Amazon's Great Indian Festival opened to everyone today. Yesterday we published what prices did in the three weeks before it: mostly, they stayed put. So the obvious next question is what happened when the sale started.
On day one, most of the prices we checked came down.
The numbers
We had an Amazon price today for 39 products that are also in our frozen week-before record. For each, we set today's price against that product's usual price on Amazon from 17 September to 6 October, the middle of everything we recorded in those weeks.
| Sale-day price, against the three weeks before | Prices |
|---|---|
| Fell by 10% or more | 22 |
| About the same, within 10% | 16 |
| Rose by 10% or more | 1 |
The typical move across all 39 was a drop of 11%. Of the 22 that fell, 4 fell by 20% or more. And 31 of the 39 were below the lowest price we recorded for them at any point in the three weeks before.
Against the older record, 18 August to 17 September, 25 of the 39 were 10% or more below their usual price, and none were 10% or more above it.
The badge and the drop measure different things
The typical discount badge on these 39 listings today was 39% off. The typical drop against what the same listing cost in the three weeks before was 11%.
Both figures are true. The badge is worked out from the MRP. The drop is worked out from the recent price. They start from different places, so they rarely match, and the recent price is the one you can check against your own memory of the product.
Three examples
A Philips BHD308 hair dryer had a usual price of ₹1,849 across 5 readings in the weeks before the sale. Today it was ₹1,429, a drop of 23%. Its badge said 40% off.
A boAt S100 trimmer had a usual price of ₹799 across 8 readings. Today it was ₹799. Its badge said 47% off, because the badge is measured from the MRP.
A Dr Physio USA1036 massager had a usual price of ₹899 across 5 readings. Today it was ₹1,000. That's the same as its usual price in August, so it's back where it was a month ago.
We picked these because each has several readings behind it. They aren't the biggest moves.
What it means if you're shopping today
For most of what we checked, the sale price really is lower than last week. But the size of the badge doesn't tell you by how much. A 47% badge can sit on an unchanged price, and a 40% badge can sit on a real 23% drop.
Every product we track has its pre-sale figures on the pre-sale prices page. Look up the one you want and set today's price against it.
What this does not show
It's one day on one platform. These are Amazon prices recorded on the morning and early afternoon of 8 October. Sale prices change through the day, and some deals run for a few hours.
It's 39 prices, not the whole catalogue. Products are checked in rotation, so only some had an Amazon price today. The category groups are small. Five straighteners falling is a count, not a trend.
It's the listed price. Bank, card and coupon offers come on top and depend on how you pay. We don't include them.
It doesn't show why. A price can move because of the sale, a seller change, stock, or a new batch. From outside these look the same, and we don't guess.
It's a record, not a verdict. A drop is not proof of a bargain and a rise is not wrongdoing. It shows what we observed and when.
Flipkart's Big Billion Days opens tomorrow, 9 October. We'll run the same check there.
The week-before and August records are frozen and free to reuse under CC BY 4.0, from the pre-sale prices page. Sale-day figures recorded on Amazon on 8 October 2026.