It’s exhausting to overstate the ecommerce alternative in India. The nation’s inhabitants is now the world’s largest at 1.46 billion in 2025, per the United Nations, in comparison with 1.4 billion in China and 347 million within the U.S.
But India’s on-line retail gross sales of bodily items have been an estimated $125 billion in 2025, a fraction of the roughly $1.1 trillion in China and $1.2 trillion within the U.S., in keeping with Statista Market Insights.
Nevertheless, doing enterprise in India just isn’t straightforward for overseas ecommerce corporations.
They have to adapt their product, pricing, and distribution methods to the nation’s advanced overseas possession legal guidelines, which intention to guard tens of millions of small store homeowners, massive bodily retailers, and shoppers.
International corporations can enter the Indian ecommerce market in 4 methods:
- Personal a market,
- Promote to shoppers by way of native distributors,
- Promote to shoppers immediately by way of branded bodily shops and web sites.
- Promote cross-border.
Market
Foreigners can personal 100% of marketplaces that join patrons and sellers, supplied that the marketplaces can’t (i) personal stock or promote their very own merchandise on to shoppers, or (ii) provide heavy reductions to affect value or favor choose manufacturers. Plus, underneath India’s market guidelines, gross sales from a single vendor can’t exceed 25% of the platform’s whole.
Thus Amazon India and Walmart-owned Flipkart are pure marketplaces. The 2 websites dominate ecommerce in India, however neither sells its personal stock; as an alternative, they depend on gross sales commissions, logistics, and model administration charges.
Distributor Tie-ups
Second, overseas corporations can promote merchandise to Indian shoppers by way of tie-ups with India-based distributors, franchisees, and retail operators, who handle market promoting, logistics, and distribution to bodily shops. Instance suppliers are Attire Group and Ace Turtle.
This native tie-up mannequin is best fitted to manufacturers that need fast entry to distribution. For instance, Attire Group manages Bathtub & Physique Works and Victoria’s Secret, whereas Ace Turtle operates Lee and Wrangler.
Marketplaces are the most important supply of brand name discovery in India, alongside social media, and they’re most well-liked channels for overseas retailers. Marketplaces provide instruments to scale throughout success, product cataloging, after-sales help, and funds.
Regardless of the comfort, market promoting is very aggressive with various itemizing charges and commissions.
Direct to Customers
The third choice is promoting on to Indian shoppers, which overseas manufacturers can do, with caveats. Worldwide corporations that produce merchandise in India or run their very own single-brand brick-and-mortar shops can promote via ecommerce.
The advantage of the D2C mannequin is management over model visibility, buyer expertise, and pricing. The challenges are distribution and attain.
Just a few overseas manufacturers go for D2C in India on account of larger setup time and prices, and the advanced authorized necessities. D2C manufacturers need to register with India’s Ministry of Company Affairs and meet the necessities of products and companies tax registration, native banks, and fee gateway suppliers, amongst different hurdles.
Plus, launching and rising web sites takes money and time, as does constructing belief.
Cross-Border Promoting
Nothing stops overseas retailers from promoting cross-border to Indian shoppers. Attire, electronics, and sweetness merchandise dominate cross-border promoting, and, anecdotally, patrons favor sellers and marketplaces within the U.S., Australia, and China.
Other than sluggish supply, the downsides to retailers are excessive import duties, GST, and customs procedures. These further prices make the choice much less interesting to many manufacturers.
