Correction, 28 September 2026. This article first said the festive sale had started. It had not. Amazon's Great Indian Festival opens on 8 October and Flipkart's Big Billion Days on 9 October. The figures below are unchanged. They describe how prices moved in the weeks before the sales.
With the festive sales about two weeks away, we looked at what had already changed. Of the 168 listings we had priced twice in the last ten days, 23 fell by 3% or more. Ten went up. The other 135 sat exactly where they were.
Among the ones that fell, the typical fall was 9%.
That is the useful thing to know before the sales. On this catalogue, most prices had not changed yet.
What actually fell
| Product | Before | Now | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Braun FS1000 shaver | ₹2,155 | ₹1,311 | 39% |
| Havells FD5004 trimmer | ₹2,331 | ₹1,599 | 31% |
| Agaro HD1214 hair dryer | ₹1,428 | ₹1,049 | 27% |
| Philips HP8302 straightener | ₹1,099 | ₹904 | 18% |
| Philips QP2824 trimmer | ₹2,491 | ₹2,183 | 12% |
| Agaro HS1119 straightener | ₹1,099 | ₹974 | 11% |
These are real falls, measured against what the same listing charged a few days earlier, not against anyone's declared MRP.
The drops are spread across categories rather than concentrated: 7 hair dryers, 6 trimmers, 4 shavers, 4 straighteners.
The one that went the other way
The Oracura SB300 electric toothbrush was ₹1,768 on 14 and 18 September, against a declared MRP of ₹2,950. That listing showed 40% off.
On 22 September the same listing read ₹2,359, against a declared MRP of ₹5,900. The badge now says 60% off.
So the price went up by ₹591, and the advertised discount got bigger, because the number it is calculated from doubled. Two separate listings for that toothbrush on that site changed the same way on the same day, so this is not one stray reading.
The same toothbrush on another site still reads ₹1,768 against ₹2,950 in today's check.
We can't tell you why the declared figure doubled. The MRP on a listing is entered by whoever runs that listing. What we can say is that a product has one maximum retail price, so two listings declaring ₹2,950 and ₹5,900 cannot both match the pack.
The MRPs mostly held
This is the part we expected to go the other way. Across the same 168 listings, 8 raised their declared MRP and 11 lowered it. The rest are unchanged.
So the toothbrush is an exception, not the pattern. Across these listings, declared MRPs moved both ways in small numbers.
What to do before the sales
Check the rupee price against what the same listing charged earlier in the month, and against the other sites that sell it. A bigger badge this week does not mean a lower price than last week, and on at least one product it means the opposite.
Today's live figures are on the real deals page, which only counts discounts measured against an MRP the platforms agree on.
What this does not show
It is a partial view. We check listings in rotation, not all of them every day, so this is 168 listings with two readings in the window, not the whole catalogue.
It is early. These readings run to 22 September, with some from the morning of the 23rd, more than two weeks before the sales open on 8 and 9 October.
Prices move for ordinary reasons too. A fall this week is not proof of a sale price.
Observed between 13 and 23 September 2026 across Amazon, Flipkart and Nykaa.