To start ecommerce shipping in India, complete KYC with a courier or shipping platform, add your pickup address, pack and weigh each order, choose a courier by price and pincode coverage, generate an AWB and label, hand parcels over on a manifest at pickup, then track delivery and handle failed deliveries and returns.
What do you need before your first shipment?
Most courier accounts and shipping platforms ask for the same KYC set. Exact requirements vary, but expect to provide:
- PAN of the individual or business.
- An identity and address proof, such as Aadhaar.
- Bank account details (a cancelled cheque or bank statement) so COD cash can be remitted to you.
- GSTIN, if you're registered. If you aren't yet, read whether you can sell and ship without GST first; the answer depends on where your buyers are.
- A pickup address with a contact number that someone will actually answer during pickup hours.
On the equipment side, buy a digital scale accurate to 10 g, a measuring tape, a stock of boxes and mailers in two or three sizes, and a printer. A 4 × 6 inch thermal label printer saves time once you pass a few dozen orders a day, but an A4 printer works to start.
How do you pack, weigh and measure an order?
Couriers bill on chargeable weight, the higher of the actual weight and the volumetric weight. Domestic volumetric weight is length × breadth × height in cm ÷ 5000, in kg; some express services use ÷ 4000. Rates are usually in 500 g slabs, so a parcel just over a slab pays for the whole next one.
A worked example: a 600 g product in a 30 × 25 × 10 cm box has a volumetric weight of 7,500 ÷ 5000 = 1.5 kg, so you pay for 1.5 kg. Move it to a 25 × 20 × 8 cm box and the volumetric weight drops to 0.8 kg, billed as 1 kg. Same product, one slab less on every order. Run your own boxes through the volumetric weight calculator before you buy packaging in bulk.
Weigh and measure the packed parcel, not the product, and record what you entered. Couriers re-weigh parcels at their hubs, and the declared weight is what you'll defend if they raise a weight discrepancy. Our ecommerce packaging guide covers box choice and cushioning.
Should you offer COD or prepaid?
Most new Indian stores offer both, because a large share of buyers still want to pay on delivery. The trade-offs are real, though. COD orders carry a COD fee (usually the higher of a flat amount or a percentage of order value), your cash arrives only after delivery plus the remittance cycle (commonly D+2 to D+8), and buyers refuse COD parcels at the door more often than prepaid ones, which costs you freight both ways.
A sensible starting point: accept COD, cap the order value you'll take on COD, and nudge buyers to prepay with a small discount. Our guide to converting COD to prepaid has the tactics, and the COD charges calculator shows what each COD order costs you.
How do you ship your first order, step by step?
- 1Sign up with a courier or shipping platform, complete KYC and add your pickup address.
- 2Get the order in: connect your store, or enter it manually or by CSV upload if you sell through social media or chat.
- 3Enter the packed weight and dimensions, the buyer's full address with pincode, the order value and the payment mode.
- 4Check that couriers serve the delivery pincode (and offer COD there, if it's a COD order), then compare price and delivery time.
- 5Book the shipment. This generates an AWB number, the courier's tracking ID for the parcel, and a shipping label.
- 6Print the label and stick it flat on the largest face of the box, with no tape over the barcode.
- 7Before the pickup slot, generate the manifest, the list of AWBs handed over that day, and have the pickup agent scan every parcel against it.
- 8Send the buyer the tracking link the same day.
- 9Watch for non-delivery reports and act on them within the reattempt window.
- 10At the end of the week, reconcile freight charged, COD remitted and any weight disputes raised.
Keep a copy of the signed or scanned manifest. If a parcel goes missing before its first scan, the manifest is your proof that the courier collected it.
What does shipping cost per order?
Freight is only one line. Budget the full cost of getting an order delivered, and compare COD and prepaid separately because they behave differently:
| Cost line | How it's charged | COD order | Prepaid order |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freight | Rate per weight slab and zone, on chargeable weight | ₹85 | ₹85 |
| COD fee | Higher of a flat fee or a % of order value | ₹35 | ₹0 |
| Packaging | Box, filler, tape and label | ₹20 | ₹20 |
| Payment gateway | Percentage of the prepaid order value | ₹0 | ₹20 |
| RTO allowance | Return freight on undelivered orders, spread across all orders | ₹13 | ₹3 |
| Total per order | Sum of the lines above | ₹153 | ₹128 |
On these assumptions, shipping and fulfilment take about 15% of a ₹999 COD order and about 13% of a prepaid one, before product cost or ads. Change the return rate to 25% on COD and the COD column rises by another ₹8 or so. Put your real numbers in before you set prices or a free-shipping threshold.
How do you handle failed deliveries and returns?
When a delivery attempt fails (buyer unreachable, address incomplete, buyer refused), the courier raises a non-delivery report (NDR). Couriers typically reattempt 2–3 times over 24–72 hours before marking the parcel for return to origin (RTO). Calling or messaging the buyer during that window, and passing a corrected address or a new time to the courier, saves many of those parcels. Our NDR management guide sets out the process.
Returns the buyer asks for are a separate flow: you approve the return, a reverse pickup is booked, and you check the item when it arrives. Write your return policy before launch and keep it simple enough to fit in one message.
What mistakes do first-time shippers make?
- Entering the product weight instead of the packed weight, then losing weight disputes.
- Using one large box for everything and paying volumetric weight on small items.
- Promising a delivery date before checking the pincode is serviceable.
- Skipping the manifest scan at pickup, which leaves no proof of handover.
- Ignoring NDRs until they turn into RTOs.
- Pricing on freight alone and forgetting COD fees, gateway fees and returns.
Frequently asked questions
Not always. Couriers and most shipping platforms can onboard you on PAN-based KYC, with GSTIN optional. Whether you must register for GST depends on your turnover, where you sell and whether any buyers are in another state, since inter-state sales of goods need registration regardless of turnover. Confirm your position with a chartered accountant before you start.
It depends on chargeable weight, zone and payment mode. Beyond freight, budget for a COD fee on cash orders, packaging, a payment gateway fee on prepaid orders, and an allowance for returned parcels. In our illustrative example, a ₹999 order at 1 kg cost about ₹153 to fulfil on COD and ₹128 prepaid. Your rate card will differ.
There is rarely one best courier. Coverage, delivery success and price vary by pincode and weight, so compare couriers on the destinations you ship to most. New sellers often start on a multi-courier shipping platform so they can compare rates per order and switch couriers without opening separate accounts.
COD cash reaches you after the parcel is delivered and the courier or platform runs its remittance cycle. Cycles commonly range from D+2 to D+8, meaning two to eight days after delivery. Check the cycle in writing before you sign up, along with any fee for faster remittance.
Sources
Shipping operators and engineers who build RouteOneX's courier integrations, NDR and COD workflows for Indian D2C sellers. Every guide is reviewed against courier terms and official sources before publishing, and dated when it is updated.
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