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[Infograph] Exactly What Documents Are Required to Sell On India’s Top Marketplaces?

By Saptarshi Baksi on 14 Comments / 3594 views

(Image Source: StartupStockPhotos)

Dear Seller,

We know that by now a million people have told you that if you are still selling out of a traditional brick and mortar store you should consider selling online.
By now a million people have told you that there are close to 4.5 Crore people are looking to buy things online.
By now a million people have told you that the best way to start off is having your own brand store like Wallmatra.com or Cupcakesandcloset.in

You must have also been told that to increase your sales and revenue you should sell on Indian marketplaces. So what different are we going to tell you in this post?
Basically by the end of this post you would be clear about one thing and that is :

What exact documents and formalities are required if you want to sell on the most popular Indian marketplaces right now.

So what are marketplaces? Compare marketplace to a mall. It is a one stop website/shop which holds and hosts products from a multitude of vendors/brands for each and every category of products. So if you are searching for blue denims. You will get the option to buy blue denims from Levi’s, Wrangler or even from YourAmazingBrand!
Its an equal playing ground where each seller is charged the same commission and each seller is exposed to the same amount of traffic hitting the website.

What are the most popular Marketplaces? In India right now there are about 10 marketplaces which are very popular:

  • Flipkart

  • Amazon

  • Snapdeal

  • Jabong

  • Fashionara

  • Shopclues

  • Indiatimes Shopping

  • Paytm

  • Myntra

  • Tradus

(Image Source: Google)

Why should you sell on Indian marketplaces?

  • You don’t have to worry about marketing to get traffic.

  • An opportunity to reach nationwide audience.

  • You can test the commercial viability of your products.

Now comes the question,

How Exactly Do You Start Selling on These Platforms?
The simple answer is you need to get registered as a seller on them. Easier said than done! One needs to knock the doors of each and every marketplace to get the requirements list and then put everything in place so that you are ready to sell on marketplaces. 

How do you do that? What exact documents are required?
That is precisely where we thought we can help you. Check out the infograph below and find the exact requirements for each of these marketplaces. Majorly all marketplaces require the VAT/CST Documents and PAN card copies. But each marketplaces have their specific requirements. Go ahead to check in detail.

How Do We Help You Get Registered on These Marketplaces?
At Zepo we believe that online marletplaces can be a great way to increase sales through multi channel methodology and also make shoppers more aware about your brand.
One would find online shoppers often searching for the original brand store once they are happy and satisfied with their purchase. End of the day your brand store gets more traffic. Stroke of genius. Isn’t it?!

So we have recently started helping sellers get listed and start selling on marketplaces.
You can get your products listed on the following marketplaces:
Flipkart | Snapdeal | Amazon | Fashionara | Shopclues | Indiatimes Shopping | PayTM. 

We help businesses to :
1. Get registered. (So that you can get a VAT/CST number)
2. Complete marketplace registration in approx 7 days.
3. Get products uploaded within 14-21 days (depending on products category).
4. And ultimately. Start Selling!

Got questions about marketplace selling? Feel free to ask us down in the comments! 🙂

This post was originally written for The Zepo Blog

Twitter: @SaptarshiBaksi

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14 Comments

  1. hey Saptarshi,

    It looks like a good compilation of the docs required by various marketplaces. Out of curiosity,  I have two questions and would appreciate if you could answer them:

    1. I read somewhere that you need to have annual turnover of 5 lacs / 10 lacs to apply for VAT so does that mean you can make your first few sales without charging VAT? like one can provide service without charging service tax if turnover is less than 8 lacs?

    2. If someone opens a store with Zepo then is there a way to automatically update products on all these marketplaces without doing it manually on each platform?

    Thanks

    Ishani

  2. thanks guys! your content team is doing an excellent job of creating resources that really add value to ecom players. am sure lots of rodinhooders will give you duas! keep rocking!!

  3. Interstate sale of even Re.1/- requires a CST Number.  The limit is available only for local (same state sales) which is not the case of eCommerce.

    To be compliant, please apply for VAT / CST number before starting selling on online marketplaces.

    Devesh Tanna

  4. Would like to know respective shares & how product pricing works?

  5. Decent compilation Team Zepo.

    I registered my father’s company at Snapdeal. It has been  more than a month now. The document work wasnt really a problem for us since the Seller On-board team of these e-commerce sites help us so as to meet their targets. The seller must ensure that the documents he is sending across are properly visible otherwise they dont accept them.

    The real problem comes when they start sending you the e-learning docs guiding you how to go about completing the orders. Honestly i have found the process, right from getting the order to its dispatch, quite cumbersome. Since i live  in the NCR and my dad’s business is based out of Lucknow, it becomes his responsibility to complete the entire order, which he is not very happy to do ;).

    I would suggest you include some feature so as to train the new sellers so that the people who are doing it part time can arrange to train a couple of ”Chhotus” to complete the orders.

    Rajat

  6. Hey Rajat,

    I sell on Snapdeal. If you have any questions about specifics of order processing etc, reply to the comment, I’ll help you out. 🙂

  7. Hi Ishani,
    Like Devesh informed us.
    “Any dealer whose total turnover of sales or purchase exceeds the limits specified under the Act is required to be registered under VAT. The limit is total turnover of Rs.5,00,000/- with taxable turnover of Rs.10, 000/-in the preceding year or the current year.”
    However it becomes mandatory in the case of ecommerce sellers looking to do interstate business.

    About your second question , the answer is Yes.
    If you have a store with Zepo and are registered on one or more marketplaces you can easily integrate it with Browntape/Unicommerce within your Zepo store.
    What it does is, your inventory is synced across marketplaces and also on your Zepo store. So you upload your stock/products on one place and it gets listed/updated/synced across all marketplaces you are registered on. The inventory management can be done from a single dashboard in that case.

    Hope this answers your query. Let us know if you have any more questions 🙂

  8. I would like to add

    1. Trademark certificate is required on Snapdeal too if you are selling a private label. You should have it handy as all marketplaces will require it sooner or later.

    2. If you sell products of a popular brand (Sony, Samsung) then always have the purchase bills ready. Its in the marketplace’s best interest to weed out grey market sellers, so they may ask you to produce these anytime. Amazon US is notorious for suspending accounts and then asking if the seller had the relevant documents.

  9. Hi Rajat,

    Thank you for the suggestions. We will surely research a bit more about the pain-point that you mentioned and highlight possible solutions in the near future.

    Saptarshi

  10. Hi Abhijeet,
    I suppose you mean to ask what is the share that marketplaces take out of the sales made?

    Different marketplaces charge you differently for listing products on their website.For example Amazon has the following model:

    • Monthly Subscription Fee

    • Closing Fee : Sellers pay fixed closing fee of Rs. 10 on each item sold

    • Referral Fee : Sellers pay a referral fee on each item sold. For all products, a percentage of the total sales price that is paid by buyer (including the item price and any shipping or gift-wrap charges) is deducted as referral fee.

    We wrote a couple of detailed blogposts on the respective shares that each of the major marketplaces charge.
    Suggest you to go through them for a detailed analysis:
    Marketplaces Reviewed 
    Marketplace Registration

  11. ooops saptarshi,

    i messed the bottom part of your post. sowrie!

  12. Thank you Asha and the Rodinhoods community 🙂
    By the way, that’s a pretty delightful mess-up!

  13. Good post!! will contact soon Zepo for e-store.

  14. Thanks a lot for the information we are on the way to begin online sales 🙂

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