Open your Diwali store in 7 days — a day-by-day plan for new sellers

TL;DR

• • Days 1 and 2 happen away from the store: prices, stock, packaging, courier dates, photos.
• • Day 3 is the build: template, products, categories, stock counts.
• • Day 4 is money and delivery: COD, UPI, a gateway application, the delivery charge.
• • Day 5 makes it a gift shop: policies, gift message, gift wrap, hamper page, one coupon, your last order date.
• • Day 6 is for finding mistakes before buyers do.
• • Day 7 is for people: personal messages, one broadcast, a status update, the bio link.

The week at a glance

Short of time? The store setup alone fits in one evening: see how to start an online store before Diwali. This page is the full week, including the parts an evening can’t cover.

Day 1: range and prices

Today you decide what you sell and what it costs. No website work yet. A store built before the prices are settled has to be redone.

• ☐ Choose 8 to 12 products you can deliver before Diwali without help.
• ☐ Write the full cost of each: the product, the packaging, delivery and the payment fee.
• ☐ Set a price for each. Aim for gifts at a few clear price points, for example one low, one in the middle and one premium.
• ☐ Count the stock you hold. Order what is missing, and ask each supplier for their last dispatch date.
• ☐ Buy packaging: boxes, filler, tape, labels, cards.
• ☐ Ask your courier for the last pickup date that still reaches each zone before 8 November.

Day 2: photos and descriptions

A buyer can’t pick up your product, so the photos and a few honest lines have to do that job. A phone and daylight are enough.

• ☐ Shoot by a window in daylight, on a plain background.
• ☐ Take three photos of each product: alone, in a hand or next to something for size, and packed as a gift.
• ☐ Keep text and stickers off the photos. The price belongs in the price field.
• ☐ Write three or four lines for each product: what is in the box, the size or weight, what it is made of, and how it arrives.
• ☐ For food, add the ingredients and how long it stays fresh. Check the FSSAI rules before you sell.

Day 3: build the store

With prices and photos ready, the build is mostly typing. Choose the template with care: it is fixed once the store exists, and changing it means making a new store.

• ☐ Create the store: name, the short name for your address, and a template made for what you sell. All 16 are free.
• ☐ Add each product with its name, price, photos and description. Or run the free importer on your public Instagram profile, then correct any product created at ₹0.
• ☐ Make a category called Diwali Gifts and put the festive range in it.
• ☐ Turn on stock tracking and type a count on every product.
• ☐ Add your logo and choose your colour.
• ☐ Enter your WhatsApp number with the country code, for example 919999999999.

Day 4: payments and delivery

Today you decide how buyers pay and what delivery costs them. Cash on delivery (COD) means the buyer pays when the parcel arrives. A payment gateway is the service that takes UPI and card payments on your store and sends the money to your bank.

• ☐ Switch on cash on delivery, “Pay with UPI / Bank Transfer” and WhatsApp checkout.
• ☐ Enter your UPI ID and one line of payment instructions.
• ☐ Decide on an extra COD charge, so that paying online is cheaper for the buyer.
• ☐ Apply for a gateway account with Razorpay, PhonePe or Cashfree. The review can take a few days, which is why this is Day 4 and not Day 7.
• ☐ Set one flat delivery charge and, if you want, an order value above which delivery is free.
• ☐ If you deliver by hand in your city, switch on the waiver checkbox for local buyers.
• ☐ Work out your last order date: the courier’s last pickup date minus your packing days.

Day 5: policies, gift options and one offer

This is the day the store becomes a Diwali store. It is also the day you write the rules, while you are calm.

• ☐ Rewrite the four starter policies in your own words: shipping, returns, privacy and terms. Say which festive items can’t be returned.
• ☐ Show the Order Notes field at checkout and rename it “Gift message”.
• ☐ Add gift wrapping as a paid extra on the products that suit it.
• ☐ If you sell gifts, switch on the build-your-own hamper page and set a price for each hamper size.
• ☐ Create one coupon with a minimum order and an expiry date. One clear offer is easier to understand than three.
• ☐ Put your last order date in the announcement bar, as a date.
• ☐ Tidy the menu: keep Track Order, and hide the Blog link if you won’t write one.

Day 6: test order, fix, publish

Today you are your own first customer. Use your phone, on mobile data, because that is how most of your buyers will arrive.

• ☐ Open the store and find a product the way a stranger would.
• ☐ Place a test order with each payment method you switched on. Try the coupon. Check the delivery charge and the COD charge.
• ☐ Check that the order appears in Orders and that the order email reaches you.
• ☐ Open the invoice PDF. Walk the order through Confirm, Mark shipped and Mark delivered, then archive it.
• ☐ Set the name, short description and photo that show when your link is shared on WhatsApp.
• ☐ Ask one friend to place an order and tell you where they hesitated.
• ☐ Fix what you found. Then press Publish.

Day 7: launch and your first broadcast

A published store has no visitors until you send some. Today is about people, not settings.

• ☐ Put the link in your Instagram bio and your WhatsApp Business profile.
• ☐ Message the people most likely to buy, one at a time, by name.
• ☐ Send one broadcast: what you sell, the price range, the link and your last order date. A broadcast from the WhatsApp Business app only reaches people who have saved your number.
• ☐ Post one product, its price and the link on your WhatsApp status.
• ☐ Download the store QR code for your packaging and cards.
• ☐ Reply quickly today, and send out any order the same day.

A broadcast sends many people to your store within a few minutes, mostly on phones. On every paid 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 the page starts arriving on the phone, before the photos load. 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. On Starter and up, a dedicated setup person helps with the gateway, the courier and your domain.

After Day 7: the routine until your last order date

• Every day: one status update, replies to every message, and orders packed and handed over.
• Every question you get twice becomes a line on the product page or in a policy.
• When the gateway is approved, connect it and make one small real payment to check it.
• A day or two before your last order date, send one last-call message.
• On your last order date, change the announcement bar to say that orders now arrive after Diwali, or pause ordering under Settings → Checkout. Shoppers can still browse a paused store. It stays paused until you untick the box.

The week-by-week version of this, up to 8 November and after, is the Diwali 2026 checklist and the Diwali plan for online sellers. Before you launch, read 8 mistakes that cost new stores their Diwali sales.

If you have fewer than seven days

Join the days together. Days 1 and 2 fit in one long day if your stock is already at home. Days 3, 4 and 5 fit in one evening plus a morning. Never skip Day 6: a test order is a short job, and it catches the mistakes that lose real orders.

If you are reading this in the second half of October, read is it too late to start a Diwali business first. It tells you what is still realistic with three weeks and with one week left.

Why do this on SitesPlaced

You could run the same week with only Instagram and WhatsApp, and many sellers begin that way. It costs nothing to set up, but every order is a chat: a price, an address, a payment screenshot. Other store builders such as Shopify, Wix and Dukaan can run this plan too; check what their plans cost and which features are paid add-ons.

Our verdict: SitesPlaced fits a seven-day launch because every step above is on the free plan at 0% commission, the Diwali pieces (hamper page, gift message, coupon with an expiry date, last order date, pause ordering) are already built in, and you can message a real person on WhatsApp at 9517156355 when a step is unclear.

Frequently asked questions