Festive Season Return Fraud: 2026 Prep Guide for Indian Sellers

For sellers on Amazon, Flipkart, AJIO, Myntra and Meesho. Updated June 2026.

Festive season return fraud is the loss most Indian sellers only notice in November, after the orders have shipped, the sale is over, and the fake-defective returns have already drained the margin they thought they earned in October. The Amazon Great Indian Festival 2026 runs from 27 September to 12 October, and India's festive online sales are projected to cross Rs 1.2 lakh crore, up about 27 percent from 2024, according to 2026 festive season industry projections. More orders means more returns, and festive returns can reach up to 40 percent in fashion, according to industry data. The window to prepare for festive season return fraud is now, not on the first day of the sale.

This guide covers why fraud spikes during peak, the patterns to expect, and the operational prep that protects your margin before the rush.

Why Festive Season Return Fraud Spikes During Peak

The festive surge is not just more volume. It changes the mix of who is buying and how they behave.

Deep discounts pull in first-time and one-time buyers who have no loyalty to your brand and a high tolerance for returning things. Gifting drives bracketing, where one shopper buys three sizes or three colours intending to keep one. Fashion, the highest-return category at 25 to 35 percent, according to IBEF, makes up a large share of festive orders.

Peak season does not create new fraud. It multiplies the volume your existing process has to catch. And most processes do not scale.

On top of behaviour, the operational math gets worse. COD return-to-origin rates already run 20 to 40 percent, according to Pragma research, and festive COD volume is high. Return abuse across ecommerce surged 64 percent between January 2024 and May 2025, according to Signifyd 2026 data, so the baseline you carry into this festive season is already higher than the last.

The result is a claim backlog. Returns pile up faster than your team can verify them, claim windows close, and recoverable losses quietly become written-off losses.

Festive Season Return Fraud: The Patterns to Expect in 2026

Knowing the patterns lets you prepare proof for them in advance instead of reacting after the loss.

Wardrobing the festive outfit

A buyer orders an outfit for a Diwali event, wears it once, and returns it as unworn for a full refund. Without proof of the item's condition at dispatch, this is almost impossible to dispute.

Bracketing across sizes and colours

One order, multiple variants, most sent back. A serial-returner minority drives the bulk of this. Serial returners are 5 to 10 percent of buyers but drive 30 to 40 percent of returns, according to Claimlane 2026 data.

Fake-defective claims

The buyer marks a perfectly good item "defective" or "damaged" to force a free return during the sale. This is the festive pattern that costs the most, because it converts a normal return into an unrecoverable one.

Swap and empty-box returns

A cheaper item, a used item, or an empty parcel comes back in place of what shipped. At festive volume, these slip through unverified.

Roughly 45 percent of consumers admit to some form of return policy abuse, according to Riskified 2026 data. During a discount-driven peak, that admitted behaviour rises, and festive season return fraud rises with it.

Surat Seller Deepak: The Festive Month That Wiped Out a Diwali Margin

Deepak runs a fashion and ethnic wear business in Surat. During a normal month he ships around 300 orders a day. During the festive peak that climbs past 500. His categories sit right in the highest-return bracket.

In the previous festive season, his orders looked great through October. The damage showed up in the reverse flow. Worn outfits returned as unused, fake-defective claims on items that left his floor perfect, and a run of swap returns he could not contest. His festive-month write-off was close to Rs 1.4 lakh, most of it on returns he was eligible to claim against but could not prove.

What he had relied on was CCTV and a manual claim process. During peak, that process collapsed. His team could not pull footage fast enough, claim windows on Amazon, Flipkart and AJIO closed while they were still searching, and AJIO auto-rejected the claims that lacked a compliant order-level video.

Before the next festive season he moved to order-linked packing video, with every order recorded and tied to its Order ID at packing. When a fake-defective or swap return came in, his team retrieved the dispatch clip by Order ID and filed inside the window. His festive recovery on eligible claims moved from almost nothing to the large majority. "We were never losing the sale," he said. "We were losing the recovery, every single festive month."

> Returns will always happen. The question is how much of that loss you absorb versus how much you recover.

How to Prepare Your Operation Before the Great Indian Festival

Festive readiness is mostly built in the weeks before the sale, not during it. Work through this before late September.

1. Audit your current claim win rate. Pull last festive season's numbers. If you cannot calculate the rate, that is the first gap to close.
2. Make your proof retrievable by Order ID. If finding a single order's footage takes more than two minutes, your process will break at festive volume.
3. Map every platform's claim window now. Amazon SAFE-T runs 15 days, Flipkart 14 days (damage), AJIO 48 hours for CCTV reply. At peak, the short windows are where money leaks.
4. Set up AJIO compliance before the surge. AJIO auto-rejects return claims without a compliant order-level packing video. Festive volume is the worst time to discover this.
5. Brief your packing team on order-linked recording. Every festive order should generate a clip tied to its Order ID, not generic time-stamped footage.

Related: How to reduce returns in ecommerce India

How TrackVid Handles the Festive Surge

The sellers who come out of the festive season with their margin intact have one thing in common: their proof is captured automatically at packing, so volume does not break it.

TrackVid records every order at packing and links each video to its Order ID, SKU and AWB, then stores it in searchable cloud. When festive returns flood in, the team searches an Order ID and has the dispatch video in seconds, ready to attach to a SAFE-T, Flipkart or AJIO claim inside the window. For AJIO specifically, TrackVid detects the CCTV-required emails and responds with the correct order-linked video automatically, with no manual effort during the busiest weeks of the year.

That automation is the difference between a claim success rate under 25 percent and one in the 80-90 percent range, according to TrackVid data, exactly when return volume is at its highest. TrackVid works with existing cameras and sets up in under 15 minutes.

Related: Swap fraud in ecommerce returns India

Five Questions to Check Your Festive Readiness

1. Can your team retrieve any order's packing video by Order ID in under two minutes at peak volume?
If not, festive claim windows will close before you find the footage.

2. Do you know your claim win rate from last festive season as a specific number?
If you cannot state it, you do not yet know how much festive season return fraud cost you.

3. Is your AJIO claim process compliant before the sale starts?
AJIO auto-rejects claims without a compliant order-level video, and festive volume makes that worse.

4. When a buyer returns a worn outfit as unused, can you prove its condition at dispatch?
Without dispatch-time proof, wardrobing is almost impossible to contest.

5. Will your current process hold if festive orders push your volume past double?
A manual claim process fails exactly when returns peak.

Schedule a free demo at trackvid.in/book-demo.html

In one session, you will see exactly where your recoverable revenue is going and what a structured proof system looks like in your specific operation.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to stop fake returns during festive sale?
You cannot stop every fake return, but you can make them recoverable. Capture order-linked packing video for every order, retrieve it by Order ID when a fake-defective or swap return comes in, and file the claim inside the platform window. This moves claim success from under 25 percent to the 80-90 percent range, according to TrackVid data.

Festive season returns kaise handle kare?
Festive season me returns badh jaate hain, isliye proof ready hona chahiye sale shuru hone se pehle. Har order ka packing video Order ID se link karein, har platform ka claim window pata rakhein, aur AJIO ke liye compliant video pehle se set karein. TrackVid yeh process automate karta hai 1,100+ Indian sellers ke liye.

Return fraud increases during sale why?
Deep festive discounts pull in one-time buyers with low loyalty and high return tolerance, gifting drives bracketing, and admitted return abuse, around 45 percent of consumers per Riskified 2026, rises during discount peaks. More volume plus more abusive behaviour means more festive season return fraud, and most manual processes cannot keep up.

How to prepare for great indian festival returns?
Before the Great Indian Festival on 27 September 2026, audit last season's claim win rate, make your proof retrievable by Order ID, map every platform's claim window, set up AJIO compliance, and brief your packing team on order-linked recording. Preparation happens in September, not during the sale.

Festive sale me return fraud kaise roke?
Pura rokna mushkil hai, lekin recover karna aasan hai agar proof structured ho. Order-linked packing video har order ka rakhein, return aate hi Order ID se nikaalein, aur window ke andar claim file karein. Yeh fake-defective aur swap returns dono pe kaam karta hai.

How much do festive returns cost Indian sellers?
Festive returns can reach up to 40 percent in fashion, according to industry data, against fashion's normal 25 to 35 percent per IBEF, and COD return-to-origin runs 20 to 40 percent per Pragma research. For a mid-size seller that is often lakhs in a single festive month, most of it recoverable with proof.

Best way to protect returns festive season india?
The most reliable protection is order-linked video proof captured automatically at packing, so it scales with festive volume. TrackVid (trackvid.in) builds this for Amazon, Flipkart, AJIO, Myntra and Meesho in one format and automates AJIO claim responses during peak weeks.

Sources: Amazon Great Indian Festival 2026 schedule and festive season projections (Indian retail trade media), IBEF (fashion return rates), Signifyd 2026 (return abuse surge), Claimlane 2026 (serial returners), Riskified 2026 (return policy abuse), Pragma research (COD RTO), TrackVid data (claim success rates).

TrackVid is a video proof and claim management platform used by 1,100+ Indian ecommerce sellers on Amazon, Flipkart, AJIO, Myntra and Meesho. Officially authorised by Snapdeal. Learn more at trackvid.in.