![\"A](\"https://cdn.selzix.com/da485deb-1584-49a4-9792-3cb586a3e7d7/45eb5edb-7d3d-4e1a-af4b-e3b89abc2ab3.jpg\")
You sell hand-block-printed kurtas from Jaipur through Instagram and a small website. Turnover is maybe ₹6 lakh a year, so you assume GST is a problem for later, because the limit is ₹40 lakh. Then a customer in Pune orders two kurtas, and that one parcel is the thing that changes your answer.
\nMost confusion about GST for small online sellers comes from mixing up three separate rules: the turnover threshold, the compulsory registration list, and the 2023 relaxation for marketplace sellers. This guide takes them one at a time, from the primary sources, for someone selling from their own website or Instagram.
\n\nSection 22 of the CGST Act sets the base rule. You must register in a state once your aggregate turnover in a financial year crosses ₹20 lakh, or ₹10 lakh in the special category states. The Act now defines those as Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, and lets them raise their limit up to ₹20 lakh.
\nFor goods sellers the more useful number is in Notification 10/2019-Central Tax, in force since 1 April 2019. It exempts anyone engaged exclusively in supplying goods from registration up to ₹40 lakh of aggregate turnover, with exceptions:
\nTwo details trip people up. \"Aggregate turnover\" covers all taxable, exempt and inter-state supplies under your PAN across India, so Instagram, website and weekend-market sales go into one number. And the ₹40 lakh figure is only for exclusive suppliers of goods. If you also sell a service, such as paid styling sessions or workshops, the ₹20 lakh limit applies.
\n\nSection 24 opens with \"notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1) of section 22\". In plain terms, the people it lists must register at any turnover. Two entries matter for online sellers:
\nNotification 10/2019 lists Section 24 persons as an exception, so the ₹40 lakh exemption does not rescue you once either clause applies. Services get gentler treatment: Notification 10/2017-Integrated Tax exempts suppliers of inter-state services below the threshold. Nothing equivalent exists for goods.
\n\nClause (ix) used to mean that anyone selling on Amazon, Flipkart or Meesho needed a GSTIN from the first rupee. Notification 34/2023-Central Tax, effective 1 October 2023, carved out an exemption for sellers whose aggregate turnover stays under their Section 22 limit, on these conditions:
\nRead condition one carefully. It says \"such persons shall not make any inter-State supply of goods\", which is not limited to marketplace orders. If you rely on this exemption for Meesho and then ship a website order to another state, you have broken a condition.
\nA newer change is on the way but not yet law. At its 57th meeting on 8 October 2026, the GST Council recommended a new Rule 14B. It would let small suppliers selling goods through marketplaces register in other states by declaring the marketplace's warehouse there as their place of business. It targets registered marketplace sellers, and it takes effect only once notified.
\n\nThe Act's definition of an \"electronic commerce operator\" is broad: anyone who owns, operates or manages a digital platform for e-commerce. But clause (ix) and Notification 34/2023 only bite where the operator is required to collect TCS under Section 52. That duty applies to supplies made through the platform by other suppliers, where the operator collects the payment.
\nWhen a customer pays into your own Razorpay account or UPI ID for goods you sell yourself, no platform is collecting TCS on your sale. Instagram hosts the conversation; it does not collect your money. So clause (ix) generally does not apply to you. Neither does the 2023 relaxation, which exists only for marketplace sales.
\nThat leaves two tests for a seller with their own store:
\nIf the answer to the second question is yes, Section 24(i) applies. The Jaipur seller with ₹6 lakh turnover needs a GSTIN the moment that Pune order ships. Many small sellers ship nationally without registering anyway; that is a real exposure. Registration is also less painful than it was: the same 57th Council release notes that the portal already grants registration automatically, without an officer, to applicants who do not intend to pass on more than ₹2.5 lakh of input tax credit a month.
\n\n\n\n| Your situation | Do you need GST registration? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Own website or Instagram, goods only, buyers only in your state, turnover under your state's limit | No | Below the Section 22 / Notification 10/2019 threshold, and no Section 24 trigger |
| Same, but turnover crosses ₹40 lakh (or ₹20 lakh / ₹10 lakh in the listed states) | Yes | Section 22 threshold crossed |
| Own website or Instagram, any turnover, you ship even one order of goods to another state | Yes | Section 24(i): inter-state taxable supply |
| Marketplace only, one state, no inter-state sales, turnover under the limit, enrolment number obtained | No | Notification 34/2023 exemption |
| Marketplace in your state plus your own site shipping to other states | Yes | Section 24(i), and the Notification 34/2023 condition on inter-state supply is broken |
| Marketplace sales in two or more states | Yes | Notification 34/2023 allows only one state |
| Services (online classes, consultations) to clients in other states, turnover under ₹20 lakh | Generally no | Notification 10/2017-Integrated Tax exempts small inter-state service suppliers |
The composition scheme lets eligible sellers pay a small flat percentage of turnover instead of regular GST. Notification 14/2019-Central Tax sets the limit at ₹1.5 crore of prior-year turnover, or ₹75 lakh in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Uttarakhand.
\nThe catch is in Section 10(2): a composition dealer must not be \"engaged in making any inter-State outward supplies of goods or services\". Since 1 October 2023 composition dealers may sell goods through marketplaces, but only within their state (Notification 36/2023 tells marketplaces to block their inter-state orders). A composition dealer also cannot charge GST to the customer or claim input tax credit.
\nSo composition suits a local bakery or a one-city boutique, not a website shipping across India.
\n\nRule 46 of the CGST Rules lists the particulars. For a typical online order, that means:
\nHow many HSN digits? Notification 78/2020-Central Tax, in force since 1 April 2021, ties it to your previous year's aggregate turnover: 4 digits up to ₹5 crore, 6 digits above. Sellers up to ₹5 crore may leave HSN off invoices to unregistered buyers. You still need the code yourself, because it decides your tax rate.
\nRates moved recently. The two-rate structure of 5% and 18% (plus 40% for a few goods) took effect on 22 September 2025. One example that matters for Instagram sellers: apparel with a sale value up to ₹2,500 per piece is taxed at 5%, and above ₹2,500 at 18%.
\n\nSay you sell a product taxed at 18% and the price on your site reads ₹1,180. Whether that price includes GST changes your margin by ₹180 per unit.
\n| ₹1,180 including GST | ₹1,180 excluding GST | |
|---|---|---|
| Taxable value | ₹1,000 (₹1,180 ÷ 1.18) | ₹1,180 |
| GST at 18% | ₹180 | ₹212.40 |
| Customer pays | ₹1,180 | ₹1,392.40 |
| Buyer in your state | CGST ₹90 + SGST ₹90 | CGST ₹106.20 + SGST ₹106.20 |
| Buyer in another state | IGST ₹180 | IGST ₹212.40 |
| You keep (before costs) | ₹1,000 | ₹1,180 |
Most B2C stores show tax-inclusive prices. The common mistake is registering, switching to inclusive pricing, and leaving every price unchanged. A product you used to sell for ₹1,180 now earns you ₹1,000. Rework your prices before the GSTIN goes live.
\n\n\n\nIf you are still setting up the rest of the business, our checklist for starting an online store in India covers the steps around this one.
\n\nFor Indian stores, Selzix generates GST tax invoices with HSN codes for eligible paid orders, with your GSTIN on them, and produces a GST return report you can hand to your accountant. You set a store-wide GST rate and show prices including or excluding tax. Payments go to your own Razorpay account or UPI ID, so Selzix does not collect money on your behalf.
\nIf you are not yet registered, note that Selzix cannot block checkout from other states, so you have to check each order's delivery address yourself. Other limits: one store-wide rate applies to every product, and Selzix does not register you, choose your HSN codes or decide your rate. Those stay your responsibility (or your CA's). See the full list on the features page.
\n\nNot if every buyer is in your own state and you sell only goods. The moment you ship goods to another state, Section 24(i) requires registration regardless of turnover.
No. It covers only goods supplied through an e-commerce operator that collects TCS under Section 52, within one state. Your own website or Instagram store is outside it, and shipping out of state from your own site breaks its conditions for your marketplace sales too.
No. Notification 10/2017-Integrated Tax exempts suppliers of inter-state services from registration while their aggregate turnover stays under the threshold (₹20 lakh in most states). The inter-state trigger in Section 24(i) bites hardest on goods.
Yes. Notification 10/2019 itself refers to people who take registration by choice under Section 25(3). Once registered you must charge GST and file returns even if turnover stays small, so plan your prices first.
Ready to try it on your own store? Start a 14-day free trial. No card needed.
","summary":"Your turnover is ₹6 lakh, well under the ₹40 lakh limit. Then a buyer from another state orders, and that one parcel changes your GST answer.","date_published":"2026-10-22T04:12:19.782Z","date_modified":"2026-10-22T04:12:19.782Z","authors":[{"name":"Selzix Team"}]},{"id":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/how-to-calculate-shipping-charges-india","url":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/how-to-calculate-shipping-charges-india","title":"Shipping Charges in India: Volumetric Weight, Zones and Free Shipping","content_html":"You sell cushion covers and charge ₹50 for shipping, which felt generous when you set it. Each order goes out in a 30 × 25 × 10 cm box and weighs 0.6 kg. The courier does not bill 0.6 kg. It bills 1.5 kg, and to a customer in another state that parcel costs over ₹200 before GST.
\nThat gap is volumetric weight, and it is the most common reason small sellers find their shipping line deep in the red at the end of the month. The fix is arithmetic you can do on a calculator in two minutes.
\n\nEvery parcel has two weights:
\nShiprocket's weight terminology page calls this the \"applied weight\", notes that 5,000 is the factor for most of its courier partners (it can vary), and sets 0.5 kg as the minimum. Delhivery's help page uses the same ÷ 5,000 for both surface and express.
\nDelhivery adds two details worth knowing if you ship with it directly. Parcels packed in flyers (plastic mailers) are charged only on dead weight up to 1 kg. And at manifest it uses dead weight as-is for parcels under 1 kg, switching to the higher of the two above that. Aggregators and couriers each have their own rules, so check the one in your account rather than assuming.
\n\nIndian rate cards price the first 0.5 kg, then each additional 0.5 kg. Shiprocket's public rate card lists exactly that for its standard courier options: a base rate and an \"Additional 0.5Kg\" rate. Your billed weight is rounded up to the next slab, so a 0.6 kg parcel pays for two.
\n\n| Step | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Dead weight | Scale reading | 0.6 kg |
| Volumetric weight | 30 × 25 × 10 = 7,500 ÷ 5,000 | 1.5 kg |
| Billed weight | Higher of the two | 1.5 kg |
| Slabs | 1.5 ÷ 0.5 | 3 slabs (first + 2 additional) |
You pay for two and a half times the weight you are actually sending. Hold that thought; it comes back when we change the box.
\n\nCouriers group PIN-code pairs into zones, and both forward and return freight depend on the zone. Shiprocket's zone explainer (last updated December 2022, still the naming its rate card uses) defines five:
\n| Zone | Shiprocket's definition |
|---|---|
| A: Within city | Pickup and delivery PIN codes in the same city |
| B: Within state/region | Both PIN codes in the same state or region |
| C: Metro to metro | Both PIN codes in metro cities |
| D: Rest of India | Anywhere else in India, excluding the North East and J&K |
| E: Special | One or both ends in the North East states, J&K, Kerala or Himachal Pradesh |
For a seller in Jaipur, a buyer in Jaipur is Zone A, Udaipur is Zone B, Pune is Zone D and Guwahati is Zone E. Most small stores ship the majority of orders in B, C and D.
\n\nShiprocket publishes its rate card per plan. These are the figures for Delhivery Surface on the free Lite plan, read from Shiprocket's rate card on 19 October 2026. Shiprocket's support pages quote plan rates exclusive of GST, so add GST to every number below. Paid plans (₹199, ₹499 and ₹799 a month on Shiprocket's pricing page) cost less per parcel.
\n| Delhivery Surface, Lite plan | Zone A | Zone B | Zone C | Zone D | Zone E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First 0.5 kg | ₹51 | ₹57 | ₹66 | ₹71 | ₹103 |
| Each additional 0.5 kg | ₹48 | ₹56 | ₹63 | ₹66 | ₹97 |
| RTO, first 0.5 kg | ₹51 | ₹57 | ₹66 | ₹71 | ₹103 |
| COD fee | ₹52 or 3.3% of order value, whichever is higher |
Other couriers on the same card sit close by. Xpressbees Surface, for instance, starts at ₹45 in Zone A and ₹97 in Zone E. Rates change often, so treat these as a snapshot and recheck before you set prices.
\n\nNow repack the 0.6 kg cushion cover. Here is what the three-slab box costs against a 25 × 20 × 8 cm box (4,000 ÷ 5,000 = 0.8 kg volumetric, billed as 1 kg) and against a product light enough to stay inside one slab in a mailer.
\n| Packing | Billed weight | Zone A | Zone B | Zone C | Zone D | Zone E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 × 25 × 10 cm box, 0.6 kg | 1.5 kg | ₹147 | ₹169 | ₹192 | ₹203 | ₹297 |
| 25 × 20 × 8 cm box, 0.6 kg | 1 kg | ₹99 | ₹113 | ₹129 | ₹137 | ₹200 |
| Saving per order | ₹48 | ₹56 | ₹63 | ₹66 | ₹97 | |
| Mailer, product under 0.5 kg | 0.5 kg | ₹51 | ₹57 | ₹66 | ₹71 | ₹103 |
Delhivery Surface, Shiprocket Lite plan, before GST. At 300 orders a month mostly in Zones B to D, the smaller box alone is worth roughly ₹17,000 to ₹20,000 a month. No marketing change you make this week will do that.
\n\n![\"Large](\"https://cdn.selzix.com/da485deb-1584-49a4-9792-3cb586a3e7d7/8150467e-7c43-4a58-a490-580e553a6329.jpg\")
Shiprocket's COD charges article says the fee is a fixed COD charge or a percentage of the order value, whichever is higher. With Delhivery Surface on Lite at ₹52 or 3.3%, the flat ₹52 applies to every COD order below about ₹1,576. On a ₹600 order that is almost 9% of the sale.
\nReturn to origin is worse. When a COD buyer refuses the parcel, you pay freight out and freight back. The rate card lists RTO freight for the first slab at the same price as forward freight, and Shiprocket's passbook explainer says the COD fee is reversed when a shipment goes RTO. A 0.5 kg Zone D refusal therefore costs ₹142 plus GST, for no sale.
\nSpread those costs across the orders that do get delivered. Say 30 of every 100 orders are COD and 1 in 5 of those comes back (an example, not a benchmark), with an average forward rate of ₹63:
\nOur cash on delivery guide covers how to cut fake COD orders. For pricing, the lesson is simpler: budget for the ₹84, not the ₹63.
\n\n\nTake a store with a ₹750 average order, a 50% gross margin (₹375 per order before shipping) and parcels that stay under 0.5 kg. Using a typical zone mix (20% A, 30% B, 20% C, 25% D, 5% E), Delhivery Surface on Lite averages about ₹63 a parcel before GST. Call it ₹75 per order once GST and a little COD and RTO leakage are included.
\n| Policy | Buyer pays | You absorb | Margin left on a ₹750 order |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flat ₹79 on every order | ₹79 | ₹0 | ₹375 |
| Flat ₹49 on every order | ₹49 | ₹26 | ₹349 |
| Free above ₹999, ₹79 below | ₹79 below, ₹0 above | ₹0 below, ₹75 above | ₹375 (₹450 on a ₹1,050 order) |
| Free above ₹499 | ₹0 on most orders | ₹75 | ₹300 |
| Free on everything | ₹0 | ₹75 | ₹300 |
A ₹499 threshold on a ₹750 average order is the same as free shipping for everyone: it costs you ₹75 an order and changes nobody's basket. A threshold earns its keep when it sits a little above your current average, so buyers add one more item to reach it.
\nThe test: the margin on the extra item has to exceed the shipping you give away. If a buyer at ₹750 adds a ₹300 item to cross ₹999, that item brings ₹150 of margin at 50%, comfortably more than the ₹75 you absorb. If your add-on items are ₹99 accessories at 30% margin, the threshold loses money and a modest flat fee is the better deal.
\nTwo practical rules. If you ship heavy or bulky goods to Zones D and E often, do not offer free shipping everywhere; charge by zone or set the threshold higher. And if you sell outside India, keep a separate international rate; domestic maths does not carry over.
\n\nIf you are still deciding between an aggregator and doing local deliveries yourself, we compared the two in Shiprocket vs local pickup.
\n\nIn Selzix you set domestic delivery charges as a flat fee, free delivery, or free above an order value, or as distance-based rates in three tiers worked out from your pickup PIN code: local (same first three PIN digits), the rest of your state, and the rest of India. There is no separate tier for special zones like the North-East, so build that cost into your rest-of-India rate. International orders get a separate rate, or you can sell domestically only.
\nIndian stores can connect Shiprocket or Delhivery to create labels, book pickups and track shipments. You can also use any other courier and add its tracking number to the order, and buyers follow progress on an order-tracking page. Courier charges are billed by the courier or aggregator, not Selzix, and Selzix does not calculate volumetric weight for you, so do the box maths above when setting your rates.
\n\nFor most Indian couriers and aggregators, yes: Shiprocket and Delhivery both document L × B × H ÷ 5,000. Shiprocket notes the factor can vary by courier partner, so check the rate card or contract in your account.
Usually a weight discrepancy: the courier measured a larger box or heavier parcel than you entered, so the parcel moved up a slab. Check the charged weight in your aggregator's weight reconciliation section and dispute it with photos if your figures were right.
Many sellers add a small COD fee or offer a prepaid discount, because the courier's fixed COD charge (₹52 on the plan above) is a large slice of a low-value order. Whatever you choose, include COD and RTO in your shipping budget.
Per-parcel rates fall on paid plans, which cost ₹199 to ₹799 a month. Shiprocket also refunds the plan fee if you hit a monthly shipment target (100, 500 or 1,000 shipments depending on the plan). Compare the per-parcel saving times your monthly volume against the fee.
Ready to try it on your own store? Start a 14-day free trial. No card needed.
","summary":"You charge ₹50 for shipping. The courier bills 1.5 kg for a 0.6 kg parcel and sends you a ₹203 invoice. Here is the arithmetic that stops it.","date_published":"2026-10-19T17:01:51.089Z","date_modified":"2026-10-19T17:01:51.089Z","authors":[{"name":"Selzix Team"}]},{"id":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/razorpay-account-activation-checklist","url":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/razorpay-account-activation-checklist","title":"Razorpay Account Activation: Documents, Website Checks and Rejections","content_html":"You sign up on Razorpay on a Sunday, the test checkout works, and you share the store link on Instagram. On Wednesday the dashboard says needs clarification, live API keys are still locked, and the first ₹4,000 of orders is sitting nowhere useful.
\nAlmost every stuck application traces back to one of four things: the wrong business type, one business document where Razorpay now wants two, a website that fails the automatic checks, or a product category Razorpay does not support. All four can be fixed before you press submit.
\n\nThis is the mistake that costs the most time, because it is the one you cannot edit later. Razorpay's account FAQ is blunt: you cannot change the business type once the account is created. If you picked the wrong one, you are looking at a fresh application.
\nFor most small sellers the choice is between two options:
\nPartnerships, LLPs and companies should register as exactly what their PAN says; Razorpay looks them up by business PAN and date of incorporation.
\nDo you need GST? Razorpay's FAQ says submitting GST and current account details is not mandatory for a very small, new business: you can select \"I don't have GST\" and use a savings account. Your GST obligations as a seller are a separate question for your accountant.
\n\nRazorpay moved to new \"Master KYC\" requirements from 1 January 2026. The changes that hit small sellers: proprietorships now need two business documents (previously a GSTIN alone was enough), and companies must add their MOA, AOA, a board resolution or power of attorney, and a beneficial-owner declaration. This table summarises Razorpay's KYC documents page as of October 2026.
\n| Business type | Business proof | Owner / signatory proof | Bank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Individual / Unregistered | None | Auto-fetched from CKYC; if that fails, PAN, mobile number, and DigiLocker or Aadhaar/passport copy | Account number + IFSC (savings is fine) |
| Sole proprietorship | Any 2 of: Udyam (MSME) certificate, GST certificate, Shop & Establishment certificate, Import Export Code, postpaid mobile bill | Proprietor's PAN + Aadhaar, voter ID or passport | Account number + IFSC |
| Partnership | Partnership deed (+ registration certificate if registered), business PAN | Signatory PAN and address proof, power of attorney, declaration of partners holding over 10% | Account number + IFSC |
| LLP | Certificate of incorporation / LLPIN / LLP deed, LLP PAN | Same as partnership | Account number + IFSC |
| Private limited | Auto-fetched from CKYC; if that fails, certificate of incorporation, CIN, MOA and AOA; business PAN | Signatory PAN and address proof, board resolution or POA, beneficial-owner declaration (over 10% holders) | Account number + IFSC |
If bank verification fails for any type, Razorpay asks for a video of a cancelled cheque. Razorpay's onboarding guide also says, for proprietorships, that at least one of the two documents should be GST or Udyam.
\nSome categories need an extra licence whatever the business type: FSSAI for food, AYUSH or drug licences for herbal and OTC products, BIS hallmark for gold, among others on the same page. Have it ready before you apply.
\n\nIf you already have a Central KYC record (most people who have opened a bank account, mutual fund or insurance policy do), Razorpay's setup guide says it can fetch your documents with your PAN and an OTP and skip video KYC entirely, with activation \"in minutes instead of days\".
\nWithout a CKYC record you go the long way: upload documents, complete video KYC, finish DigiLocker verification within three days of the call, then wait for a review that Razorpay puts at 3 to 4 business days.
\n\n\nA lot of older advice says Razorpay rejects you for missing policy pages. That changed: the Master KYC FAQ lists \"Website policies (Terms, Refund, Privacy)\" under requirements removed from onboarding.
\nThe pages still matter, just at a different step. Razorpay's website details page says that without live website or app details you cannot get live mode API keys, which means no checkout on your own store. You can still collect money through Payment Links and Invoices from the dashboard in the meantime.
\nWhen you add your primary website, Razorpay runs instant checks on the site, its policy pages and your business industry. It asks for links to:
\nYou also upload a sample invoice and, if buyers must log in before paying, test account credentials. If a check fails, the dashboard lets you correct the URLs or generate policy pages through Razorpay.
\nBeyond the page list, these details make a store look real to a reviewer:
\nRazorpay's own FAQ gives one headline reason for rejection: it does not support your business sub-category. The prohibited list sits in clause 17 of its terms of use. The entries that trip up small online sellers most often:
\nOther common outcomes are softer. A missing FSSAI licence for a food business, a PAN and address proof belonging to different people (Razorpay says they must match), or a failed video KYC usually lead to needs clarification, which you answer from the dashboard. A full rejected status means starting a new account with correct details.
\nActivation is not the finish line either. Razorpay says compliance teams and partner banks run routine audits after activation and may pause settlements while they do. You can keep taking payments, and Razorpay says it re-enables settlements within 2 days of receiving your response.
\n\n![\"A](\"https://cdn.selzix.com/da485deb-1584-49a4-9792-3cb586a3e7d7/58df3fa8-dfe5-4a1e-9322-0aeaddec37e0.jpg\")
Razorpay's pricing page and its published India rate card (last updated May 2026) list a flat platform fee across domestic instruments:
\n| Payment method | Platform fee per successful payment |
|---|---|
| UPI, RuPay debit, domestic debit and credit cards (incl. Amex and Diners), netbanking, wallets, Pay Later, EMI | 2% |
| Corporate / business credit cards | 2.15% |
| International cards | Up to 3% |
| GST | 18% on the fee, not on the sale |
| Setup, annual maintenance, refunds | ₹0 (instant refunds ₹7.99 to ₹14.99 each) |
The UPI line surprises people. UPI and RuPay debit carry zero MDR under government policy, and Razorpay says so, but it still charges its 2% as a platform fee. So a UPI payment through Razorpay costs you the same as a card payment. That is the main reason sellers keep a direct UPI option, which has its own trade-offs covered in direct UPI vs a payment gateway.
\nWhen we checked in October 2026, the pricing page was also advertising a 0% fee for the first 90 days for new sign-ups. Read the eligibility terms before you count on it.
\n\nSay your prepaid orders in a month add up to ₹1,00,000, split like this (COD orders never touch the gateway, so leave them out):
\n| Method | Sales | Rate | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| UPI | ₹60,000 | 2% | ₹1,200 |
| Debit and credit cards | ₹20,000 | 2% | ₹400 |
| Netbanking and wallets | ₹10,000 | 2% | ₹200 |
| Corporate cards | ₹5,000 | 2.15% | ₹107.50 |
| International cards | ₹5,000 | 3% (upper limit) | ₹150 |
| Platform fee | ₹2,057.50 | ||
| GST at 18% | ₹370.35 | ||
| Total deducted | ₹2,427.85 |
You receive about ₹97,572, an effective cost of roughly 2.43%. Price your products with 2.5% set aside for payments and you will not be caught out.
\n\nRazorpay's settlements documentation gives the standard domestic cycle as T+2 working days from capture, while the pricing page describes it as \"typically T+1 or Instant\". The docs add that the cycle depends on bank approval, your business vertical and risk factors, so treat the number in your own dashboard as the real one.
\nInstant Settlement is an on-demand add-on you request from support. Razorpay describes the cost as \"a small fee\", shows the exact fee plus tax before you confirm, and applies a daily withdrawal limit. It does not publish a standard rate, so check it before relying on it for cash flow.
\n\n| Check | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Business type matches your PAN and documents | Cannot be changed after the account is created |
| Proprietors: two business documents ready, one of them GST or Udyam | New requirement since January 2026 |
| PAN and address proof belong to the same person | Razorpay requires them to match |
| Original physical PAN card at hand | e-PAN and printouts fail video KYC |
| Bank account number and IFSC checked; cancelled cheque available | Failed bank verification means a cheque video |
| Category licence (FSSAI, AYUSH, hallmark) if relevant | Listed as additional documents |
| Nothing on the prohibited list, including replicas and herbal \"cures\" | Unsupported category is the stated reason for rejection |
| Site live with About, Contact, Pricing, Terms, Privacy and Refund pages | Needed for the website check and live API keys |
| Sample invoice saved as PDF or image | Uploaded with website details |
On an INR store, Selzix connects to your own Razorpay account, so you complete Razorpay's KYC under your name and payments settle from Razorpay to your bank on your Razorpay settlement cycle. Selzix adds no transaction fee of its own; Razorpay's fees and GST still apply.
\n\nWhile activation is pending, you can turn on direct UPI with your own UPI ID or QR, plus cash on delivery. The limit: direct UPI payments are not verified automatically, so you confirm each one against your bank app before shipping. See the features page for the full payment options.
\n\nYes. Razorpay's FAQ says GST and a current account are not mandatory for very small, new businesses. Choose \"I don't have GST\" and use a savings account. Proprietors still need two business documents from the accepted list.
With an existing CKYC record, Razorpay says activation can take minutes. Without one, its FAQ puts the review at 3 to 4 business days after video KYC and DigiLocker are done, and working days exclude weekends and bank holidays. Razorpay also sells assisted onboarding for a fee, promising activation within 8 business hours.
If you have not submitted KYC yet, you can still update it. After the account is created and KYC is in, Razorpay says the business type cannot be changed, so you would need a new account. Razorpay's Multi-Account feature lets you open another under the same mobile number and email.
There is zero MDR on UPI, but Razorpay applies its standard 2% platform fee plus GST, so on Razorpay a UPI payment costs the same as a domestic card payment.
Yes, through Payment Links and Invoices created in the Razorpay dashboard. Checkout on your own website needs live API keys, which Razorpay releases only after it has your live website details.
Ready to try it on your own store? Start a 14-day free trial. No card needed.
","summary":"Most stuck Razorpay applications come down to the wrong business type, one missing document or a website that fails the checks. All are fixable before you submit.","date_published":"2026-10-19T17:01:49.608Z","date_modified":"2026-10-19T17:01:49.608Z","authors":[{"name":"Selzix Team"}]},{"id":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/customer-retention-d2c-small-business","url":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/customer-retention-d2c-small-business","title":"Customer Retention for Small D2C Brands: How to Get Repeat Buyers Without Ads","content_html":"You roast specialty coffee in Pune and sell 250 g bags for ₹550. Instagram ads bring in new buyers, but each first order costs you about ₹400 in ad spend. After beans, packaging, courier and gateway fees, that first order loses ₹146. The second order from the same buyer, with no ad behind it, earns roughly ₹200. Your business works only if people come back.
\nSmall D2C brands get repeat buyers without ads by collecting each customer's contact details and consent at the first order, making that first delivery go well, reminding them when the product is likely to run out, and sending different messages to different groups of past buyers. You measure it with one number, the repeat purchase rate: the share of first-time buyers who order again within a set period.
\n\nBecause the first order usually pays for the ad that found the customer, and later orders are where the margin is. Here is the coffee roaster's arithmetic. The ₹210 product and packaging cost, ₹75 average courier cost, ₹400 ad cost and ₹2 for a couple of reminder messages are this example's assumptions. The 2% gateway fee is Razorpay's standard platform fee (18% GST on the fee is left out to keep the table readable).
\n| Order 1 (from an ad) | Order 2 (reminder, 10% off) | Order 3 (reminder, full price) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price paid | ₹550 | ₹495 | ₹550 |
| Beans and packaging | ₹210 | ₹210 | ₹210 |
| Courier | ₹75 | ₹75 | ₹75 |
| Gateway fee (2%) | ₹11 | ₹9.90 | ₹11 |
| Ad or message cost | ₹400 | ₹2 | ₹2 |
| Profit on the order | −₹146 | ₹198.10 | ₹252 |
| Running total | −₹146 | ₹52.10 | ₹304.10 |
The customer turns profitable on the second order. Every buyer who stops at one order is a ₹146 loss. You will often see the claim that a 5% rise in retention lifts profits by 25% to 95%. It comes from Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company, as reported in Harvard Business Review in 2014. It is old research across industries, not a D2C forecast. Your own table is more useful.
\n\nGroup buyers by the month of their first order and count how many order again. Say the roaster had 400 first-time buyers in July:
\n| July first-time buyers: 400 | Ordered again | Repeat purchase rate |
|---|---|---|
| Within 30 days | 36 | 9% |
| Within 60 days | 60 | 15% |
| Within 90 days | 72 | 18% |
Do the same for August and September, then compare. If October's buyers repeat at 12% within 60 days against July's 15%, something changed: the product, delivery or who your ads are reaching. Two more numbers help: the median days between first and second order, which tells you when to send the reminder, and the share of revenue from returning customers.
\n\nIf orders come through Instagram DMs, \"who bought what, when\" sits across scattered chat threads. A store checkout records name, phone, email, address and order history for every order, which is what makes the rest of this guide possible.
\nContact details are not permission. Meta's WhatsApp opt-in rules say businesses need the person's agreement to receive messages, must state clearly that the person is opting in, and must name the business. Add an unticked consent box at checkout, such as \"Send me restock and offer updates from Kaapi Roasters on WhatsApp\", and keep a record of who ticked it.
\n\n\nA buyer decides whether to order again mostly from the first parcel: did it arrive when promised, did it match the photos, was anything broken, and was it easy to get help? None of this needs a marketing tool.
\nConsumables have a natural reorder date. A 250 g bag of coffee at about 15 g a cup, two cups a day, lasts around eight days for one person drinking two cups a day, or about 17 days at one cup a day. Your order data will show the real pattern: if the median gap between first and second orders is 24 days, send the reminder on day 20 or 21.
\n| Product type | What sets the timing | Reminder idea |
|---|---|---|
| Coffee, tea, snacks | Pack size and daily use | \"Running low?\" a few days before the median reorder day |
| Hair oil, skincare | Bottle size and usage instructions | Reorder link around the expected finish date |
| Apparel, sarees, jewellery | Seasons, weddings and festivals, not usage | New collection notes before Diwali, Onam, Eid or wedding season, sent only to buyers in that category |
| Home decor, gifts | Occasions | A note ahead of Rakhi or Diwali gifting, once |
Apparel and gift brands should send fewer messages, better timed. A saree buyer does not need a weekly message; one well-timed note before the next festival she is likely to shop for is enough.
\n\nA buyer who ordered once six months ago and one who has ordered four times this year should not get the same message. Four segments cover most small stores:
\n| Segment | Who | What to send | Offer? |
|---|---|---|---|
| New, one order | First order in the last 30–60 days | Usage tips, review request, reorder reminder at the right time | Usually none |
| Repeat buyers | Two or more orders | New products in categories they already buy, early access | None needed |
| High spenders | Top 10% by total spend | A personal thank-you, first look at limited batches | Optional small gift in the parcel |
| Lapsed | No order in 90–180 days (adjust to your cycle) | One \"we've changed X\" message, asking what went wrong | A single customer-specific offer, once |
A site-wide sale gives a discount to people who would have bought anyway. A customer-specific offer goes only to the person who needs a nudge. Compare the costs for 100 past buyers, of whom 20 would have reordered anyway:
\n| Approach | Who gets 10% off | Discount cost |
|---|---|---|
| Site-wide 10% off, 30 orders result | All 30 buyers, including the 20 who would have ordered anyway | 30 × ₹55 = ₹1,650 |
| Customer-specific offer to the 40 lapsed buyers, 10 extra orders result | Only those 10 | 10 × ₹55 = ₹550 |
Both bring 10 extra orders. The targeted version costs ₹1,100 less, and it does not teach your best customers to wait for the next sale. These conversion numbers are illustrative. The structure of the comparison is what matters.
\n\nReviews do two retention jobs. Asking a buyer to review a product a week or two after delivery reminds them of you at a moment when the product is in use. Replying to a critical review in public, with what you changed, shows past and future buyers that complaints lead somewhere. Our guide to product descriptions that sell covers how to turn common review questions into better product copy.
\nWord of mouth works the same way. A buyer who had a good experience and was asked politely will mention you to friends without a formal referral programme. Make it easy: a shareable product link, and a note in the parcel.
\n\nEvery order on a Selzix store adds to a customer record. You can see each customer's order history and total spend, view customer segments, and export the customer list, including segments, as a CSV. Coupon codes, automatic offers and customer-specific offers are built in, so the lapsed-buyer offer above can go to one person instead of the whole store.
\nSelzix collects product reviews from eligible paid purchasers, and you can reply or moderate from the dashboard. Buyers get an order-tracking page and order notifications. On supported browsers they can opt into web push and add your store to their home screen. Eligible signed-in customers who leave a cart can receive staged abandoned-cart reminders. Indian stores take payment through their own Razorpay account, direct UPI or cash on delivery, and the built-in blog can carry brewing guides, care instructions and other content that brings buyers back to the store.
\nThe limits: notification channels depend on your configuration, the customer's contact details and approved message templates. Selzix does not list a loyalty-points, referral or back-in-stock feature, so those have to run outside it. For bulk WhatsApp or email campaigns, export your segments and use a messaging tool, sending only to customers who opted in. See the features page or the Selzix India page for the full list.
\n\nIt depends heavily on the product. Coffee or skincare buyers can reorder within weeks, while furniture buyers may never reorder. There is no reliable universal benchmark. Measure each month's first-time buyers at 30, 60 and 90 days and aim to beat your own previous quarters.
Meta requires opt-in that states the person is agreeing to messages and names your business. A phone number collected for delivery is not the same as consent to marketing. Add a clear consent option at checkout and keep a record of it.
No. Buyers who already reorder on their own do not need one. Keep discounts for lapsed buyers or one-time buyers past their usual reorder date, and send them as customer-specific offers rather than site-wide sales.
For most small brands, one or two useful messages a month per customer is plenty, plus order and delivery updates. If block or opt-out rates rise after a campaign, send less often and make each message more specific to what the person bought.
Want to see who your repeat customers are? Start a 14-day free trial. No card needed.
","summary":"Your first order loses ₹146 after ad spend. The second earns about ₹200. Here is how small D2C brands get buyers to come back without paying for ads again.","date_published":"2026-09-19T05:39:18.778Z","date_modified":"2026-10-24T07:17:46.711Z","authors":[{"name":"Selzix Team"}]},{"id":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/start-online-store-india-checklist","url":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/start-online-store-india-checklist","title":"How to Start an Online Store in India: The Complete 2026 Beginner's Checklist","content_html":"Starting an online store in India isn't complicated, but it's easy to launch missing something that costs you sales or customer trust later. Here's the order that actually works.
\nA business name, a bank account or UPI ID to receive payments, and (once you cross the turnover threshold) GST registration. You don't need all of this perfect on day one, but payments and a bank account are non-negotiable before launch.
\nClear photos, accurate sizing or specs, and descriptions written for a stranger — not just captions carried over from Instagram. This is the single biggest lever on how much of your traffic actually converts.
\nLook for custom domain support, real analytics, and pricing that doesn't punish you for selling more (watch for hidden transaction fees). Switching platforms later, once customers and SEO are attached to a URL, is painful — pick carefully the first time.
\nUPI, cards, and cash on delivery together cover the widest range of buyers. Restricting to just one method quietly caps how many visitors actually complete checkout.
\nLocal pickup for nearby customers, a courier network like Shiprocket for everyone else. Don't over-invest in logistics before you have order volume to justify it.
\nA simple returns/refund policy and shipping timeline, stated clearly, prevents most customer disputes before they start — and it's something customers actively look for before trusting a new store.
\nTell your existing audience first — Instagram followers, WhatsApp contacts, anyone who already knows you. A quiet launch with no traffic tells you nothing about whether your store actually works.
\nWhere did visitors come from, where did they drop off, what sold. This is the habit that turns a first launch into a business that improves every month instead of guessing.
\nSelzix handles steps 2 through 5 out of the box — catalog import, custom domain, Razorpay/UPI/COD, and Shiprocket or pickup — so you can focus on the parts only you can do: your product and your first customers.
\nReady to check most of this list off in an afternoon? Start your free 14-day trial — no card required.
","summary":"Everything you actually need before launch — no fluff, no steps you can skip and regret later. A practical checklist for first-time online sellers in India.","date_published":"2026-09-19T05:39:16.374Z","date_modified":"2026-09-19T06:40:29.681Z","authors":[{"name":"Selzix Team"}]},{"id":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/hidden-cost-of-free-store-builders","url":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/hidden-cost-of-free-store-builders","title":"Free Online Store Builders in India: The Hidden Cost of Transaction Fees","content_html":"You sell Banarasi and georgette sarees from Surat, and you opened your store on a free plan because ₹0 a month felt like the safe choice. Six months later you are doing ₹1.5 lakh a month in sales, and the platform is taking 5% plus ₹3 on every order, plus GST on that fee. On 150 orders of ₹1,000 that is ₹9,381 this month, more than many flat-priced plans cost, and it goes up every time you have a good month.
\nThat is the hidden cost of a free online store builder in India: most of them do not charge you a monthly fee, they charge you a percentage of every sale. The fee is either bundled with payment processing (Instamojo's free plan charges 5% + ₹3 per transaction) or added on top of your payment gateway's own charge (Dukaan's service fee, or Shopify's fee for third-party gateways like Razorpay). Some free plans cannot take online payments at all. Below roughly ₹1 to 1.5 lakh a month in sales, a free or fee-based plan is usually cheaper; above that, a flat plan usually wins.
\n\nThere are four common models in India. Knowing which one you are on tells you where the cost is.
\nAll figures are from each provider's official pricing or help pages as of October 2026. Where we could not confirm a plan price on the official page, the table says so rather than guessing.
\n| Platform | Entry cost | Fee on each sale | Gateway fee on top? | Custom domain on entry plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Instamojo Lite | ₹0 a year | 5% + ₹3, plus 18% GST | No, gateway included | No |
| Instamojo Growth | Yearly or monthly subscription (confirm on the page) | 2% + ₹3, plus 18% GST | No, gateway included | Yes |
| Dukaan Free | ₹0 | 4.99% service fee, capped at ₹200 per order | Yes | Yes (FAQ says all plans) |
| Dukaan Starter | ₹2,500 a year (about ₹208 a month) | 3.99% service fee, capped at ₹200 per order | Yes | Yes |
| Shopify Basic (India) | ₹1,994 a month after the ₹20 introductory months | 2% with Razorpay or another third-party gateway | Yes | Yes |
| Wix Free | ₹0 | Cannot take online payments | Not applicable | No (wixsite.com address) |
| Selzix | 14-day free trial, then one flat plan (current price) | 0% Selzix fee | Yes, your own Razorpay | Yes |
Two notes on reading this. Instamojo's plan cards and its feature comparison table showed different subscription prices for its paid plans when we checked, which is why the table above gives only the fees for those plans. And the percentage that matters is the one you will be on: if you start on a free plan and upgrade to cut the fee, add the new subscription to your comparison.
\n\nHere is the total monthly cost of taking orders for the Surat seller at four sales levels. Assumptions: a ₹1,000 average order, every order paid online, Razorpay at 2% + 18% GST on the fee (2.36% in total) wherever the platform does not include its own gateway, and Selzix at its regular ₹5,000 a month. Dukaan Starter's ₹2,500 yearly price is spread as ₹208 a month. Dukaan's ₹200 per-order cap does not come into play at a ₹1,000 order (it starts to bite above about ₹4,008 an order on Free and ₹5,013 on Starter), and Dukaan's page does not say whether GST is added to the service fee, so none is included here.
\n| Monthly sales | Instamojo Lite (5% + ₹3 + GST) | Dukaan Free (4.99% + gateway) | Dukaan Starter (₹208 + 3.99% + gateway) | Shopify Basic (₹1,994 + 2% + gateway) | Selzix (₹5,000 + gateway) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ₹50,000 (50 orders) | ₹3,127 | ₹3,675 | ₹3,383 | ₹4,174 | ₹6,180 |
| ₹1,50,000 (150 orders) | ₹9,381 | ₹11,025 | ₹9,733 | ₹8,534 | ₹8,540 |
| ₹3,00,000 (300 orders) | ₹18,762 | ₹22,050 | ₹19,258 | ₹15,074 | ₹12,080 |
| ₹5,00,000 (500 orders) | ₹31,270 | ₹36,750 | ₹31,958 | ₹23,794 | ₹16,800 |
How the ₹1,50,000 row is worked out:
\nSubscription figures are as listed by each provider; check whether GST is added at checkout, as it is for most software subscriptions in India.
\n\nWith these assumptions, Instamojo Lite costs 6.25% of sales (5.3% including the ₹3 per ₹1,000 order, plus GST). Selzix plus Razorpay costs ₹5,000 plus 2.36% of sales. The two meet where 3.89% of sales equals ₹5,000, which is about ₹1.28 lakh a month. Dukaan Free and Selzix both pay Razorpay, so they meet where Dukaan's 4.99% fee reaches ₹5,000: about ₹1 lakh a month. Dukaan Starter's 3.99% has to cover ₹4,792 (₹5,000 less its ₹208), which happens at about ₹1.2 lakh a month. Shopify Basic and Selzix meet where the 2% third-party fee covers the ₹3,006 difference in subscription, at about ₹1.5 lakh a month, which is why that row is a near tie.
\nBelow those levels, the free or cheaper plan genuinely costs less, and you should use it. Above them, every extra rupee of sales costs you a fee a flat plan does not charge. If a lower offer price is live on the Selzix pricing page when you read this, the break-even falls further; the regular price is used here so the arithmetic stays true after any offer ends.
\n\n\n\nFor a wider view of payment costs, see our explainer on selling online in India without transaction fees.
\n\nWhen you are testing demand. If you are doing a few orders a week, under roughly ₹1 lakh a month, a fee-based plan costs less than any flat subscription and lets you find out whether people will buy from a link at all. It also makes sense if you want payments bundled and do not want to apply for your own gateway yet.
\nThe time to compare again is when the monthly fee on your dashboard approaches what a flat plan costs, or when you need a custom domain, more product photos or your own gateway. Run the table above with your real average order value and sales, not ours.
\n\nSelzix does not have a free plan. It has a 14-day free trial with no card required, and then one flat plan for the whole store, paid upfront for a month or a year. Nothing renews automatically. The regular India price is ₹5,000 a month or ₹50,000 a year; any current offer is shown on the India pricing page.
\nSelzix charges no transaction fee. Indian stores connect their own Razorpay account (or Stripe), offer direct UPI to their own UPI ID, or enable cash on delivery with order limits and an optional fee, and payments settle to the seller's account. Custom domains with SSL, eight brand kits, GST tax invoices with HSN codes, Shiprocket and Delhivery integration, coupons, reviews and analytics are included in the same plan.
\nWhat it does not remove, and where it is weaker:
\nPlatform-by-platform detail is on the Selzix vs Dukaan and Selzix vs Shopify pages.
\n\nThere are store builders with ₹0 plans, such as Instamojo Lite and Dukaan Free, but they charge a fee on each sale (as of October 2026, 5% + ₹3 plus GST on Instamojo Lite, and a 4.99% service fee plus your gateway's charges on Dukaan Free). Wix's free plan has no fee but cannot take online payments. Every option costs something once you start selling.
A gateway fee is what Razorpay or another processor charges to move the money, 2% plus GST at Razorpay's standard rate. A platform transaction or service fee is what the store builder charges on top. Some platforms bundle both into one fee; others charge the platform fee separately, so you pay both.
If you use a third-party payment provider such as Razorpay, yes. Shopify's India pricing page lists 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced, in addition to your gateway's own fee.
With a ₹1,000 average order and Razorpay as the gateway, a ₹5,000 flat plan beats Dukaan Free above about ₹1 lakh of monthly sales, Dukaan Starter above about ₹1.2 lakh, Instamojo Lite above about ₹1.28 lakh and Shopify Basic with Razorpay above about ₹1.5 lakh. Redo the calculation with your own order value and fees.
Want to see the numbers on your own store? Start a 14-day free trial. No card needed.
","summary":"A ₹0 plan with a 5% + ₹3 fee costs ₹9,381 a month at ₹1.5 lakh in sales. Here is what each free store builder really charges, and where a flat plan wins.","date_published":"2026-09-19T05:39:14.126Z","date_modified":"2026-10-24T07:19:51.736Z","authors":[{"name":"Selzix Team"}]},{"id":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/turn-instagram-followers-into-customers","url":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/turn-instagram-followers-into-customers","title":"How to Turn Instagram Followers Into Paying Customers (Not Just Likes)","content_html":"Followers are attention, not revenue. Plenty of accounts with tens of thousands of followers sell less than a smaller account with a real path from \"interested\" to \"checked out.\" The gap is almost always friction, not lack of demand.
\nA follower who likes your post still has to find the product, DM you, wait for a reply, confirm price and availability, and then figure out how to pay. Every one of those steps loses people — not because they didn't want it, but because wanting it wasn't enough to push through the friction.
\nInstagram is where people discover you. It was never meant to be where they complete a purchase — DMs and comments are too slow and too manual for that job. Give your following a fast, obvious path to buy, and the same audience starts converting differently.
\nA Selzix store gives you one link for your bio that leads straight to a real storefront, tracks which products and traffic sources actually convert, and lets customers check out without a single DM.
\nReady to give your followers somewhere to actually buy? Start your free 14-day trial — no card required.
","summary":"A big following doesn't automatically mean big sales. Here's why the gap exists, and five practical ways to close it.","date_published":"2026-09-19T05:39:11.596Z","date_modified":"2026-09-19T06:40:24.256Z","authors":[{"name":"Selzix Team"}]},{"id":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/product-descriptions-that-sell","url":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/product-descriptions-that-sell","title":"How to Write Product Descriptions That Sell (Not Just Instagram Captions)","content_html":"If your store's product pages were imported straight from Instagram, chances are your \"descriptions\" are still captions — a few hashtags, an emoji row, and a price. That worked when the post's job was just to stop a scroll. A product page has a different job: answer the hesitation that's stopping someone from buying right now.
\nA caption assumes context the viewer already has — they saw your Reels, they know your brand voice, they trust you from following along. A stranger landing on a product page from a Google search or an ad has none of that. Hashtags and emojis don't answer \"will this fit me\" or \"how long will delivery take.\"
\nBefore: \"Obsessed 😍🔥 grab yours before they're gone #newdrop #musthave\"
\nAfter: \"A relaxed-fit cotton kurta made for daily wear — soft, breathable, and true to size. Available in 4 colors, ships in 2-3 days, COD available.\"
\nReal descriptions with real words are also what Google actually indexes. A page full of emojis and hashtags has almost nothing for search to match against — one clear paragraph can bring in search traffic a caption never could.
\nYou don't need to rewrite everything at once. Start with your 10 best-selling products — they get the most traffic, so they're where a better description pays off fastest.
\nImporting from Instagram and want to clean up descriptions in one place? Start your free 14-day trial — no card required.
","summary":"An Instagram caption is written to stop a scroll. A product description has to answer questions and close a sale. Here's the difference, and a formula that works.","date_published":"2026-09-19T05:39:09.117Z","date_modified":"2026-09-19T06:40:21.908Z","authors":[{"name":"Selzix Team"}]},{"id":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/shiprocket-vs-local-pickup","url":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/shiprocket-vs-local-pickup","title":"Shiprocket vs Local Pickup: Choosing the Right Shipping Strategy for Your Store","content_html":"Shipping is one of the few decisions that's genuinely reversible — you can start one way and switch as your order pattern becomes clear. The mistake is picking based on ambition instead of your actual first 100 orders.
\nIf most of your orders come from your own city or a tight local audience, pickup (or hand delivery) keeps costs near zero and lets you skip courier delays entirely. It also works well while you're still validating demand and don't want to commit to packaging and courier contracts yet.
\nOnce orders start coming from outside your immediate area, pickup stops scaling — you can't personally deliver to another state. A network like Shiprocket plugs your store into multiple courier partners, gives customers tracking, and handles pan-India delivery without you negotiating rates yourself.
\nLocal pickup is cheaper per order, but it caps your addressable market to people near you. A courier network costs more per shipment but removes that ceiling entirely. Most sellers underestimate how much demand exists outside their city until shipping stops being the blocker.
\nOffer pickup for nearby customers as a free, faster option, and courier shipping for everyone else. This keeps your local margin high while still capturing orders you'd otherwise turn away.
\nSelzix stores support Shiprocket integration for pan-India delivery and local pickup as a toggle — so you're not locked into one model, and can offer both at checkout without any extra setup work.
\nReady to offer both without the manual work? Start your free 14-day trial — no card required.
","summary":"Pan-India courier network or local pickup — the right shipping strategy depends less on ambition and more on where your customers actually are today.","date_published":"2026-09-19T05:39:06.557Z","date_modified":"2026-09-19T06:40:19.670Z","authors":[{"name":"Selzix Team"}]},{"id":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/signs-time-to-launch-online-store","url":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/signs-time-to-launch-online-store","title":"5 Signs It's Time to Move Your Instagram Shop to a Real Website","content_html":"There's no single \"you've outgrown Instagram\" moment — it's usually a few small frictions that quietly pile up. Here's how to tell the pile has gotten big enough to act on.
\nIf a customer messages at 11pm and orders elsewhere by morning because nobody replied, that's not a one-off — it's a structural leak that only gets worse as your following grows.
\nIf \"who bought from us before\" lives only in your memory or a scattered chat history, you can't target your best customers with anything — no repeat-purchase nudges, no loyalty offers, nothing.
\nSending paid traffic to a DM or a profile page loses most of it before a sale happens. Ads work when they land on a page built to convert, with checkout one tap away.
\nConfirming payments by screenshot, tracking orders in a notes app, replying to \"is this available\" for the fifth time today — none of that scales past you personally.
\nA temporary restriction, a hacked account, or an algorithm change to how Shops surface — any of these can take your whole storefront down with it, because you never owned the infrastructure underneath it.
\nYou don't have to leave Instagram — you need a destination for it to point to. Importing your existing catalog into a real store takes under an hour and gives every one of these five problems a fix: automated checkout, order history, ad-ready landing pages, and a business that isn't one notification away from falling apart.
\nSee exactly how the switch works in our step-by-step guide, or start your free 14-day trial — no card required.
","summary":"Instagram got you your first customers. Here are five clear signs that it's now the bottleneck holding your business back from its next stage of growth.","date_published":"2026-09-19T05:39:03.276Z","date_modified":"2026-09-19T06:40:16.066Z","authors":[{"name":"Selzix Team"}]},{"id":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/reduce-cart-abandonment-d2c-india","url":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/reduce-cart-abandonment-d2c-india","title":"How to Reduce Cart Abandonment in India: Checkout Fixes for D2C Brands","content_html":"You sell cold-pressed hair oil from Coimbatore at ₹449 a bottle. Last month your store recorded 1,200 add-to-carts and 312 paid orders. The other 888 carts were left behind, and at checkout most of those shoppers saw something they did not expect: a ₹79 delivery charge, a missing COD option, or a UPI payment that failed and left them unsure whether they had been debited.
\nTo reduce cart abandonment in India, show the full price including delivery before checkout, keep the checkout form to about eight fields, offer UPI, cards and cash on delivery side by side, explain what happens when a UPI payment fails, and send a reminder within hours to shoppers who left and agreed to hear from you. Some abandonment is normal: Baymard Institute's average across 50 studies is about 70%, so the goal is to cut the avoidable part, not reach zero.
\n\nBaymard Institute's cart abandonment benchmark puts the documented average online cart abandonment rate at 70.22%, calculated from 50 studies. The same page reports that 42% of US online shoppers had abandoned a cart because they were just browsing or not ready to buy. Those carts were never going to convert on that visit, whatever you change.
\nSo a 70% figure on your dashboard is not an emergency. What matters is where in the funnel people drop and whether that drop is something you control. Here is the hair-oil store's month, split into steps:
\n| Funnel step | Count | Drop from previous step |
|---|---|---|
| Product page views | 6,500 | |
| Added to cart | 1,200 | 81.5% did not add |
| Started checkout | 640 | 46.7% left from the cart |
| Paid orders | 312 | 51.3% left during checkout |
Cart abandonment here is 1 − (312 ÷ 1,200) = 74%. But the two drops point to different problems. Shoppers who leave from the cart are usually reacting to price, delivery charge or delivery time. Shoppers who leave after starting checkout are more often stuck on the form, the payment step or trust. Fixing the wrong one wastes a month.
\n\nBaymard's shopper survey, which excludes the just-browsing group, lists these reasons. The right-hand column is what each one usually looks like on an Indian D2C store.
\n| Reason (Baymard) | Share | What it looks like in India |
|---|---|---|
| Extra costs too high (shipping, tax, fees) | 40% | Delivery or COD fee appears only at the last step |
| Delivery too slow | 20% | No delivery estimate, or \"5–10 days\" with no PIN-code check |
| Didn't trust the site with card details | 19% | Unfamiliar brand, no contact details, no reviews |
| Site required account creation | 18% | Forced sign-up or OTP wall before the address step |
| Checkout too long or complicated | 17% | Separate fields for flat, building, street, area, landmark, city, district |
| Website errors or crashes | 17% | Payment page times out on a weak mobile connection |
| Unsatisfactory returns policy | 13% | Returns policy missing or hidden in the footer |
| Couldn't see total cost upfront | 12% | Price shown before delivery and COD fees are added |
| Card declined | 10% | Failed card or UPI payment with no clear retry |
| Not enough payment methods | 9% | No COD, or UPI hidden behind \"other methods\" |
The survey is not India-specific, so treat the shares as a ranking rather than your numbers. The top of the list holds anywhere: surprise costs beat everything else by a wide margin.
\n\nIf the hair oil is ₹449 on the product page and ₹528 at the payment step, the shopper has just seen a 17.6% price rise (₹79 ÷ ₹449). That is the moment many of them close the tab.
\nYou have three honest options:
\n| Option | Product page shows | Customer pays (1 bottle) | Effect on you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delivery added at checkout | ₹449 | ₹528 | Covers delivery, but the jump comes as a surprise |
| Delivery stated on product page | ₹449 + ₹79 delivery | ₹528 | Same money, no surprise |
| Price includes delivery | ₹499, free delivery | ₹499 | You absorb ₹25 if your average courier cost is ₹75 |
| Free above ₹799 | ₹449, free delivery on 2 bottles | ₹898 for 2 | You absorb delivery only on bigger baskets |
The ₹75 average courier cost comes from the zone mix in our shipping charges guide, which also shows how to set a free-shipping threshold that pays for itself. Whichever you pick, the number on the product page and the number at payment should match, or the gap should be explained before the buyer reaches checkout.
\n\nBaymard's checkout form-field benchmark found the average checkout had 11.3 form fields in 2024, down from 11.8 in 2021, and that most sites need only 8. For a domestic Indian order, those 8 are roughly: name, mobile number, email (optional if you confirm by SMS or WhatsApp), PIN code, address line 1, address line 2 or landmark, city and state.
\nIndian buyers expect to see UPI, cards and cash on delivery together. If UPI is buried under \"more payment options\", or COD only appears after the address step, some buyers assume it is not offered.
\nFailed payments deserve their own plan. When a UPI payment fails after the buyer's account is debited, the buyer's first worry is whether they have lost the money. The RBI's circular on turnaround time for failed transactions (20 September 2019) says that when an account is debited but the merchant does not receive confirmation, the payment must be auto-reversed within T+5 days, with ₹100 a day in compensation for delay beyond that. Put a plain line on your payment-failed page: \"If money left your account, it will be returned automatically within 5 working days under RBI rules. You can retry now or choose cash on delivery.\" A buyer who knows they will get their money back is far more likely to retry.
\nIf you take payment through your own UPI ID or QR rather than a gateway, you have to check each payment against your bank statement yourself. Our comparison of direct UPI and a payment gateway covers that trade-off.
\n\nRemoving COD to avoid returns usually costs more carts than it saves. The better move is to make COD's cost visible and give prepaid buyers a reason to switch. On Shiprocket's Lite plan, Delhivery Surface charges a COD fee of ₹52 or 3.3% of order value, whichever is higher (per Shiprocket's rate card, read 19 October 2026, before GST).
\n| ₹528 order | COD, no fee to buyer | COD with ₹30 fee shown | Prepaid with ₹20 off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buyer pays | ₹528 | ₹558 | ₹508 |
| Courier COD fee | ₹52 | ₹52 | ₹0 |
| Gateway fee (2% + 18% GST on the fee) | ₹0 | ₹0 | ₹11.99 |
| You keep before product and freight | ₹476 | ₹506 | ₹496.01 |
The gateway line uses Razorpay's standard 2% platform fee plus 18% GST on that fee: ₹508 × 2% = ₹10.16, plus ₹1.83 GST. The prepaid order earns ₹20 more than plain COD and carries no refusal risk. State the COD fee on the product page, not as a surprise at payment, or you have just recreated Fix 1's problem. Our cash on delivery guide covers order limits and fake-order filters.
\n\nSlow delivery (20%), distrust (19%) and returns policy (13%) are all answered with information, not technology:
\nA reminder only works if you know who the shopper was and have permission to contact them. If they signed in or entered a phone number before leaving, a short reminder within a few hours, and perhaps a second the next day, recovers some carts that were interrupted rather than rejected.
\n\nIs it worth it? Here is an illustration for the hair-oil store. The 30% reachable share, 8% recovery and ₹1.20 per message (Meta's charge plus a provider fee) are assumptions, not benchmarks. Put your own numbers in.
\n| Step | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Abandoned carts | 1,200 − 312 | 888 |
| Reachable with consent | 888 × 30% | 266 |
| Messages sent (2 each) | 266 × 2 | 532 |
| Message cost | 532 × ₹1.20 | ₹638 |
| Orders recovered | 266 × 8% | 21 |
| Revenue recovered | 21 × ₹528 | ₹11,088 |
Even at half that recovery rate, the reminders cover their cost several times over. Skip the discount in the first reminder. A shopper who learns that leaving a cart triggers a coupon will start doing it on purpose.
\n\nChange one thing at a time and compare two comparable weeks. Festival weeks and payday weeks distort everything.
\n\nSelzix's analytics show the funnel from product views to cart, checkout and paid orders, with traffic and sales split by source, device, country and product, so you can see which step is leaking. You can also add Google Analytics and Meta Pixel from store settings.
\nAt checkout, Indian stores can connect their own Razorpay account, offer direct UPI with their own UPI ID or QR, or enable cash on delivery with order limits and an optional fee. Delivery charges can be flat, free, or free above an order value, with PIN-code delivery zones, and coupons, automatic offers and customer-specific offers are built in. Buyers get an order-tracking page.
\nSelzix sends staged abandoned-cart reminders and tracks recovered orders. The limits matter: recovery currently covers eligible signed-in customers only, so a guest who leaves without signing in cannot be reminded. Notification channels depend on your configuration, the buyer's contact details and approved message templates. Direct UPI payments are not verified automatically; you confirm each one from Orders. Full details are on the features page and the Selzix India page.
\n\nThere is no reliable India-specific benchmark. Baymard's documented global average is 70.22%. Track your own rate month to month and split it into cart-to-checkout and checkout-to-payment drops, which tell you more than the headline figure.
Usually not at first. Keep COD, show any COD fee upfront, set an order-value limit, and offer a small prepaid discount. Then compare refusal rates and conversion before deciding whether to restrict COD further.
Within a few hours, while the shopper still remembers the product, with an optional second reminder the next day. Send only to shoppers who gave consent, and stop after two or three messages.
Under the RBI's 2019 turnaround-time circular, a failed merchant payment must be auto-reversed within T+5 days, with ₹100 a day of compensation for delay beyond that. Check your gateway dashboard to confirm the payment did not succeed, then offer a retry or cash on delivery.
Want to see where your own checkout loses buyers? Start a 14-day free trial. No card needed.
","summary":"A ₹449 bottle becomes ₹528 at checkout and the cart is gone. Here is how Indian D2C stores cut avoidable abandonment, with Baymard data and worked numbers.","date_published":"2026-09-19T05:39:00.723Z","date_modified":"2026-10-24T07:16:50.577Z","authors":[{"name":"Selzix Team"}]},{"id":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/direct-upi-vs-payment-gateway","url":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/direct-upi-vs-payment-gateway","title":"Direct UPI vs Payment Gateway: Which Should Your Online Store Use?","content_html":"Meera sells block-print bedsheets from Jaipur. Her average order is ₹1,450 and she ships about 150 a month, roughly ₹2,17,500 in sales. Buyers pay to her UPI QR, send a screenshot, and she checks her bank app before packing. She pays no fee. If she moved to Razorpay at its standard rate, she would pay ₹5,133 a month.
\nSo which should an online store use, direct UPI or a payment gateway? Direct UPI costs nothing in fees but every payment has to be checked by hand, and buyers can only pay by UPI. A gateway such as Razorpay charges 2% plus GST but confirms each payment automatically against the order and adds cards, netbanking and wallets. Direct UPI suits low volumes where you can check every payment yourself. A gateway pays for itself once manual checking starts costing you hours, mistakes or buyers who wanted another way to pay. Many stores run both.
\n\nWith direct UPI, the buyer pays straight into your bank account using your UPI ID or QR code. The money is yours instantly, but the payment happens outside your store. Your store does not know it arrived until you look.
\nWith a payment gateway, the buyer pays inside your checkout. The gateway tells your store the payment succeeded, marks the order paid and settles the money to your bank later, minus its fee.
\n| Direct UPI (your UPI ID or QR) | Payment gateway (e.g. Razorpay) | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Minutes, with any bank account and UPI app | Account activation with business documents and website checks |
| Fee per order | ₹0 today | 2% + 18% GST on the fee (standard Razorpay plan) |
| Payment confirmation | Manual: you check your bank app | Automatic, matched to the order |
| Payment methods | UPI only | UPI, cards, netbanking, wallets |
| When money arrives | Instantly | T+2 working days by default on Razorpay |
| Refunds | You send the money back from your UPI app | Issued from the gateway or your store dashboard |
| Payment record | Your bank statement and screenshots | A transaction record per order |
Razorpay's settlement docs give the default domestic cycle as T+2 working days from capture. Activation is its own small project; our Razorpay activation checklist covers the documents and website checks.
\n\nRazorpay's pricing page lists a standard platform fee of 2% per successful transaction on domestic instruments, with no setup or annual fee, plus 18% GST on the fee. It states that UPI itself carries zero MDR and that the 2% applies as a platform fee. So UPI paid through Razorpay costs the same 2% as a card.
\nOn Meera's ₹1,450 order:
\n| Line | Calculation | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Razorpay fee | 2% × ₹1,450 | ₹29.00 |
| GST on the fee | 18% × ₹29.00 | ₹5.22 |
| Total per order | 2.36% of the order | ₹34.22 |
| Per month | 150 × ₹34.22 | ₹5,133 |
If you are GST-registered, the GST on gateway fees is a business input and can usually be claimed as input tax credit; confirm with your accountant. Our GST guide for online sellers covers when registration applies.
\n\nFor now, receiving UPI into your own account costs nothing. That is changing for some merchants. NPCI's FAQ on UPI merchant discount rate, dated 15 September 2026, sets out the framework:
\nWhat it would mean for Meera: her ₹2,17,500 a month is above the P2PM limit, so after three months she would count as a P2M merchant. Most of her orders are under ₹2,000 and stay free. Say 25 orders a month are ₹2,400 king-size sets. At 0.4%, each pays ₹9.60, or ₹240 a month in total. The same 25 orders through Razorpay cost ₹56.64 each. Even with MDR, direct UPI stays far cheaper on fees.
\n\nThe real cost of direct UPI is the checking. For each order Meera has to:
\nCall it two minutes an order when it goes smoothly. At 150 orders that is 5 hours a month; at 500 orders it is nearly 17. The bigger risks are the ones that do not go smoothly:
\nEach slip has a price. If Meera ships a ₹1,450 bedsheet against a payment that never arrived, she loses the product and the shipping, not 2.36% of the order.
\n\nFees and checking time both grow with orders, so the comparison is the same at any volume:
\n| Orders a month (₹1,450 average) | Monthly sales | Razorpay cost incl. GST | Checking time at 2 min/order |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 | ₹43,500 | ₹1,026.60 | 1 hour |
| 150 | ₹2,17,500 | ₹5,133.00 | 5 hours |
| 500 | ₹7,25,000 | ₹17,110.00 | 16.7 hours |
At every row the gateway costs about ₹1,027 for each hour of checking it saves. Whether that is worth it depends on what else you would do with the hour, and on two things the table cannot show.
\nExtra paid orders. Say Meera keeps ₹600 per bedsheet after product cost and shipping. After the ₹34.22 fee, a gateway order leaves ₹565.78. To cover ₹5,133 a month, the gateway has to bring ₹5,133 ÷ ₹565.78 = 9.1, so 10 extra paid orders out of 150. Those come from buyers who wanted to pay by card, buyers who abandoned at the UPI step, and buyers who did not trust sending money to a personal QR.
\nMistakes avoided. One shipped order with no payment behind it costs more than a month of fees on dozens of orders.
\nIf you run ads, weight this heavily. A paid click that reaches a checkout where it can pay and be confirmed immediately is worth more than one that has to send you a screenshot.
\n\nCOD sits alongside either. Our cash on delivery guide works through what it costs and how to limit it.
\n\nStores on Selzix that sell in Indian rupees can connect their own Razorpay account for online payments and manage supported refunds from the Selzix dashboard. They can also offer direct UPI using their own UPI ID or QR, and cash on delivery with order limits and an optional fee. If you prefer, you can connect your own Stripe account instead for cards and wallets. Payments settle to your own gateway or bank account, and Selzix charges no transaction fee on any method. Gateway fees are billed by the gateway.
\nBe clear on one limit: direct UPI is not automatically verified. Selzix cannot see your bank account, so you review each direct UPI payment and confirm it yourself in Orders, exactly as in the checklist above. If you want payments confirmed without manual checks, use Razorpay. The full payments list is on the features page and the India setup is at selzix.com/in. If you are comparing platforms that add their own fee on top of the gateway, see Selzix vs Shopify.
\n\nYes. As of October 2026, Razorpay's standard plan charges a 2% platform fee per successful domestic transaction, UPI included, plus 18% GST on the fee. Razorpay notes that UPI itself has zero MDR; the 2% is its own fee.
Only to merchant UPI payments above ₹2,000, at 0.4% capped at ₹300, and only once NPCI announces the start date after Diwali 2026. Payments up to ₹2,000, person-to-person transfers and small P2PM merchants receiving up to ₹1 lakh a month stay at zero.
Check the credit in your own bank app or statement and match the amount, time and 12-digit UPI reference to the order. Do not rely on a screenshot sent by the buyer.
Yes, many stores offer both, along with COD. The gateway handles buyers who want automatic confirmation or cards, and direct UPI suits regulars who prefer paying from their own app.
Want Razorpay, direct UPI and COD in one store with no transaction fee from us? Start a 14-day free trial. No card needed.
","summary":"Direct UPI costs ₹0. Razorpay costs ₹34.22 on a ₹1,450 order. Here is what manual checking really costs, what NPCI's new UPI MDR changes, and when to switch.","date_published":"2026-09-19T05:38:58.666Z","date_modified":"2026-10-24T08:02:09.740Z","authors":[{"name":"Selzix Team"}]},{"id":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/cash-on-delivery-guide-for-indian-sellers","url":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/cash-on-delivery-guide-for-indian-sellers","title":"Cash on Delivery in India: What COD Really Costs and How to Offer It Safely","content_html":"Ayesha sells hand-embroidered chikankari kurtis from Lucknow at ₹899 each. Six of every ten buyers choose cash on delivery. On paper each COD order is a ₹899 sale. In practice a delivered COD order costs her ₹123 in courier charges before GST, and a COD order the buyer refuses costs ₹142 and brings back a kurti she has to re-pack and re-list.
\nSo should an Indian online store offer cash on delivery? For most small sellers, yes: many buyers will not pay upfront to a brand they have just found on Instagram. But COD is not free money. It carries a courier COD fee, return-to-origin (RTO) freight in both directions, and a cash delay of about eight working days. Price those in, put limits on COD, and confirm risky orders before they ship, and COD stays profitable.
\n\nThree charges sit on every COD order that a prepaid order does not carry in the same way.
\nCompare that with a prepaid order. Razorpay's pricing page lists a standard fee of 2% per successful domestic transaction, including UPI, plus 18% GST on that fee. On a ₹899 kurti that is ₹17.98 plus ₹3.24 GST, or ₹21.22.
\n\nAyesha's parcels weigh under 0.5 kg in a mailer, and most travel outside Uttar Pradesh, which Shiprocket bills as Zone D (rest of India). Delhivery Surface on Lite charges ₹71 for the first 0.5 kg to Zone D. Courier figures are before GST; the Razorpay figure includes GST on the fee.
\n| Outcome | Freight | COD fee | Gateway fee | Total cost | Sale? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prepaid, delivered | ₹71 | ₹0 | ₹21.22 | ₹92.22 | Yes |
| COD, delivered | ₹71 | ₹52 | ₹0 | ₹123.00 | Yes |
| COD, refused (RTO) | ₹71 out + ₹71 back | ₹0 (reversed) | ₹0 | ₹142.00 | No |
The fixed fee is what makes COD expensive on low-value orders. ₹52 is 5.8% of an ₹899 kurti. The 3.3% rate only takes over at ₹52 ÷ 0.033 = ₹1,576, so below that every COD order pays the full ₹52. Shiprocket's passbook explainer confirms the COD fee is reversed when a shipment goes RTO, which is why the refused row shows ₹0 for it.
\n\nOne order tells you little. Take Ayesha's month: 100 orders, 40 prepaid and 60 COD. Say 1 in 5 COD orders comes back. That is an example, not an industry benchmark; your own RTO rate is in your courier or aggregator dashboard. Assume each kurti costs her ₹400 to make, so a delivered order earns ₹499 before shipping and fees.
\n| Line | 20% COD RTO | 10% COD RTO |
|---|---|---|
| Prepaid delivered (40 × ₹92.22) | ₹3,688.80 | ₹3,688.80 |
| COD delivered | 48 × ₹123 = ₹5,904 | 54 × ₹123 = ₹6,642 |
| COD refused | 12 × ₹142 = ₹1,704 | 6 × ₹142 = ₹852 |
| Total shipping and fees | ₹11,296.80 | ₹11,182.80 |
| Delivered orders | 88 | 94 |
| Cost per delivered order | ₹128.37 | ₹118.97 |
| Margin (delivered × ₹499 − costs) | ₹32,615.20 | ₹35,723.20 |
Halving the RTO rate is worth ₹3,108 a month to her, and six more happy customers. It does not show up as a saving on any one invoice, which is why so many sellers never measure it. The table also leaves out the re-packing time, damaged returns and the stock that sat in transit for a week instead of being sold to someone else.
\n\nUsually not, and the arithmetic shows why. If Ayesha switched COD off, her 40 prepaid buyers stay and some of the 60 COD buyers pay online instead. The rest leave. A prepaid order earns her ₹499 − ₹92.22 = ₹406.78.
\nRun the same sum with your own numbers. Turning COD off makes sense if your RTO rate is very high, your products are expensive or fragile, or your buyers are mostly repeat customers who already trust you. For a new brand selling sub-₹1,500 products to first-time buyers, it rarely does. The better move is to keep COD and make it harder to abuse.
\n\nA refused COD parcel is rarely fraud in the dramatic sense. The common causes are ordinary:
\nWhen a courier cannot deliver, Shiprocket raises a non-delivery report (NDR). Its support page lists three responses: reattempt delivery, contact the buyer to fix the problem, or start the return to origin. Each of the tactics below aims at one of those causes.
\n\nA refused ₹4,500 order ties up more stock and carries a bigger COD fee (3.3% of ₹4,500 is ₹148.50) than a refused ₹899 one. Many sellers allow COD only below a set order value and ask for prepaid above it. Start with a ceiling around two to three times your average order and adjust once you see your RTO by order size.
\nA ₹49 COD fee recovers almost all of the courier's ₹52 on Ayesha's delivered COD orders: 48 × ₹49 = ₹2,352 a month in the 20% RTO case. It also filters out some casual orders. Show it on the product page or in the delivery information, not as a surprise on the last checkout step; our cart abandonment guide explains why late surprises lose orders.
\nA short call or WhatsApp message before you pack catches wrong numbers and cold feet while the parcel is still on your shelf. You do not need to confirm every order. Confirm first-time buyers, orders near your COD ceiling, and multiple units of the same item. If nobody answers after two tries, hold the order rather than shipping it into an RTO.
\nOnce an NDR appears, the parcel is still recoverable. Call the buyer, fix the address or phone number, and request a reattempt. An RTO you prevent saves the ₹71 return freight and keeps the sale. Make the NDR list part of your morning routine, not something you check at month end.
\nAsk for a landmark, check that the PIN code matches the city, and make the phone number required. A courier who can find the house and reach the buyer on the first attempt is the cheapest RTO prevention you have.
\nThe COD fee is one reason. Faster dispatch for prepaid orders is another, and so is simply making UPI the first option at checkout. If you are weighing how to take online payments in the first place, we compared the two main routes in direct UPI vs payment gateway.
\nA buyer who has refused two COD parcels is a pattern. Check the customer's order history before you confirm their next COD order, and ask for prepaid if the history is poor.
\n\n\n\nIndian stores on Selzix can enable cash on delivery or cash at pickup, with order limits and an optional fee, alongside Razorpay or direct UPI using your own UPI ID or QR. That covers the first two tactics above directly: set a COD order limit and add a COD fee from your payment settings. Selzix charges no transaction fee on any of these methods; courier, gateway and COD charges are billed by those providers, not by Selzix.
\nYou can connect Shiprocket or Delhivery for labels, pickup and tracking, or use any courier and add the tracking number to the order. Buyers follow their parcel on an order-tracking page, and you can see each customer's order history in the dashboard.
\nThe limits are worth stating plainly. Selzix does not phone or message buyers to confirm COD orders for you, does not score orders for RTO risk, and does not manage NDRs; those happen in your courier or aggregator panel. COD remittance follows your courier's cycle. The full list of payment and delivery tools is on our features page, and the India setup is summarised at selzix.com/in. If you are comparing builders on per-order fees, see Selzix vs Dukaan.
\n\nFor most new stores selling to first-time buyers, yes. Run the break-even sum above with your own margin: unless most of your COD buyers would pay online if COD disappeared, switching it off loses more in sales than it saves in fees and RTO.
Usually a fixed fee or a percentage of the order value, whichever is higher. As of October 2026, Shiprocket's Lite plan with Delhivery Surface lists ₹52 or 3.3%, before GST. Paid plans and other couriers differ, so check the rate card in your own account.
Many Indian sellers add a small COD fee. Show it clearly before the buyer places the order, ideally on the product page or delivery information, so the total at checkout is no surprise.
There is no single benchmark that holds across categories, regions and price points. Track your own RTO rate by payment method and order value for a month, then measure whether each change, such as a COD limit or confirmation calls, moves it.
After the courier or aggregator remits it. Shiprocket documents a D+8 working-day processing time with credits on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Prepaid payments through Razorpay settle on a T+2 working-day cycle by default.
Want COD limits, a COD fee, Razorpay and UPI in one store? Start a 14-day free trial. No card needed.
","summary":"A ₹899 kurti sent COD costs ₹123 to deliver and ₹142 if it comes back unsold. Here is the arithmetic, and how to keep COD without paying for fake orders.","date_published":"2026-09-19T05:38:56.222Z","date_modified":"2026-10-24T08:01:26.432Z","authors":[{"name":"Selzix Team"}]},{"id":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/turn-instagram-shop-into-online-store","url":"https://selzix-blog.selzix.com/blog/turn-instagram-shop-into-online-store","title":"How to Turn Your Instagram Shop Into an Online Store (2026 Guide for Indian Sellers)","content_html":"You sell hand-embroidered chikankari kurtas from Lucknow on Instagram. About 40 orders a month at ₹1,450 each, every one of them closed in DMs: a \"price?\" comment, a size chart sent as an image, a UPI QR, a payment screenshot, then an address typed out by hand. It works, but each order takes four or five messages, and you only find out how many buyers drifted off when you scroll back through the inbox.
\nTurning an Instagram shop into an online store means moving that checkout off DMs and onto a website you control. You list your products on the site with prices, sizes and stock, connect a payment method (a gateway like Razorpay, direct UPI or cash on delivery), set delivery charges, and put the store link in your bio so buyers can order without messaging you. Instagram stays your shop window; the website takes the order and the payment. Since September 2025 Meta sends every purchase from Facebook and Instagram Shops to the seller's own website anyway, so a website is no longer optional for selling on Instagram at scale.
\n\nBecause Instagram no longer takes payments for you. Meta's help page on changes to Shops and checkout says that as of September 2025, Shops on Facebook and Instagram use website checkout: buyers can still browse your shop, collections and product pages on Instagram, but they are sent to your own website to complete the purchase. Payment processing, order management, returns and disputes inside Commerce Manager have been discontinued.
\nMeta's commerce eligibility requirements also ask that your Instagram professional account represents your business and your domain: the products it lists must be available to buy directly from your website, you give Meta the domain you sell from, and you may have to verify that you own it.
\nSo the realistic choice for an Indian seller is not \"Instagram shop or website\". It is \"DMs as checkout\" or \"a website as checkout\". Here is how the three set-ups compare.
\n\n| Selling in DMs only | Instagram Shop (Meta) | Your own online store | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the buyer pays | Your UPI ID or QR, sent in chat | On your website (website checkout since September 2025) | On your website |
| Payment confirmation | Buyer's screenshot; you check your bank app | Depends on your website | Gateway confirms automatically; direct UPI still needs a manual check |
| Order record | Chat history | Kept on your website, not in Commerce Manager | Order dashboard |
| Needs a website domain | No | Yes, one you own | Yes (a platform subdomain works to start) |
| Can run ads to a product page | No, ads land in a chat | Yes | Yes |
| Abandoned-cart follow-up | Only if you remember | Depends on your website | Depends on the platform |
| Who keeps the customer list | Your phone | Your website | Your website, exportable |
DMs feel free because no platform takes a cut. The cost shows up as time and as orders that never close. Run the numbers for the Lucknow seller with your own figures in place of these (they are an example, not a benchmark):
\n| Item | Assumption | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Orders closed | 40 at ₹1,450 | ₹58,000 in sales |
| Chat time per closed order | 12 minutes (price, size, payment, address) | 8 hours |
| Enquiries that never pay | 1 in 4 enquiries, 12 minutes each | 13 more enquiries, 2.6 hours |
| Checking UPI screenshots against your bank app | 2 minutes per order | 1.3 hours |
| Total time on order admin | About 12 hours |
If even three of those 13 lost enquiries would have bought from a product page with a \"Buy now\" button, that is ₹4,350 of sales a month. The point of the table is not the exact number. It is that the cost of DMs grows with every order, while the cost of a store is mostly fixed.
\n\n\n\nThese steps apply whichever platform you pick. Budget a weekend for a catalogue of 30 to 60 products.
\n\nInstagram posts are not product listings. Before you import anything, make a simple sheet with one row per product: name, price, sizes or colours, stock, weight and packed box size. Captions often say \"DM for price\" or list three prices for three sizes, and those need to become a fixed price per variant. Drop sold-out one-offs unless you plan to restock them.
\n\nCompare the subscription, any platform fee on each sale, and the payment gateway fee together. A \"free\" plan with a 5% transaction fee costs more than a flat plan once sales grow. We worked through the numbers for Instamojo, Dukaan, Shopify and Wix in the hidden cost of free online store builders.
\n\nSome platforms import posts from a public Instagram profile, others need a CSV or manual entry. Either way, check every product after import: the price, the variant names, the main photo (crop out text overlays from Reels covers) and stock. Then rewrite the caption into a proper description: fabric, fit, care, size guide, delivery time. Buyers who land from an ad will not have seen the caption thread where you answered those questions.
\n\nYou have three options in India, and most stores offer two of them:
\nHere is what the gateway costs on the Lucknow seller's orders:
\n| Razorpay, standard plan | One ₹1,450 order | 40 orders (₹58,000) |
|---|---|---|
| Platform fee at 2% | ₹29.00 | ₹1,160.00 |
| GST at 18% on the fee | ₹5.22 | ₹208.80 |
| Total gateway cost | ₹34.22 | ₹1,368.80 |
| Share of the sale | 2.36% | 2.36% |
You pay this on any platform that uses Razorpay, so treat 2.36% as a cost of selling online and price for it.
\n\nThe most common mistake when leaving DMs is copying the \"₹50 shipping\" you quoted in chat into a flat checkout fee. Couriers bill the higher of the actual and volumetric weight, in 0.5 kg slabs, and charge more for farther zones. Work out your real cost per parcel first; our guide to calculating shipping charges in India has the arithmetic and a free-shipping threshold test.
\n\nA website makes it easy for a buyer in Pune to order from Lucknow, and under Section 24 of the CGST Act an inter-state supply of goods requires GST registration whatever your turnover. Read GST for online sellers with their own website before you open orders to the whole country, or restrict delivery to your state until you are registered.
\n\nLaunch on the platform's free subdomain if you want to start today, then connect a domain you own, bought from any registrar. Meta asks for the domain you sell from, and a buyer typing your brand name into Google should land on it.
\n\nWhen you compare platforms, these are the features that replace DM work rather than just looking nicer:
\nSelzix starts with your existing catalogue. You can review selected posts from a public Instagram profile and import them as draft products, then check names, prices and images before publishing. If you already have a public Shopify catalogue, Selzix can import it with images, options and variants. Products, categories, variants and stock are managed from the seller dashboard.
\nYou build the storefront from one of eight brand kits in a visual editor, preview desktop and mobile, and publish. The store goes live on a Selzix address straight away, and you can connect a domain you own with guided DNS setup and SSL.
\nFor payments, Indian stores connect their own Razorpay account or offer direct UPI with their own UPI ID or QR, and can enable cash on delivery with order limits and an optional fee. Money settles to your own account and Selzix charges no transaction fee. For delivery, you set shipping charges and PIN-code delivery zones, then fulfil yourself or connect Shiprocket or Delhivery for labels, pickup and tracking. Indian stores get GST tax invoices with HSN codes and a GST return report, plus eligible abandoned-cart reminders, product reviews, customer segments with CSV export, and Meta Pixel and Google Analytics settings.
\nThe limits are worth knowing before you start:
\nThere is a 14-day free trial with no card required, then one flat plan paid monthly or yearly that does not renew automatically. Current India pricing, including any live offer, is on the pricing page. If you are weighing it against keeping things in chat, the Selzix vs selling on DMs page sets out the trade-offs, and the features page lists what each tool needs to be set up.
\n\nYes. Instagram stays your main source of buyers. You keep posting, going live and replying to comments; product links and your bio send buyers to the store to pay. Since September 2025, purchases from Instagram Shops finish on your website in any case.
Not to open one. You need it once your turnover crosses your state's limit, or as soon as you ship goods to a buyer in another state, because Section 24 of the CGST Act makes inter-state supply of goods a compulsory registration trigger. Until then, limit delivery to your own state.
For most sellers past a few orders a day, yes. Razorpay charges 2% plus GST on the fee, but it confirms payment automatically and supports cards and netbanking. Direct UPI costs nothing per order but leaves you checking screenshots against your bank app. Many stores offer both.
The store itself can be live the same day on a platform subdomain. Plan a weekend to clean up 30 to 60 products, write descriptions and test checkout. Razorpay activation and domain DNS can take longer, so start those early.
Followers who already trust you will, especially when the link takes them straight to the product they saw. A store mainly helps with buyers who do not want to message a stranger: they can see the price, sizes, delivery charge and returns policy without asking.
Ready to move your Instagram catalogue onto your own store? Start a 14-day free trial. No card needed.
","summary":"Since September 2025, Instagram sends every Shop purchase to your website. Here is how to move your catalogue off DMs and onto your own store, with the real costs.","date_published":"2026-09-19T05:30:46.742Z","date_modified":"2026-10-24T07:20:13.233Z","authors":[{"name":"Selzix Team"}]}]}