Selling direct from the US to an Indian consumer usually means the goods are imported into India, where basic customs duty and integrated GST, IGST, are charged on import, and the practical question is who stands as importer. If the consumer is the importer, they meet the duty, the IGST, and often a courier handling process they did not expect. If the brand wants a delivered price, it needs an Indian import structure, a partner, an importer of record service, or a marketplace route where the platform handles the import, because a US company cannot simply act as an Indian importer without the registrations India requires.
India's GST taxes supplies, and imports of goods are treated as inter state supplies charged with IGST at import, on a value that includes the customs duty itself. Separately, foreign suppliers of online information and database services to Indian consumers register under the OIDAR rules and charge GST on those digital supplies, a regime brands sometimes confuse with the goods rules. A physical product shipped to India is a goods import, taxed at the border, whatever the website that sold it also sells.
Rates vary by product classification, and some categories carry additional cesses or face import restrictions and standards requirements, notably electronics and other goods covered by compulsory registration with the Bureau of Indian Standards. A category that ships freely to forty markets can be stopped in India on a standards certificate the brand has never heard of, which is why India entry starts with a per category check, not a shipping rate table.
Indian consumers are accustomed to prices that include GST from domestic sellers. A US store quoting a price that later grows by duty, IGST, and courier charges at the door is competing against that expectation with one hand tied. The workable models are the ones used in other delivered duty paid markets: sell through a marketplace that imports, appoint a local partner or importer, or price the Indian checkout through a cross border provider that calculates and handles the import taxes, with the consumer seeing one final number.
What does not work is hoping the parcel is small enough to pass unnoticed. Indian customs assesses low value imports too, and courier imports run through their own clearance channels with documentation requirements per consignment. The brands that do well in India chose their structure before the first order. The brands with a support inbox full of refused parcels chose it after.
An Indian consumer returning goods to the US creates an export from India and a reimport question on the US side, and the Indian import taxes paid on the way in are not refunded through any simple consumer mechanism. Brands should write the India returns policy before launch: local return address through a partner, refund without return for low value items where the maths supports it, or a clear statement of the actual process and its cost. Silence on returns, in a market this far away, reads as a trap and converts accordingly.
Confirm the current registration, rate, and standards requirements for your categories with an Indian tax adviser or your cross border provider before selling. India revises its import and GST rules frequently, and the detail is product specific in ways general guides cannot carry.
Related reading: What is the EU ICS2 filing and what does it mean for US Shopify brands?, How should US Shopify brands handle EU customs paperwork for returns?.
For physical goods imported by the consumer or through a marketplace or local importer, the border charge is customs duty plus IGST collected at import, and the foreign brand's own GST registration is generally not the mechanism. Foreign registration under the OIDAR rules concerns digital services supplied to Indian consumers, a different supply. Which side of that line your offer sits on should be confirmed for your exact model.
Because the import charge stacks: customs duty on the assessable value, then IGST calculated on a base that includes that duty, plus courier clearance handling. On lower value goods the stack can approach or exceed the product price for higher duty categories. It is arithmetic, not an error, and it is why delivered pricing matters so much in this market.
Yes. Some categories face import licensing, prohibition, or compulsory standards registration, including many electronics under BIS compulsory registration, and food, cosmetics, and other regulated goods carry their own approvals. Category screening before listing India as a destination is the step that prevents seizures and returns.
Many brands do, because the platform provides the import structure, the local payments behaviour, and a returns route. The trade is margin and customer ownership. As a structure for learning the market before building your own import route, it is often the rational order of operations.