The Festive Calendar: What to Make and Sell Every Month in India

On the morning of Dhanteras last year my dining table had 140 finished hampers on it, and I had already said no to about forty more. Not because I could not make them. Because I had run out of kraft bases three days earlier and every supplier in Sadar Bazaar was sold out until after Diwali. The orders were there. The boxes were not.

I have been filling festive orders from home for years now: chocolates, cakes, masala boxes, squashes and hampers. The pattern is the same every year. Students message me in the second week of October asking what to make for Diwali. By then the good boxes are gone, the courier slots are booked, and the corporate buyers placed their orders in September.

This is the calendar I actually work to. It says what sells each month, when to start making stock, and when to open and close orders. It is written from Faridabad, so it leans North Indian; if you are in Kerala or Bengal, add Onam and Durga Puja in the same slots with the same lead times.

The ruleThree dates for every festival

A festival is not a date. It is a window, and the money is made in the three weeks before it. So for every festival I write down three dates and work backwards.

• Start stock: six to eight weeks out. Order packaging, buy dry ingredients, make the products that keep. Soap, bath salts, masalas, squashes and dry-fruit mixes can all be made this early.
• Open orders: three to four weeks out. Send the price list on WhatsApp, post the photos, tell corporate buyers the last date.
• Close orders: seven to ten days out for anything that ships, three days out for local delivery. Chocolate and cake are made in the last week only.

The festival day itself is for delivering the last local orders in the morning and sitting down in the afternoon. If you are still making on the day, the calendar failed, not you.

The calendarFestive season products to sell, month by month

One thing to read into the table: "start stock" always comes before "open orders", because the photographs you sell with need the packaging in hand.

DiwaliThe festive season products to sell in the six weeks that pay for the year

For a hamper business, Diwali is three to four months of ordinary sales in six weeks. In a normal year my Diwali orders are roughly a third of the year's revenue, and about half of that comes from four or five corporate buyers rather than hundreds of individuals.

Three price points, decided in September and never changed after: a ₹350 box for the society and office list, a ₹650 hamper for family gifting, and a ₹1,200 hamper for the corporate buyer who wants to look generous. Each one has a fixed list of contents, so there is nothing to decide at 11 pm on a Tuesday.

Corporate orders are 25 to 100 pieces of one design and they are placed early. Offices decide in the last week of September and want delivery by Dhanteras. Send those buyers a one-page sheet with the three hampers, a photo of each, and a last order date around 20 October. Ask for 50 percent advance; every one of them expects it.

What goes in: chocolates and dry fruits are the core, then a soap or a bath salt for the beauty hamper, a diya set, a masala or squash bottle for the food one. Chocolate goes in last, in the final week, because October in North India is still 30 degrees in the afternoon. The festive blueprint has the full Diwali hamper build; the chocolate guide covers the bars.

The other threeRaksha Bandhan, Karwa Chauth and Christmas

Raksha Bandhan is the first festival of the season and the best rehearsal for Diwali. Rakhi hampers are smaller, ₹250–₹600, and they ship: sisters in Delhi send to brothers in Pune. That means you close orders ten days before, and it means the box must survive a courier. A rakhi, a roli-chawal pouch, four chocolates and a soap in a kraft box with a band is a product people reorder every year. Open orders on 1 August; the rush is the last ten days.

Karwa Chauth is the beauty hamper's festival. A face pack, an ubtan, a bath salt and a small attar in a ₹500–₹900 box, bought by husbands and by women for their sisters-in-law. Nobody thinks of it until a week before, so open orders three weeks out and post the photos twice a week.

Christmas and New Year are office festivals in India: Secret Santa boxes at ₹150–₹300 in lots of 20 to 50, plum cake and cookie boxes, and the year-end corporate thank-you hamper. The buyers are the same HR people who bought in October, so message them in the third week of November.

Every year the festival is on the same date it was last year, give or take three weeks. The only surprise is how many of us are surprised. — written on the wall above my packing table

The stepsThe eight-week festival plan

1. Eight weeks out: choose three products and three pricesNot five, not ten. Write the contents of each on a card and do not change them.
2. Seven weeks out: order all packagingBases, boxes, filler, wrap, ribbon, labels. Count 20 percent more than you expect to sell. This is the step that saves you from my Dhanteras morning. The hamper packaging bundle is the set I use.
3. Six weeks out: make everything that keepsSoap, bath salts, masalas, squashes, dry-fruit mixes, jars. Label and shelve them.
4. Five weeks out: assemble one of each and photograph itWindow light, plain background, five shots each. These photographs are the whole sales campaign.
5. Four weeks out: open ordersPrice list to every WhatsApp contact and every past customer, corporate sheet to offices, three posts a week on Instagram until the close date.
6. Two weeks out: close corporate, confirm quantities, collect advancesThen buy the perishables: chocolate, nuts, fresh ingredients.
7. One week out: make the perishables and assembleIn batches by hamper type, not by customer. Pack, label, stack by delivery date.
8. Three days out: deliver local, courier outstation, close ordersAnything after this is next year's customer.

Stock and cashHow much to make, and who pays for it

How much to make is the question nobody can answer for you, but there is a rule that works: last year's quantity plus half again, and if there is no last year, start with 30 units of each of the three products. Thirty ₹650 hampers is ₹19,500 in orders.

Cash is the constraint. A ₹650 hamper costs ₹280–₹360 to make including packaging, so 30 of them tie up ₹8,500–₹11,000 for four to six weeks before the money comes back. This is why the 50 percent advance matters. Take it on every order above ₹1,000, and the customers fund the stock.

Keep one spare set of packaging aside. The last-minute order that comes on Dhanteras morning is always the highest-margin one of the year, if you have a box for it.

The off-seasonWeddings, Mother's Day and summer

The calendar does not stop in November; it changes shape. From mid-November to February, and again from late April to June, North India is in wedding season, and weddings buy in quantities festivals never do: 50 to 200 return gifts at ₹80–₹200 each. A small soap-and-candle box or a chocolate box with a printed name tag is the standard order. The lead time is three weeks and the family will change the count twice.

Mother's Day and Women's Day are the beauty hamper's second season: offices order 25 to 200 small boxes for 8 March. Valentine's is chocolate in sixes and twelves and couple hampers at ₹499–₹999.

Summer is squash and sharbat. A 750 ml bottle of aloo bukhara or khus squash in a jute bag sells as a housewarming and summer-visit gift from April to June. The squash and sharbat guide is the place to start. By July you are photographing Rakhi hampers again.

MistakesWhere festive seasons go wrong

Starting when the festival is trending. When the Diwali advertisements begin, the corporate orders are already placed. Your calendar has to be ahead of the customer's.

Too many products. Ten hampers to choose from means ten kinds of packaging to run out of. Three, with fixed contents.

Promising delivery on the day. Every courier is late in Diwali week. Close orders early, deliver early, and say so on the price list.

No advance. A cancelled ₹5,000 corporate order after you have bought the chocolate is a bad Diwali. Fifty percent on confirmation, always.

Forgetting to ask for the reorder. Every Diwali customer is a Christmas, Valentine's and Rakhi customer. A printed card inside the hamper with your number and the next festival's date is the cheapest marketing you will ever do.

What nextBuild the hampers before August

If your first festive season is ahead of you, start with the hampers themselves, because the assembly is a skill and the box sells the contents. The Gift Hamper Shala course is five complete hampers filmed start to finish: RakshaBandhan, bouquet, choco and nuts, beauty and money, with the packaging and presentation of each. Watch the RakshaBandhan one first; it is the one you will sell in August, and it is the rehearsal for everything on this calendar.

Still unsureQuestions we get asked

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