How to Start Dropshipping in India (2026)

Dropshipping is a fulfilment model in which you sell and collect payment on your own store while a supplier holds the stock and ships each order directly to the buyer. It is legal in India and works best with a domestic supplier who dispatches within two to four days.

You own the storefront, the marketing, the customer and the complaints. The supplier owns inventory and dispatch. What you avoid is buying stock up front; what you do not avoid is paying for samples, product photos, support time, advertising and returned cash-on-delivery parcels. Treat it as a small retail business with outsourced warehousing, not a passive income scheme.

1. A buyer orders on your site and pays by UPI, card or COD.
2. You forward the order and pay the supplier the wholesale price.
3. The supplier packs and ships under your store name, ideally with your invoice.
4. You handle tracking questions, returns and refunds.

Usually yes: selling goods to buyers in other states generally requires GST registration regardless of turnover, and most marketplaces ask for a GSTIN before you can list. Confirm your exact position with a chartered accountant before the first sale, because relaxations for small sellers have changed over time.

• Business form: a sole proprietorship, LLP or private limited company all work; the bank account must be in the business name for payment gateway KYC.
• Supplier invoices: keep one for every order dispatched; they support your input tax credit.
• Customer invoices: WooCommerce can issue GST invoices with a plugin, as set out in GST invoices in WooCommerce.
• Your own costs: WebJi® invoices hosting in INR with 18% GST and its GSTIN, so that tax is claimable too; see GST on web hosting.

Shortlist domestic suppliers from wholesale directories such as IndiaMART or from single-piece dispatch catalogues, then place a real sample order to your own address before listing anything. The sample order is the cheapest test you will ever run.

• Dispatch time: how many days from order to courier pickup, in writing.
• Packaging: plain or branded, and whether their own price list or marketing slips go in the box.
• Invoice: does the supplier invoice you with GST for every order?
• RTO terms: who pays return freight when a COD buyer refuses delivery, and how fast the stock is credited back.
• Stock sync: how you learn an item is out of stock before a customer orders it.

A supplier who cannot answer the RTO question clearly will cost you money on every refused parcel. Keep a second supplier for your best seller once orders are steady.

Sell first to people who already know you, through WhatsApp, Instagram and one micro-creator who genuinely uses the product, and start paid ads only after strangers have bought a few times. Ads multiply a page that already converts; they do not fix one that does not.

Two changes usually help more than a bigger budget: real photos of the sample you received, and a delivery estimate shown before checkout. Test one product at a time and stop when the cost per order passes the margin. Recover a share of drop-offs with the steps in abandoned cart recovery for WooCommerce.

Most failed stores share the same causes: late suppliers, products that arrive damaged, COD return rates that wipe out margin, and ad spend running ahead of gross profit. Fixing supplier and page first is cheaper than buying more traffic.