How to build an online store in India, step by step

Before you start: what to keep ready

You can begin with almost nothing and fill details in later, but the store looks finished faster if you gather a few things first. None of this needs a designer - a phone camera and a notes app are enough.

• Product or dish photos - clean, well-lit, shot against a plain background where possible. Even 5-6 good ones beat 40 blurry ones.
• Prices in ₹, and if you charge differently for variants (sizes, weights, portions), note those too.
• A short line about each product - fabric, ingredients, dimensions, use. Buyers who can't touch the item read these.
• Your GSTIN if you're registered (you'll need it on invoices and for many payment gateways). If you're not registered, you can still sell - check current turnover thresholds for your state and category.
• A logo if you have one, plus your WhatsApp number and business address or service area.

Step 1: Describe your business in plain language

Open kartrocket.ai and tell it what you do - for example, "main Jaipur se handmade juttis bechta hoon, COD chahiye" or "home bakery in Pune, custom cakes, need order form". The more specific you are about your trade, the closer the first draft lands.

Kartrocket is Shiprocket's chat-native business builder, and it recognises 19 verticals - fashion, beauty, jewellery, electronics, home, food, salons, restaurants, services and more. It picks a starting layout suited to your kind of business rather than a generic template.

Step 2: Watch the draft build, then point and change

A real, working website assembles itself live - not a mockup, an actual storefront. Once it's there, you edit by pointing at any part and saying what you want: "make the banner green", "move reviews above products", "add a returns page".

Two things make this safe to experiment with. Every change is saved as a version with one-click undo, so you can never paint yourself into a corner. And a broken section can't take down the whole site - the rest keeps working while you fix one part.

Step 3: Add your products, menu, or services

This is where your prep pays off. Add products with ₹ pricing and photos, or import your catalog from an existing site or marketplace listing so you're not retyping everything.

What you add depends on your trade. Kartrocket handles the differences rather than forcing everyone into a product grid.

• Retail and D2C: product catalog with variants, galleries, and stock.
• Restaurants and cafés: photo menus, table reservations, and pickup or prepay ordering.
• Salons and clinics: service menus, appointment booking, and deposits to cut no-shows.
• Services businesses: enquiry forms that route straight to your WhatsApp.
• Wholesale and B2B: catalogs with quote or RFQ flows instead of fixed retail pricing.

Step 4: Turn on COD, UPI and shipping

Indian buyers still lean heavily on cash on delivery, so offer COD alongside UPI and cards rather than forcing prepaid. Checkout supports all three. Prices are computed on the server, which means the amount can't be tampered with in the browser - a quiet but real protection against order fraud.

Shipping runs on Shiprocket, with 24,000+ serviceable pincodes and tracking built in. You pay the actual courier charge when an order ships, plus the payment-gateway fee on prepaid orders - these are real pass-through costs, not Kartrocket markups. There are no plugin or app fees.

Step 5: Publish free, then connect your own domain

Publishing is free. Your store goes live on yourname.kartrocket.ai with SSL included, so you can start sharing the link on WhatsApp and Instagram the same day at no cost.

When you're ready to look more established, connect a custom domain like yourbrand.in. You bring and pay for the domain itself; there's no fee to connect it. A short, memorable domain also helps buyers trust the checkout - worth doing before a festive push or a paid-ads run.