Selling on Etsy from India

The order is real; the question is how it leaves

Etsy sellers reach us at the same moment every time: a sale has happened, the buyer is waiting, and the shipping options are either eye-watering or require registrations nobody mentioned when the shop was set up. The large Indian shipping aggregators resolve this by asking for an IEC, an AD code, a PAN and an Aadhaar before you can book anything, and one of them wants a GST number too. If you have those, they work well. If you are below the threshold and selling handmade things to a few hundred people, they are a closed door.

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.

What that means for an Etsy order specifically

On the simple route your buyer receives their own parcel, which fits how an Etsy sale already works: they bought from you, they are expecting a package from India, and the tracking emails reach them in your shop name rather than ours. You book it here, print nothing, and drop the parcel with your bill inside.

Put the Etsy order receipt in the box. We prepare the customs declaration from your bill, so a real document saves a day. Describe what is actually in it — cotton saree, 1 piece rather than apparel.

Check our prohibited items list before you list something, not after you sell it.

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.