e-commerce
Tier 3 cities drive Valentine’s e-commerce demand, says Fynd report
Personal care jumps to no 2 category as Sunday shopping peaks
MUMBAI: Fynd has released its Valentine’s Day e-commerce report 2026, highlighting a sharp shift in how Indians shopped during the season of love, with self-gifting, tier 3 demand and trust-led purchasing reshaping online retail behaviour.
The analysis, based on data from major marketplaces including Myntra, Flipkart, Amazon, Tata Cliq, Ajio and Nykaa, shows Valentine’s commerce in 2026 moving away from grand gifting towards personal indulgence and regional expansion.
Tier 3 cities emerged as the strongest demand drivers, accounting for more than 54 per cent of total order volumes, outpacing metros and reinforcing the rapid mainstreaming of digital commerce across Bharat. Sunday proved to be the peak shopping day, signalling leisure-led browsing and last-minute purchasing behaviour rather than weekday-driven sales spikes.
Personal care was the breakout category of the season, climbing to second place with a 14.16 per cent share of orders, overtaking categories such as footwear and ethnic wear. Clothing retained the top spot at 17.06 per cent. Within personal care, Tata Cliq emerged as the preferred marketplace.
The report also points to a notable comeback for cash on delivery. While COD accounted for 55 per cent of overall orders during the Valentine’s period, nearly 70 per cent of personal care purchases used COD, reflecting higher trust thresholds for grooming and intimate categories.
Regionally, overall order volumes were led by north India, followed by west, south and east. Personal care demand, however, skewed differently, with west and east leading consumption. Bihar entered the top five ordering states, underlining the growing spending power of emerging markets.
Fulfilment patterns also diverged from recent omnichannel trends. Store-led fulfilment fell sharply during the Valentine’s window, with just 6.5 per cent of personal care orders dispatched from stores, as brands leaned heavily on warehouse networks to manage speed and inventory control.
Fynd chief business officer – India Ragini Varma, said the data reflects a shift from occasion-led gifting to personal expression-led shopping, requiring category-specific intelligence and real-time inventory orchestration rather than one-size-fits-all festive strategies.
e-commerce
GUEST COLUMN: How India’s digital payments are entering a new era in 2026
Exploring key trends, innovations, and shifts set to shape digital payments in 2026.
MUMBAI: India’s digital payments ecosystem has matured rapidly, moving beyond the early race for adoption to become a foundational part of everyday economic life. S. Anand, founder and CEO of PaySprint, explains how 2025 marked a pivotal shift from expansion-driven growth to institutional maturity, with stability, reliability, and systemic resilience emerging as critical priorities for the industry.
In this piece, Anand explores how embedded finance, API-led innovation, and evolving consumer expectations are redefining how payments are experienced and trusted. He examines the growing importance of transparency, operational discipline, and intelligent infrastructure, and outlines why 2026 is poised to focus on interoperability, predictive risk management, and building confidence across India’s increasingly connected financial ecosystem.
India’s digital payments ecosystem has evolved at remarkable speed over the past decade, but 2025 may well be remembered as the year the industry moved from rapid expansion into institutional maturity.
For several years, the primary objective across fintech and payments was adoption. The question was how quickly digital transactions could replace cash driven behaviour and onboard users across geographies and demographics. By 2025, that question had largely been answered. Digital payments were no longer an emerging alternative. They had become a foundational layer of everyday economic activity.
From neighbourhood merchants and gig workers to enterprise supply chains and service platforms, digital transactions became deeply embedded in how value moved across the economy. As a result, the industry’s priorities began to shift. Speed and scale, while still important, were no longer enough. Stability, reliability, and systemic resilience moved to the forefront.
Payments increasingly began to resemble critical infrastructure rather than convenience driven technology. Transaction uptime, dispute resolution mechanisms, data governance, and operational accountability gained equal importance alongside innovation. Greater regulatory engagement during the year reflected this reality, reinforcing the idea that financial systems supporting millions of daily transactions must operate with institutional discipline.
At the same time, 2025 witnessed significant acceleration in API led fintech innovation, particularly through the rise of embedded finance.
Financial services are steadily disappearing into the background of digital experiences. Payments today are rarely standalone actions. They are integrated seamlessly into commerce platforms, logistics workflows, education ecosystems, healthcare interfaces, and service marketplaces. This transition marked a fundamental shift toward programmable finance.
APIs emerged as strategic infrastructure, allowing businesses to integrate financial capabilities directly into their operational journeys rather than redirecting users toward external payment environments. Embedded finance reduced friction for customers while enabling businesses to innovate faster and scale more efficiently.
The result was not simply faster payments but smarter ones. Financial functionality became contextual, appearing exactly where and when users needed it.
Alongside technological evolution, consumer behaviour also reflected growing maturity.
Indian users are no longer experimenting with digital payments. They depend on them. This dependence reshaped expectations in meaningful ways. Convenience alone was no longer sufficient to build loyalty. Trust emerged as the defining currency of the ecosystem.
Consumers became increasingly sensitive to transaction failures, communication delays, and how their data was handled. Transparency around processes, faster grievance redressal, and consistent system performance began influencing platform preference more than incentives or cashback driven acquisition strategies.
Trust, in many ways, replaced novelty as the primary driver of adoption.
This shift also reshaped how fintech companies approached marketing and communication.
The industry moved away from high volume promotional messaging toward clarity driven engagement. Users increasingly wanted to understand how systems worked, what safeguards existed, and how platforms handled risk. Brands that invested in educational storytelling and transparent communication gained stronger credibility.
Marketing in fintech became less about feature comparison and more about demonstrating reliability and long term intent. Explaining infrastructure, security frameworks, and operational philosophy began to matter as much as announcing product updates.
As we look toward 2026, interoperability is likely to define the next phase of digital payments growth.
The seamless movement of value across platforms, institutions, and even borders will become increasingly important as businesses and consumers operate in more connected ecosystems. India’s digital public infrastructure model, particularly through the continued evolution and international expansion of UPI, is expected to play a central role in shaping this transition.
Equally significant will be the role of artificial intelligence in strengthening security and risk management.
Fraud detection systems are already evolving beyond reactive monitoring toward predictive intelligence. AI driven models will increasingly identify behavioural anomalies and potential threats before transactions are completed, shifting the ecosystem toward proactive prevention rather than post incident correction.
The next wave of innovation is likely to emerge at the intersection of automation, contextual finance, and real time intelligence. Payments will not merely execute instructions. They will anticipate intent, enabling smoother business operations and more intuitive consumer experiences.
Ultimately, the future of digital payments will not be defined by scale alone. India has already demonstrated that adoption at scale is possible. The next chapter will be shaped by trust, interoperability, and intelligent infrastructure.
If the past decade was about building access, the years ahead will be about building confidence.
Note: The views expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect our own.
