What Pongal and Onam mean for buyers
Pongal in Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu Tourism describes Pongal as a four-day festival. The days are Bhogi Pongal, Thai Pongal, Mattu Pongal and Kaanum Pongal. On Bhogi, people discard old belongings and replace them with new ones. Homes are cleaned and kolam patterns are drawn at the entrance. People wear new clothes. A sweet dish also called Pongal, made from new rice, milk, jaggery and cardamom, is cooked in a pot. Sugarcane and vegetables are offered. Mattu Pongal honours cattle, and families gather for a meal on Kaanum Pongal.
Each custom is a shopping need: new pots and home items, cleaning supplies, kolam supplies, groceries, sugarcane, clothes, sweets, gifts and festival travel. In our experience, families also plan bigger purchases around the holidays.
Onam in Kerala
Kerala Tourism says Onam falls in Chingam and that the ten days after Atham are a time of big celebration. It names the Onasadya feast and the snake boat races, and it calls Onam the biggest shopping season in Kerala. So groceries, vegetables, clothes, gifts, home goods and festival travel all peak. Restaurants, caterers and sweet shops take feast pre-orders. Government offices keep a four-day cluster of holidays, from First Onam to Fourth Onam, in 2026.
Who decides, and when they start
At home, the family decides together on food and home items, and one person often does the planning. Buyers start weeks before the main day. They compare offers, make lists and book travel. By the last week, the job is stock and delivery.
Families abroad
Both states have many families with members overseas. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Bulletin of March 2025 covers the sixth round of its remittances survey. It gives each state's share of India's inward remittances for 2023-24. Kerala had 19.7 percent and Tamil Nadu 10.4 percent. Maharashtra was first at 20.5 percent. We use this only to show that many families here have members abroad. Sellers who send gifts, sweets or festival kits to families in India, or to the diaspora, can plan for them. See our page for exporters on selling across borders.
Language: when to use Tamil and Malayalam
This guide is in English. Your festive copy should not be in English alone. Our language partners write Tamil and Malayalam, and we do not machine-translate festive lines. Here is how to choose.
- Use the local language for: greetings, shop boards and banners, in-store signs, WhatsApp messages to local buyers, local radio and print, and festival offers aimed at families.
- English is fine for: business-to-business messages, product specifications, legal and delivery terms, and sellers who write to the diaspora in English. Offer both languages when you are unsure.
- Have a native speaker write and check it. Festival greetings and food names have regional spellings and tone. A literal translation can sound stiff or wrong.
- Check the type on a phone. Make sure the Tamil and Malayalam scripts display properly on common phones and in your ad tools before you spend.
- Do not borrow national copy. A harvest-festival greeting written for another state names the wrong festival and the wrong foods. Pongal and Onam have their own words.
Keep the English plain too. A reader on a phone in a small town should understand every line the first time.
A week-by-week plan
Count back from the main day. For Pongal 2027, eight weeks before the central date of Friday 15 January is Friday 20 November 2026. For Onam 2027, eight weeks before the central date of Sunday 12 September is Sunday 18 July 2027. Shift to your state's list when it comes out.
- Weeks 8 to 6 before: Fix the goal and the budget. Choose hero products and festival packs. Order stock, including fresh items from trusted suppliers. Brief the language partner. Plan photos.
- Weeks 6 to 4 before: Finish offers and their reasons. Write the greeting and the copy in the local language. Update your Google Business Profile. Set up WhatsApp lists with permission and a way to track orders.
- Weeks 4 to 2 before: Go live with teasers. Send early-bird offers to past buyers. Put up boards in the local language. Start ads. Publish the last order date for each area.
- The last 2 weeks: Push festival essentials and gifts. Check fresh stock daily. Reply fast. Add staff for the counter and for delivery.
- Festival days: Keep greetings short and warm. Keep delivery and support running. Do not push a hard sale on the main day.
- After the festival: Thank buyers. Clear leftover stock honestly. Ask for reviews. Record the numbers and what you will change next year.
Offers and creative ideas by business type
Grocers and kirana shops
- Festival bundles with rice, jaggery, cardamom and other basics in one pack, at a clear price.
- A festival list on WhatsApp that buyers can tick and send back.
- Pre-order and pick-up slots to avoid queues in the last days.
Sweets, snacks, restaurants and caterers
- Festival boxes and feast pre-orders with a cut-off date, so you can plan production.
- Clear pack sizes and shelf-life notes.
- Delivery slots by area, and a clear note on holiday timings.
Clothing, jewellery and home goods
- New-season collections with simple price ranges.
- Gift sets by budget for family and for staff.
- A home refresh pack, such as new utensils and decor, since many households replace old items before the festival.
Electronics, appliances and furniture
- Festival offers with the reason stated: season clearance, new stock or an exchange offer.
- Clear delivery and installation dates, with holidays marked.
- Written terms for exchange and warranty.
Florists, tailors and services
- Book slots early and publish them.
- Festival decoration packs for homes and shops.
- Say how many slots you really have. Do not invent scarcity.
Business-to-business firms and dealers
- Dealer schemes with a clear start and end date and a payout sheet.
- Festival greetings from the account owner to customers, in their language.
- For gifts, see our guide to corporate gifts, which was written for Diwali and applies to other festivals too.
Sellers who serve families abroad
- Festival kits and gifts to send home, with a last order date based on shipping time.
- Clear notes on what can and cannot be shipped. Ask your courier and a CA or export adviser. We state no export rule here.
- Greetings and product names in the language the family uses.
Channels that work in the season
- WhatsApp: Past buyers and festival lists, with permission. See our WhatsApp marketing service.
- Google: A full Google Business Profile with festival hours and offers. See local search engine optimisation (SEO).
- Instagram, Facebook and YouTube: Short videos of kitchens, packs and gifts, in the local language. See social media marketing.
- Search and social ads: Start early with a small budget, in the local language, then raise it for what brings orders. See performance marketing.
- In-store and street: Boards, banners and counter displays in the local language.
- Local radio and print: Useful for reaching families who are not on social media.
Competition for the same buyers rises when many sellers advertise. Check your own costs weekly. Our guide to digital marketing cost in India explains what drives them. We also have city pages for Chennai and Kochi.
Rules for festive offers
Festive copy often uses words like free, limited and last chance. Keep them honest. The official and industry texts below are the same ones we use in our Diwali guide.
- The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) Code, chapter I (dated 10 July 2025), says claims of verifiable fact must be provable. Ads must not mislead by implication, omission, ambiguity or exaggeration.
- The Central Consumer Protection Authority's Dark Patterns Guidelines, 2023 apply to platforms, advertisers and sellers. They define false urgency as falsely stating or implying urgency or scarcity to mislead a user. Saying stock is more limited than it is falls under it.
- PIB announced a 2026 amendment to the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules on 10 September 2026. It says a price cut must show the reduced price and the prior price. The prior price is the lowest price in the 30 days before. PIB says it comes into force on 1 January 2027, so it will apply to Pongal 2027 sales by e-commerce entities. Ask a lawyer how it applies to you.
Our Diwali marketing ideas guide has the same rules in more detail.
A made-up worked example
Say a family grocery store in a Tamil Nadu town plans for Pongal 2027. This is a made-up shop with made-up numbers. Eight weeks ahead, it builds a festival bundle with rice, jaggery, cardamom and a clay pot. It also has a native speaker write the board and the WhatsApp message in Tamil. It also fixes a last pre-order date.
It spends ₹25,000 on boards, printed bag inserts, photos, the language partner's time and a small ad test. It wins 250 bundle orders. Each leaves ₹120 after costs. That is ₹30,000 in margin. Cost per order is ₹25,000 divided by 250, which is ₹100. The return is (₹30,000 minus ₹25,000) divided by ₹25,000, which is 20 percent.
It notes that 140 orders came from WhatsApp, 90 from the shop and 20 from ads. It writes down that the clay pots sold out in the last week, so it will order more next year.
Mistakes to avoid: taste, timing, stock and delivery
- Taste. Do not use sacred symbols or cattle imagery as a joke. Do not mix Pongal with other harvest festivals in one ad. Keep greetings warm and plain, and have a native speaker read them.
- Timing. Pongal runs over several days and Onam over about ten. Do not send a hard sale on the main day. Dates can differ by a day, so confirm them against the state list.
- Stock. Fresh items such as sugarcane, vegetables and flowers depend on suppliers. Confirm early and keep a reserve for hero items.
- Delivery. Holidays close offices, shops and couriers for days. In 2026, Tamil Nadu declared all Saturdays and Sundays as government holidays and Kerala had a four-day Onam cluster. Publish last order dates.
- Copy that is only in English. You lose families who shop in their own language.
- False urgency. Do not invent countdowns or claim stock is lower than it is.
How to measure Pongal and Onam marketing
- Orders and sales, by source: walk-in, WhatsApp, website, ads, radio or print.
- Cost per order: total spend divided by orders.
- Margin per order after product, packing, delivery and returns.
- New and repeat buyers, from your own records.
- Language results: did the local-language message bring more replies than the English one? Test small and compare.
- Stock sold, left over and sold out, and late deliveries.
Hold a one-hour review after the festival. Write three things to repeat, three to drop and three to try next year.
When to ask for help
Ask for help when your team cannot write Tamil or Malayalam copy to a good standard. Ask when you are planning to sell online or abroad for the first time. Ask when last year's numbers were not recorded. Bring your stock list, last year's sales and your goal to the first talk.
