An ecommerce checklist for small Indian brands

Launching an online store involves more than putting products on a page. The shop is the visible part, but customers judge you on the whole journey: how easily they find a product, how safely they pay, how fast it arrives and how painless a return is. A checklist helps you notice gaps before customers do.

This list is a starting point for a small brand. It is not legal or tax advice, and some items depend on your product and business structure, so confirm those with a qualified professional.

Product pages do the selling. Use clear photos taken in decent light, show the product from several angles, and include the details a buyer would ask in a shop: size, material, weight, care instructions, what is in the box. Write descriptions for a person, not a search engine.

Indian shoppers expect to pay by UPI, cards, netbanking and often cash on delivery. A payment gateway handles online payments, and each charges fees that vary by provider and method. Compare them and read the settlement terms, such as how long money takes to reach your account.

Cash on delivery is popular but has costs: failed deliveries, returns to origin and extra handling fees from couriers. Decide whether to offer it for all orders, for some products or for orders under a limit. Whichever you choose, record the payment status clearly so your team can reconcile orders against what actually arrived.

Compare courier options on price, pincode coverage, pickup reliability and how they handle damage claims. Many small brands use a shipping aggregator to compare couriers and print labels. These are third-party services with their own pricing and terms, and what can be connected to your store depends on what each provider supports.

Be honest about delivery times, and add handling time to the courier's estimate. Packaging deserves attention because damage in transit is expensive. Send tracking information to the customer automatically, since a large share of support messages are simply 'where is my order'.

Write a return policy in plain words before launch: what can be returned, within how many days, who pays for shipping and how refunds are made. Put it where customers can see it before they buy, not only in the footer.

Operationally, decide how returned items are inspected and whether they go back on sale. Link every return to its original order and record the reason. Over time, those reasons tell you whether the problem is sizing, photos, quality or courier damage.

Orders usually need an invoice, and tax requirements, such as GST registration and invoice formats, depend on your turnover, products and where you sell. We are not able to advise on what applies to you, so speak to your accountant before launch. What software can do is capture the fields they ask for and generate invoices in the format they confirm.

Agree early how invoices reach the customer and how your accountant will receive the data each month. A clean export saves hours of re-entry.

Before going live, place several test orders yourself using each payment method, on a phone and on a computer. Try a failed payment, a cancelled order and a return. Check the emails and messages the customer receives, and read the policies once as a customer would.

After launch, watch orders closely for the first weeks. Expect small problems and fix them quickly. Remember the ongoing costs: platform or hosting fees, gateway charges, courier costs and your own time for packing and support. Plan marketing separately, because a store does not attract customers on its own.

Online shoppers cannot touch the product or talk to a person in the shop, so they rely on your messages. Decide how customers can reach you, who answers, and how quickly you aim to reply. Say so on the site.

Prepare short, honest answers to common questions about delivery, sizing and returns, and update them as you learn what people ask. A small brand that answers politely and promptly earns repeat orders that advertising cannot buy.