What to do after Diwali — your online store’s first week after the festival

TL;DR

• • Problems first: answer every return, damage report and late parcel within a day.
• • Thank, then ask: a thank-you after delivery; a review request a few days later.
• • Bring them back: a private thank-you code, a loyalty card, and something new for weddings.
• • Leftovers: keep year-round stock at full price, store the Diwali-only pieces, clear what won’t keep.
• • Look back: one page of notes for next Diwali, written this weekend.

The week, day by day

The days around Diwali are still festive for many families, so keep the first messages of the week warm and short, with no selling.

1. Returns, exchanges and late parcels

Answer every request within a day, even if the answer is “I’m checking with the courier”. Follow the policy you published before the season, and be a little more generous than it requires where the fault was yours or the courier’s. The usual festive cases:

• Damaged in transit. Ask for a photo or the unboxing video, then replace or refund. Don’t argue over a ₹300 diya set; the buyer will remember how you handled it far longer than the diyas.
• Arrived after Diwali. Apologise first. Offer a choice: return it, or keep it with a small credit for next time. A private coupon code works as that credit (below).
• Wrong size or colour. Offer an exchange. If the gift went to someone else, the recipient may be the one asking; the order number is all you need.
• Can’t be returned. Food and personalised items usually can’t, but only if you said so before they paid. If you didn’t, treat it like any other return this year and add the line to your policy for next year.

Refund prepaid orders through your payment gateway’s dashboard (Razorpay, PhonePe or Cashfree), and cash-on-delivery orders by UPI to the buyer. Keep a simple log of each case: order number, reason, what you did. If your policy page was vague, rewrite it now with the free return policy generator, or start from our return and refund policy template.

2. Say thank you, then ask for a review

Send a short thank-you a day or two after each order arrives. Wait a few more days for the review request, until people have used what they bought and the festive rush has passed. Ask once, with a direct link, and ask for an honest review. Never pay for good reviews or offer a discount only for five stars. Ready-to-copy wording for both is in Diwali WhatsApp messages for customers.

On SitesPlaced, product reviews are part of the Growth plan (₹499/month). With them switched on, a buyer who gave an email gets a review link when you, or your courier, mark the order delivered, and every order has a Copy review link button for WhatsApp. You approve reviews before they show, and approved ones can bring star ratings to your products in Google results. Reviews collected now are what next Diwali’s first-time buyers will read. More in how to collect product reviews.

3. Turn festive buyers into repeat buyers

Diwali buyers are often gift buyers, and they have more gifts to buy before the year ends: weddings, birthdays, the next festival. Some of the people who received your gifts are new customers too. Give both a reason to come back:

• A private thank-you code. For example THANKYOU10, 10% off with an expiry date at the end of December, sent only to Diwali buyers. On SitesPlaced, coupons are free and private unless you tick Show this code on the store, so only the people you send it to see it.
• A loyalty card. On Growth, the loyalty programme can give a stamp for every paid order (you can set a minimum order value), matched to the buyer’s phone number. A full card earns a reward the buyer types at checkout like a coupon, and a cancelled order takes its stamp back. It works for online orders and for scans at a counter, if you also have a shop.
• A list you own. Newsletter sign-ups on your store are free and land in your Subscribers tab. Ask buyers if they would like to hear about new products, and message only the ones who say yes.

The full, year-round version of this is in how to get repeat customers for your online store, and stamp card design is in a QR stamp card customers actually use.

4. Clear or store leftover festive stock

Count what is left, then sort it into three piles. The mistake to avoid is putting everything on sale: a discount on things that sell all year only teaches buyers to wait for your next sale.

For the clearance pile, set a sale price with the original shown struck through (free on SitesPlaced), and put the items in one “Last few” category so you can share a single link. Never go below what an item cost you plus the delivery you pay; check with the free profit margin calculator. Bundling two or three slow items into one set often moves them without a deep cut.

For the store-for-next-year pile, don’t delete the products. Archive hides a product from your store and keeps its photos, description and price ready; next October, Restore to store brings it back in one tap.

5. Get ready for the wedding season

The wedding season follows Diwali, and a lot of what you sold for the festival carries straight over: jewellery, ethnic wear, dry-fruit boxes, hampers that become return gifts and favours, shagun envelopes, torans, urlis and lanterns.

• Swap the front of the store. A new banner, a “Wedding gifts” or “Return gifts” category in place of “Diwali”, and a new line in the announcement bar.
• Reshoot the top sellers with wedding styling: marigold garlands and mehendi hands instead of diyas and rangoli.
• Get ready for bulk. Return-gift orders come in tens and hundreds, with deadlines. They work much like corporate orders, which are covered in how to win and deliver corporate gifting orders.

If Diwali showed you the store is worth investing in, this is a good week to move to your own domain. Starter (₹199/month) adds it, removes the SitesPlaced badge, and keeps your store’s pages ready close to shoppers, so they answer about 4× faster than on the free plan: about 75 ms instead of about 330 ms, measured on live paid stores on 28 September 2026. “Answer” means the moment a page starts arriving on the phone, before photos load. Code FREE7 gives 7 days free when you set up autopay; cancel before the first charge and you pay nothing.

6. Write down what you learned

Next October you will not remember which diya design sold out in four days, or which courier lost two parcels. Write one page this weekend:

• • What sold out, and when. What barely sold.
• • Which posts, reels or messages brought orders.
• • Your real order-by date, and whether the courier kept to it.
• • How many cash-on-delivery parcels came back, and why.
• • What went wrong in packing, and what you changed.

Your Orders tab has every order on every plan. Starter adds store analytics (visits, where they came from, top products), which shows which links actually brought people. On the AI Co-founder plan, a Monday digest emails you your numbers with five suggestions. Next year, start from your notes and the Diwali checklist.

Frequently asked questions