Can my customer abroad pay the shipping?

How it works, step by step

1. Book the shipment in your business account: your customer’s name, email and address, and what is in the parcel. Or send your customer a link and let them fill in their own address.
2. Put your bill for the order inside the parcel and get it to our warehouse in Kerala. Anywhere in Kerala we can collect it; from the rest of India, send it by any domestic courier.
3. We weigh it and photograph it on arrival. The price comes from our scale, and the reading is in the photo.
4. We email your customer a payment link for the shipping. It never goes on your bill.
5. They pay, and it ships. The tracking emails reach them in your name, not ours.

Why this surprises people

At a courier counter you pay when you book: the counter needs its money before the parcel moves, so the seller pays and recovers it from the customer, if they can. Here the booking and the payment are separated. You book; the parcel waits with us, weighed and photographed; your customer pays the exact figure; then it flies. Nothing is advanced by you, and nothing is estimated.

As a guide, a 1 kg parcel, about one packed saree, is ₹2,500–4,000 to the UAE, ₹4,000–5,000 to the UK, ₹4,000–5,500 to the USA, ₹4,000–5,500 to Canada and ₹4,000–5,000 to Australia by direct courier, with our handling, GST and payment charges included. These are published ranges, not quotes, and duty at your customer’s end is separate.

If your customer is slow to pay

The parcel waits with us, and storage is free for thirty days from the day it arrives, so there is time to chase. If you would rather not wait, pay the same link yourself and it ships the same way.

What your customer pays at their end

By default, any import duty or tax is charged by the customs authority in your customer’s country, on arrival, and is separate from the shipping. Some lanes and services go duty paid, which means the duty is already in our price and nothing is asked at the door; the quote says which. There is more on this in who pays customs duty on my order.

When you would pay it yourself instead

If your business is a registered exporter, your parcel ships as your own export and the freight is yours: you pay it and build it into your price. The customer-pays link is the simple route, where your customer receives the parcel as their own.

The two ways a parcel leaves here

Everything on this page turns on which of these you are, so it is worth settling first. There are two, and we run both.

If your business is registered as an exporter

You have a GSTIN, an IEC and an AD code. Your parcel ships as your export: it goes under your own IEC, and you authorise our carrier to file the shipping bill (CSB-V) on your behalf. You pay the freight, and the commercial invoice carries your business.

If your business is not registered as an exporter

We call this the simple route, and it is the one most Instagram sellers, boutiques and small shops start on. On this route you do not export at all. Your customer abroad receives the parcel as their own, under our personal forwarding terms — the same terms any individual uses to send their own belongings home. You book the shipment here, put your own bill for the order inside the parcel, and send it to our warehouse. We weigh it, photograph it, and send your customer a link to pay the shipping. As soon as they pay, it goes, and they get tracking in your name.

Where to start

Open a business account and tell us what you sell. We call every new business on WhatsApp within a working day, usually to settle exactly the question this page is about, and you are on the right route before your first parcel moves.