Big Billion Days

Every autumn, millions of people in India wait for the same date, phone in hand. It’s Big Billion Days, Flipkart’s big sales event and, for many, the official start of the Diwali shopping season.

What is Big Billion Days?

Big Billion Days (often shortened to TBBD or BBD) is the most important annual sale of Flipkart, India’s largest marketplace. For several days, the platform offers big discounts on phones, electronics, fashion, home goods and almost every other category.

It works much like Black Friday in the West or Singles’ Day in China. It’s a calendar event that packs a huge share of the year’s online sales into just a few days.

Flipkart was founded in 2007 in Bangalore by Sachin and Binny Bansal. Since 2018 its majority shareholder has been Walmart, which bought 77% of the company for about $16 billion.

Big Billion Days 2026: dates

The 2026 edition ran from October 9 to 18. Flipkart Plus and Flipkart Black members, as well as holders of some partner credit cards, got early access from midnight on October 8.

Including early access, the sale lasted 11 days. According to the Indian press, there were instant 10% discounts with Axis Bank and ICICI Bank cards, plus interest-free installment payments (No-Cost EMI).

A bit of history

The first edition took place on October 6, 2014 and lasted a single day: The Big Billion Day. According to published figures, Flipkart sold about $100 million in just ten hours.

But that success came with problems. The website crashed several times, many products sold out within minutes and social media filled up with complaints. The founders even sent an apology email to their customers.

Since then, the event has grown in both length and scale. In 2023 Flipkart reported 1.4 billion visits during the sale. In 2024 it passed 330 million visits between early access and the first day alone.

In 2026, the 13th edition, Flipkart reached 6.3 million concurrent users in the first hour and passed 287 million sessions during early access alone. According to the Indian press, orders and shoppers grew by around 20-22% compared with 2025, and almost half of the shoppers were Gen Z.

How it works

The format combines several tactics that any online store will recognize.

The first is early access. Paying members and holders of partner cards get to shop before everyone else. It’s a way to reward loyalty and spread out first-day traffic.

The second is deals with banks, which add extra discounts and installment payments. In a market where price matters so much, this makes a real difference on expensive products like a phone or a TV.

And the third is massive advance communication. Weeks ahead, Flipkart releases sneak peeks of deals, activates wish lists and fills the app, social media, SMS, email and push notifications with reminders.

Its big rival is Amazon’s Great Indian Festival, held in the same weeks. The competition between the two makes October the key month for Indian ecommerce.

What your email marketing can learn from Big Billion Days

You don’t need to sell in India or be the size of Flipkart to apply its ideas. Any store planning a sales campaign can copy the structure. This is the email sequence we suggest:

• Two weeks before, the teaser: announce the date and ask your contacts to sign up so they don’t miss anything. A simple subscription form on your website helps you grow your list.
• Three days before, early access: give your most loyal customers a few hours’ head start. Segment by purchases or recent opens.
• The day before, the countdown: a short reminder with a clear subject line and the exact start time.
• Launch day: email and SMS first thing in the morning with the best deals.
• During the sale: daily updates and abandoned cart reminders.
• Afterwards: a thank-you email and a recommendation related to what each customer bought.

Because volume soars within a few hours, the technical side matters too. If your list is large, especially if you haven’t sent for a while, it’s a good idea to warm up your IP in advance (IP warming) and spread your sends out in batches. That way you avoid blocks and protect your deliverability.

And the lesson from 2014? Get your website ready for the traffic peak. A great email won’t do much good if the landing page goes down.

How Mailrelay helps you

With Mailrelay you can prepare this whole sequence from a single dashboard. You create your VIP customer groups, schedule your sends in advance and combine email and SMS in the same campaign. Our real-time reports show you opens and clicks so you can adjust the next message on the fly.

The free plan includes up to 80,000 emails a month and 20,000 contacts, and our support team helps you in English, Spanish and other languages, whatever plan you’re on.

Big Billion Days FAQ

When is Big Billion Days 2026? It ran from October 9 to 18, 2026, with early access from October 8 for Flipkart Plus and Black members and holders of some partner cards.

What does TBBD mean? It stands for The Big Billion Days, the official name of the event.

Can you shop from outside India? No. Flipkart only sells and delivers within India.

How is it similar to Black Friday? Both pack big discounts into a few days and mark the start of the peak shopping season. In India, it also coincides with the Navratri and Diwali festivals.

In short

Big Billion Days is much more than a week of discounts. It’s an example of how to build anticipation, reward loyal customers and coordinate several channels at once. And you can apply all of that to your next campaign, wherever you sell.

Retail calendar

These are the year’s main retail dates covered in our glossary, in order. Prepare each campaign a few weeks in advance.

Related posts

• Black Friday
• Cyber Monday
• Singles’ Day
• Flash sales
• Boxing Day
• Abandoned cart email
• Marketplace
• Ecommerce