How to create an online store in India, step by step

To create an online store in India, decide what you will sell and to whom, register the business, and choose a platform: Shopify, WooCommerce, a custom build or a marketplace. Then add the products, connect a payment gateway and a courier, publish the policies Indian law asks for, and test a real order before your website for online shopping goes live.

1. Decide the product and the buyer: what you will sell, at what price, and whether the margin covers fees, shipping and returns.
2. Register the business: a PAN, a current account, and GST registration if it will ship to other States.
3. Choose the platform: Shopify, WooCommerce, a custom build or a marketplace such as Amazon.
4. Register the domain: in the business's legal name.
5. Build the catalogue: product pages with photographs, prices including GST, and the pack details the law asks for.
6. Connect payments: UPI, cards and netbanking through an RBI-regulated payment aggregator, then decide on cash on delivery.
7. Set up shipping and returns: a courier or shipping aggregator, packaging, and a written return and refund policy.
8. Test and launch: a real order by UPI and by card, a refund, and every policy page live.

For the domain, hosting and other basics every business website shares, please read Webzenia's guide on how to create a company website.

What should you decide before you build an online store?

Decide three things before any design work: the product range, the buyer, and the margin left on one order after every cost of selling online. An online order carries costs a shop counter does not: payment fees, shipping, packaging, returns and refused cash-on-delivery parcels.

Please work out that margin on your most common order before choosing a platform. On a Rs. 1,000 prepaid order on Shopify Basic, Razorpay's fee is Rs. 20 plus Rs. 3.60 GST, and Shopify adds Rs. 20 of its own, about Rs. 44 in all. Shipping comes on top, and it costs the same on a Rs. 300 product as on a Rs. 3,000 one.

Check demand before you buy stock. Google Keyword Planner, free inside a Google Ads account, shows how often a product is searched for in India each month. Please also check on IP India's Trade Mark Public Search, which asks for an OTP sign-in, that the brand name is not already a registered trademark before you print packaging.

What registrations do you need to start an online store in India?

A small online store in India needs a PAN, a bank account in the business's name, and GST registration if it will ship to other States. A proprietorship, an LLP or a private limited company can run a store, and Udyam (MSME) registration is optional: the government's Udyam portal states that it is free of cost.

Open a current account in the business's name before applying to a payment gateway, because the gateway settles your sales into it. From 1 January 2027, the amended E-Commerce Rules require a marketplace to show its sellers' government IDs, such as the GSTIN or Udyam (MSME) number.

Some products need a licence of their own before they can be sold online. Food needs FSSAI registration or a licence. For cosmetics, the licence sits with the manufacturer (from the State licensing authority) or the importer (a CDSCO registration), not with the online seller, so please ask your supplier for a copy. Selling medicines online raises questions a lawyer should answer first. Confirm what the rest of your range needs with your CA before you list it.

Do you need GST registration to sell online in India?

Yes, if your store will ship to buyers in other States: section 24 of the CGST Act requires registration for any inter-State taxable supply, whatever the turnover. A store selling only within its own State registers above Rs. 40 lakh of turnover for goods, with a lower limit in some States, mostly in the North-East.

Please confirm with your CA the current limit for your State, and whether any exemption covers your products.

Marketplace sellers have a narrower rule. Section 24(ix) requires registration for anyone who sells through a marketplace that collects TCS (tax collected at source). Notification 34/2023-Central Tax, in force from 1 October 2023, exempts a goods seller on marketplaces whose turnover stays within the section 22(1) registration limit, on these conditions:

• One State only: no inter-State supply of goods, and no marketplace sales in more than one State or Union territory.
• PAN and enrolment: a PAN, declared with the business address on the GST portal, and an enrolment number granted before the first sale.
• One enrolment per State: the enrolment number lapses the day the seller takes a full GST registration.

The exemption covers marketplace sales only. E-invoicing applies only above Rs. 5 crore of aggregate turnover, so a new store issues ordinary GST tax invoices.

What are TCS and TDS on marketplace sales?

A marketplace withholds TCS of 0.5% of net taxable sales from GST-registered sellers' payouts, and TDS (tax deducted at source) of 0.1% of the gross amount. Neither is an extra tax: both are credits you claim against your own GST and income tax.

Two exceptions apply. A seller using the Notification 34/2023 exemption has no TCS collected, under Notification 37/2023-Central Tax. An individual or HUF seller whose sales through the marketplace stay within Rs. 5 lakh in the tax year (the financial year, April to March), and who has given the marketplace a PAN or Aadhaar, has no TDS deducted.

The TCS rate fell from 1% to 0.5% in July 2024. Notification 15/2024-Central Tax set the CGST half at 0.25%; tax publishers report the State half at 0.25% and the integrated-tax rate at 0.5%, under Notification 01/2024-Integrated Tax of 10 July 2024. The TDS sits in section 393 of the Income-tax Act, 2025, which replaced section 194-O of the 1961 Act from 1 April 2026.

Please ask your CA to reconcile both every month against the marketplace's statements, because a credit not claimed in your returns does not reduce your tax.

Which platform is best for an online store in India?

For most Indian brands selling their own products, Shopify is the right start: it hosts the store, runs the checkout and takes Indian payments through Razorpay, PayU or Cashfree. Choose WooCommerce for a content-heavy store or custom catalogue rules, and a custom build for an ERP link, subscriptions or B2B pricing at scale.

Each route has a trade-off. Shopify Payments is not available in India, so a Shopify store uses a third-party gateway, and Shopify's India pricing page lists its own fee on those orders: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced. On Basic, that makes about 4% per online payment, the gateway's 2% plus Shopify's 2%.

WooCommerce is free, open-source software with more than 7 million active installations, according to WordPress.org, but the owner pays for hosting and is responsible for updates, backups and security.

How much does it cost to create an online store in India?

A Shopify store costs Rs. 17,988 a year on the Basic plan billed yearly, plus a domain at about Rs. 900 a year and about 4% on each online payment. WooCommerce software is free, and Hostinger's Unlimited hosting plan was on sale at Rs. 199 a month on 11 November 2026, prepaid for 48 months.

The build is the largest cost: the theme, the product photography, the catalogue set-up and the integrations. This guide gives no build price, because the size of the catalogue and the integrations decide it; Webzenia's eCommerce website development page explains how a scope and a fixed first-phase price are agreed.

Please compare renewal prices too. Hostinger's Unlimited plan renews at Rs. 649 a month, and Shopify bills Basic at Rs. 1,994 a month if paid monthly instead of yearly. Please also ask each vendor whether GST is added: Hostinger lists its prices without GST, and Shopify's pricing page does not say.

Can you create an online store for free?

You can open a store without a plan fee, but every route charges on sales or for hosting. Instamojo's Lite online store costs Rs. 0 a year and takes 5% plus Rs. 3 on each transaction, with the payment gateway included; WooCommerce is free software but needs paid hosting and a domain.

A 5% fee is high once sales grow: on Rs. 1 lakh of monthly sales it comes to Rs. 5,000 plus Rs. 3 an order, plus GST, against about Rs. 2,000 plus GST through a 2% gateway on WooCommerce. The Lite plan also runs on an Instamojo address; a custom domain starts with the Starter plan at Rs. 6,999 a year.

How do you set up the catalogue and product pages?

Give every product its own page with a clear title, real photographs, the price including GST, the variants, and the pack details Indian law asks an online seller to show.

Prepare the product data in a spreadsheet before the build starts, because Shopify and WooCommerce both import one. For each product:

• Title and description: the product's name, material, size and use, in the words buyers search with.
• Price and tax: the selling price including GST, the MRP, and the GST rate your CA confirms for the tax invoice.
• Pack details: net quantity, the manufacturer or packer, and the country of origin.
• Stock and shipping: the stock count, the packed weight and the box size, which decide the shipping charge.
• Photographs: one on a plain background and one in use, sized for a phone.

The Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules ask online sellers to display the declarations printed on a pack, such as MRP, net quantity, the manufacturer's name and address, and country of origin. Please have a lawyer confirm the list for your category. Under Rule 7 of the E-Commerce Rules, each price must also be shown as one total, with delivery and other charges broken up.

How do you take payments on an online store in India?

Sign up with a payment aggregator regulated by the Reserve Bank of India, such as Razorpay, PayU or Cashfree, and connect it to the store. On 11 November 2026, Razorpay and PayU listed a standard fee of 2% on domestic cards, netbanking and wallets, and Cashfree 1.95%, each with no setup fee.

The RBI's 2025 directions for payment aggregators bind the aggregator, which holds the authorisation and checks its merchants, so the store does not apply to the RBI itself. UPI is charged differently. Razorpay states that standard bank-to-bank UPI carries zero MDR (merchant discount rate), but that its 2% platform fee applies to those payments as well.

The same directions leave the settlement timeline to your contract: Razorpay typically pays out on the next working day, and PayU two working days after the payment. Three RBI rules shape the checkout your customer sees:

• No stored card numbers: since 1 October 2022, only card issuers and card networks may store card details. A store keeps a token through its aggregator, never the card number.
• Two-factor authentication: an online card payment normally needs a second factor, which the bank or aggregator shows at checkout. Since 1 April 2026 the RBI no longer insists that it be an SMS OTP.
• Refunds to the original method: a refund goes back to the method the buyer paid with, unless the buyer asks otherwise.

Please apply once the policy pages are live: Cashfree, for example, asks for a live website with Terms, About, Contact and Privacy pages showing the business name, plus the business's PAN and a bank account, but not a GSTIN.

Should you offer cash on delivery?

Yes, offer cash on delivery at launch for most products sold to consumers in India, because a first-time buyer is being asked to trust a brand they have never bought from. Control it from the first day with an order-value limit, COD blocked on pincodes with repeated refusals, and a WhatsApp confirmation of every COD order before it ships.

Refused parcels are the cost of COD. When a buyer refuses a COD parcel, the courier returns it to you (return to origin, or RTO), and you pay the forward shipping for a sale that never happened, with a return charge on many rate cards as well. Please check your courier's RTO charge before setting the COD limit.

A prepaid buyer rarely refuses a parcel, because the money is already paid. Give buyers a reason to pay in advance: a small UPI discount, free shipping on prepaid orders only, or a COD fee or part-payment by UPI on higher-value orders. The Bangalore coffee roaster's store offered UPI, cards and cash on delivery through Razorpay, with abandoned-cart reminders on the WhatsApp Business API, and its cart abandonment fell from 71% to 38%.

A store can also add a checkout app. Razorpay Magic Checkout and GoKwik flag risky cash-on-delivery orders; Shopflo lists COD blocking by buyer and pincode.

How do you ship orders, and which courier should you use?

For a new store, use a shipping aggregator such as Shiprocket rather than a contract with a single courier: one account compares courier partners for each pincode, prints labels and collects COD. Shiprocket's Lite plan cost nothing on 11 November 2026, and its paid plans, from Rs. 199 a month, list lower average rates.

Shiprocket's own starred average for its Lite plan is Rs. 45 a shipment, though it does not state the weight or zone. Couriers charge on the higher of the actual weight and the volumetric weight, which Shiprocket calculates as length times width times height in centimetres, divided by 5,000. A 30 x 20 x 10 cm box therefore bills as 1.2 kg even if the product weighs 300 g.

Box size matters: pack in the smallest box that protects the product, and record each product's packed weight and box size once.

What should your return and refund policy say?

The E-Commerce Rules set no fixed number of days for online returns, so your policy decides the window, but it must be published before the buyer pays and followed as written. The Rules forbid refusing a return or refund when goods are defective, deficient, spurious, not as described, or delivered late.

State the policy in plain words, on a page linked from every product page and from the checkout:

• The window: how many days the buyer has to ask for a return or exchange, counted from delivery.
• Exclusions: products you do not take back unless defective, such as innerwear, perishables or customised items, stated before purchase.
• Return shipping: who pays it; the Rules ask a store to show the cost of return shipping.
• Refunds: paid to the original payment method, and within how many days.

The Rules also bar cancellation charges on the buyer unless the store bears similar charges when it cancels an order itself.

What does Indian law require on an online store?

An Indian online store must display its legal name, address, customer care and grievance officer contacts, return, refund and delivery terms, payment methods, and a total price with its break-up, under the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020. The grievance officer acknowledges a complaint within 48 hours and resolves it within one month.

The Rules also forbid pre-ticked consent boxes and fake reviews. Please have a lawyer confirm how the Rules apply to your business form, because their wording leaves questions open for very small sellers.

The Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) (Amendment) Rules, 2026, notified on 9 September 2026, take effect on 1 January 2027 and add duties that reach a brand's own store:

• Sale prices: a reduced price is shown beside the prior price, which is the lowest price in the 30 days before the reduction was announced.
• Dark patterns: compliance with the 2023 dark-pattern guidelines, a yearly self-audit, and a certificate displayed on the store.
• Complaints: every e-commerce entity joins the National Consumer Helpline's convergence programme, through which the Helpline passes buyers' complaints to the store, and the grievance officer gives the buyer a copy of the complaint as recorded.
• Imported goods: the importer's details and the country of origin, shown for every imported product.
• Product dates: a best-before or use-before date, where applicable, among the details the store displays.

Personal data is the second law to plan for. From May 2027, under the DPDP Rules notified in November 2025, a store that collects names, phone numbers and addresses must give a plain notice of what it collects and why, and keep reasonable security safeguards. After a breach, it must tell the affected customers and the Data Protection Board of India, with full details to the Board within 72 hours.

A store owned by a company must also show the company details that Rule 26 of the Companies (Incorporation) Rules requires on its home page; the company website guide lists them.

How do you get an online store found on Google?

Build a category page for each group of products buyers search for, add Product markup to every product page, and list the catalogue in Google Merchant Center, whose free listings can show products on Search, the Shopping tab, Images and YouTube at no cost. Then verify the store in Google Search Console and submit its sitemap.

Category pages match broad searches, such as "cotton bedsheets double bed", and product pages match the specific ones. Write each category introduction and product description in your own words, not the manufacturer's text every other seller uses.

Product markup is a few lines of code that give Google the price, stock and ratings. Google's documentation states that it can make a page eligible for product snippets in the results. Please ask the developer to confirm, with Google's Rich Results Test, that every product page carries valid markup. Webzenia's eCommerce SEO page covers the work that follows launch.

How do you keep an online store fast on a phone?

Build and test the store on a mid-range Android phone, because 84.21% of web page views in India came from mobile phones in October 2026, according to StatCounter. Keep each product page to the photographs and apps it needs: every add-on app adds code the phone must load before the buyer can tap "Buy".

The Ahmedabad spice brand drew about 5 lakh sessions a month, mostly from Instagram, but converted 0.83% of them. Its page-builder Shopify theme took 8.5 seconds to show a product on a phone. Webzenia rebuilt it as a theme written for the store in Shopify's own template code, with a slide-out cart, and cut a purchase from 7 taps to 3. In month 3 the store converted 2.61%.

Please ask for a PageSpeed Insights report on a category page and a product page, the pages a buyer from Instagram lands on. The company website guide sets out Google's speed targets.

What should you check before the store goes live?

Before launch, place a real order by UPI and by card, refund it, and confirm that the tax invoice, the confirmation message and the courier booking all work. Then check that every policy page is live and linked and that the grievance officer's details show.

Open the store to existing customers and friends for a week before announcing it, so that real orders test the payment, packing and delivery steps first.

How long does it take to build an online store?

A full online store build with a custom CMS and UPI integration typically takes 12 to 16 weeks with Webzenia.

The step most within your control is the product data: have the spreadsheet, photographs and policy text ready early, so that the build does not wait on them.

What should you measure after launch?

Measure five numbers every month: conversion rate, prepaid share, RTO rate, average order value and repeat buyers.

• Conversion rate: orders divided by sessions, in Shopify's analytics or Google Analytics 4.
• Prepaid share: the share of orders paid by UPI, card or netbanking rather than cash on delivery, from the store's order report.
• RTO rate: the share of shipped orders returned to origin, from the courier or Shiprocket dashboard.
• Average order value: sales divided by orders, which decides whether shipping and fees fit inside the margin.
• Repeat buyers: the share of orders from returning customers, in Shopify's analytics or Google Analytics 4.

Should you sell on Amazon and Flipkart or on your own website?

Sell on both: start on a marketplace and build your own store alongside it. A marketplace brings buyers who are already searching, and your own website keeps the margin, the brand and the repeat buyer.

From 16 March 2026, Amazon charges no referral fee on products priced under Rs. 1,000 across more than 1,800 categories. Meesho's seller page states 0% commission, payment 7 days after delivery, and sellers accepted with a GST enrolment ID instead of a GSTIN, which suits a low-priced range. Flipkart runs its own seller programme with its own fee card; compare it with Amazon's before you choose.

Please read the full fee card in Amazon's Seller Central before setting prices, because Easy Ship and other fees are charged separately. Your own store lets you message repeat buyers and sell a subscription: the Bangalore coffee roaster signed up 340 monthly subscribers on its own Shopify store within 3 months of launch.

Should you build the store yourself or hire an agency?

Build it yourself on Shopify or Instamojo if the range is small and the store uses one payment gateway and one courier and connects to nothing else. Hire an agency when the store must connect to an ERP or accounting system, run subscriptions or B2B prices, or replace a store that already has orders.

Please keep the payment gateway and courier accounts in the business's name, as well as the domain and the store, because the gateway and the courier pay your money out. Webzenia builds online stores on Shopify, WooCommerce and Next.js, with UPI, cash on delivery and Razorpay as the primary checkout paths. The eCommerce website development page sets out the plan, and the coffee roaster case study shows one such build.