsApp status.

3. Local groups, with permission

You are probably in several WhatsApp groups already: your housing society, a school parents’ group, college friends, a hobby class. The people in them live near you or know you, which is what a new store needs.

The rule is simple. Message the admin privately and ask before you post. Post once. Say what you sell, the price range, where you deliver and your last order date. Then don’t post again unless someone asks. Sellers who post daily without asking get removed, and they lose the goodwill of the very people who might have bought.

For neighbours, delivery by hand is your advantage over any big shop. On SitesPlaced, the waiver checkbox under Settings → Shipping lets buyers in your area skip the delivery charge. You write the label yourself, for example “I live in Green Park Society (free delivery)”. The store does not check pincodes, so look at the address on each order before you confirm it.

4. Relatives and office gifting

Some people buy Diwali gifts ten or twenty at a time: the relative who sends boxes to the whole family, the person who orders gifts for an office team, the shop owner who gifts regular customers. One of them can be your largest order of the season.

• • Ask your family and friends who arranges gifts at their workplace, and ask for an introduction.
• • Offer to show a sample. A box in the hand answers more questions than a photo.
• • Give one price for a set number of boxes, and one delivery date. Keep it simple.
• • Agree the payment before you buy stock for the order. Asking for part of it in advance is normal for a large order.
• • Only promise a number you can pack yourself.

If you sell several small products, switch on the build-your-own hamper page (Settings → Sales boosters, free), so a buyer can choose what goes into each box. Quotes, invoices and bulk delivery are covered in corporate gifting orders for small businesses, and hamper prices in how to sell Diwali gift hampers online.

5. Instagram reels of packing

We can’t promise that a reel from a new account will be seen by many people, and nobody honestly can. Make them anyway, because a packing video does a job even when only your contacts see it. It shows what is in the box, how it is wrapped, and that a real person is doing the work.

• • Film one order being packed, from the empty box to the sealed parcel. Hide the buyer’s name and address.
• • Say the price and your last order date in the caption.
• • Put the store link in your bio, with a line that says what it is, such as “Order online. COD available.”
• • Share the same video on your WhatsApp status and in your personal messages.

Ideas for each day until 8 November are in Diwali Instagram post ideas for a small business.

6. A first-order coupon

A coupon is a code the buyer types in the cart to get money off. A small one gives someone who has never bought from you a reason to try. Work out what you can afford first, with the free discount calculator.

On SitesPlaced, coupons are free under Settings → Discounts. For a first-order code:

• • Give it a clear name, such as FIRST10.
• • Set a minimum order, so the discount only applies to a basket worth having.
• • Set an expiry date. The code stops working after that date by itself.
• • Leave “Show this code on the store” unticked. A new code is private by default, so only the people you send it to have it.

One honest limit: the store does not check whether an order is the buyer’s first, and there is no limit on how many times a code is used. That is why you share it in private messages and let it expire. If a discount doesn’t fit your costs, free local delivery is a gentler offer. On the Growth plan (₹499/month), a welcome popup can show a coupon to first-time visitors and collect their email.

7. Ask every buyer for a referral

A referral is one buyer telling another person about you. At Diwali it happens naturally, because the person who receives your gift sees your product, and the person who sent it gets asked where it came from. Help it along.

• • Put a small card in every parcel with your store name and QR code. You can download the store QR code from the Home tab of your dashboard.
• • Message the buyer after the parcel arrives. Thank them, then ask one question: is anyone in your family or office still looking for gifts?
• • Make it easy to pass on. Send a short message they can forward, with the link in it.
• • Thank people who send you a buyer. A handwritten note or a small extra in their next order is enough.

After Diwali, these buyers are your starting list for the wedding season. How to keep them is in how to get repeat customers.

What not to do

• Don’t post in groups without asking, and don’t add people to a group or a broadcast list they did not agree to.
• Don’t buy followers. They don’t buy gifts.
• Don’t invent urgency. Say “only 3 left” when there are three left. Your real last order date is urgency enough.
• Don’t write your own reviews. Wait for real ones.
• Don’t start with ads. Reach the people who know you first. They cost nothing.
• Don’t promise a delivery date your courier has not confirmed.

When the first orders arrive

Pack and send each one the same day if you can. Send the buyer a photo of the packed box and the tracking details yourself. Keep your stock counts right, so nobody orders something you have run out of. Every first order that goes well becomes a status update, a referral and a buyer for next year.

One more thing to be ready for. A post in a society group or a status update sends many people to your store within minutes, nearly all on phones. On every paid SitesPlaced plan, from Starter at ₹199/month, a store’s pages answer about 4× faster than on the free plan: about 75 ms instead of about 330 ms, measured on 28 September 2026 on live paid stores. “Answer” is the moment a page starts arriving on the phone, before the photos load. Starter also adds store analytics, which show how many people visited and where they came from, so you can see which of the seven sources is working. The code FREE7 gives 7 days free on Starter or Growth when you set up autopay; cancel before the first charge and you pay nothing.

Do you need a store for this at all?

You can take first orders in WhatsApp chats alone, and for five orders that is fine. WhatsApp is where the conversation happens, and nothing replaces it. The trouble starts when the gifting question works: one person wants eight boxes to four addresses, three others ask for prices at the same time, and you are typing addresses at midnight. A marketplace is the other route. It has shoppers of its own, but your contacts would be buying from the marketplace’s page, under its fees and rules.

Our verdict: keep the conversation on WhatsApp and Instagram, and send every conversation to a free SitesPlaced store. Buyers see prices, choose UPI or cash on delivery and place the order themselves, every order lands in one list, there is 0% commission, and the customers stay yours.

Frequently asked questions