Ecommerce website checklist for Indian businesses
Before you launch an online store in India, five things need to be settled: GST-compliant invoicing, a payment gateway that actually settles to your account, realistic delivery zones and charges, a returns policy you can honour, and a catalogue structure that survives your second product range. Get these wrong and you will be rebuilding within a year.
This is the checklist we work through with clients before a single product page is designed.
1. GST and invoicing
Your store has to issue a compliant tax invoice, and that is a build requirement rather than an accounting afterthought.
Decide whether prices display inclusive or exclusive of GST, and be consistent across cart, checkout and invoice.
Different HSN codes attract different rates. If your catalogue spans rates, the store must handle that per product, not per order.
Interstate versus intrastate changes whether IGST or CGST plus SGST applies. The platform needs the buyer's state before it can calculate correctly.
B2B buyers will ask for their GSTIN on the invoice. Capture it at checkout or you will handle it manually forever.
2. Payments that actually settle
Choosing a gateway is straightforward. The details that catch people out are less so.
Settlement time varies by gateway and affects cash flow more than the transaction fee does.
Cash on delivery remains significant across much of India. If you offer it, decide up front how you handle refusals — an operations decision the site has to reflect.
Failed payment recovery. A meaningful share of Indian card transactions fail first time. If a failure dumps the customer on a dead end, you lose the order.
UPI should be a first-class option, not buried below cards.
3. Delivery zones and charges
Delivery is where margin quietly disappears.
Define serviceable pincodes before launch and tell customers before checkout, not after.
Decide whether shipping is free above a threshold, flat, or weight-based — and check that threshold against your actual margin.
Set delivery expectations by zone. Metro next-day and tier-3 five-day are different promises and should display differently.
4. Returns you can actually honour
Write the policy first, then build to it. A policy your operations cannot support generates disputes and chargebacks.
State the window plainly and make it findable from the product page.
Decide who pays return shipping and say so before purchase.
For perishable, personalised or hygiene products, state exclusions clearly and lawfully.
5. A catalogue that survives growth
The most common structural mistake we inherit is a catalogue modelled around the products that existed on launch day.
Model variants properly from the start — size, colour, weight — rather than a separate product per variant. Retrofitting this is painful.
Decide your category structure before loading products. A shopper arriving for one range should not scroll past three others, a problem we solved for Aditya Trades across four unrelated categories.
Plan for out of stock as a visible state rather than a hidden product.
6. The things everyone forgets
Product photography is the biggest driver of conversion and the most common launch delay.
Mobile checkout. Most traffic is a mid-range phone. Test the whole checkout on one, on a normal connection.
Search inside the store. Past roughly fifty products, browse alone stops working.
Analytics before launch, not after. Without it you cannot tell whether a slow week is demand or a broken checkout.
Frequently asked questions
What do I need to start an ecommerce website in India?
At minimum: GST-compliant invoicing configured for your HSN codes and rates, a payment gateway supporting UPI and cards, defined serviceable pincodes with delivery charges, a returns policy you can honour, and a catalogue structured for variants and categories. Product photography is usually the practical bottleneck.
Do I need GST registration to sell online in India?
In practice yes for most sellers, and marketplaces generally require it. Thresholds and exemptions change, so confirm your position with your accountant — but build the store assuming GST-compliant invoicing is required, because retrofitting it is disruptive.
Should I offer cash on delivery?
It depends on your margin and category. COD still drives a significant share of Indian ecommerce and excluding it costs orders, but refusal rates and return shipping erode margin. If you offer it, decide your refusal handling before launch rather than at volume.
How many products before I need search on my store?
Roughly fifty. Below that, well-structured categories are enough. Above it, shoppers who cannot search will leave rather than browse.
Can I manage the store myself after launch?
You should be able to. Products, categories, pricing, stock and content belong in a CMS you control. If adding a product to your own store requires a developer, the store was built wrong — see our approach to web builds.
We have built stores across fashion, food, jewellery and industrial supply — browse the work, or tell us what you are selling.