How Indian brands sell globally, and at home, on Amazon and Flipkart

Can you sell on Amazon Global Selling from India?

Yes. Amazon Global Selling is Amazon's export program for Indian sellers, and Amazon says it opens 18+ of its marketplaces, including the US, UK, Germany, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Australia. Amazon also says the program has registered 200,000+ Indian exporters since 2015 (Amazon Global Selling, checked October 24, 2026). You register in Seller Central with ID proof, address proof and a card that works for international transactions, then list store by store (How Amazon Global Selling works, checked October 24, 2026).

Listing is the easy part. Whether exports pay depends on paperwork, tax, logistics and how fast money comes home.

What changed for Indian online sellers in 2026?

Sources: Amazon's fee pages (Here's what's changing in your fees; Amazon announces zero referral fees on over 12.5 crore products, checked October 24, 2026), DGFT (Foreign Trade Policy 2023, Chapter 9: Promoting Cross Border Trade in Digital Economy, checked October 24, 2026), RBI (Master Direction: Export of Goods and Services, checked October 24, 2026) and the Federal Register (Indefinite Suspension of the De Minimis Exemption for Merchandise Arriving Through All Modes Other Than the International Postal Network; Indefinite Suspension of the De Minimis Exemption for Mail Shipments and New Postal Informal Entry Process, checked October 24, 2026).

Amazon's own examples show the size of the fee cut: total fees on a ₹299 T-shirt fall from ₹71 to ₹56, on ₹798 earphones from ₹248 to ₹109, and on a ₹999 fashion necklace from ₹324 to ₹100 (Here's what's changing in your fees, checked October 24, 2026). Those are Amazon's figures; your fee preview in Seller Central shows the real number for each SKU.

What do you need before your first export shipment?

DGFT says the IEC is the same as your PAN but still issued on application (IEC profile management, checked October 24, 2026). Foreign Trade Policy chapter 2 lists the mandatory export documents and deactivates an IEC that is not updated in the April to June window (Foreign Trade Policy 2023, Chapter 2: General Provisions Regarding Imports and Exports, checked October 24, 2026). Amazon describes the 14-digit AD code (How Amazon Global Selling works, checked October 24, 2026), and CBIC's circular says an LUT is valid for the whole financial year in which it is tendered (Circular No. 8/8/2017-GST: Export under bond or Letter of Undertaking, checked October 24, 2026).

How does GST work on goods you export through Amazon?

Exports are zero-rated under GST, and CBIC's guidance gives two routes (Guidance Note for Importers and Exporters, checked October 24, 2026):

• Under bond or LUT. Ship without paying IGST, then claim a refund of the input tax credit you could not use.
• On payment of IGST. Pay IGST on the export. The shipping bill is treated as the refund application once the export manifest is filed and your return is valid. Section 16(4) of the IGST Act lets the government notify which exporters and goods may use this route, and section 16(5) bars refunds on goods that carry an export duty (IGST Act 2017, Section 16: Zero rated supply, checked October 24, 2026). Notification 01/2023 allows all goods except a short list, including pan masala, tobacco products and some mint oils (Notification No. 01/2023-Integrated Tax: goods and services that may be exported on payment of IGST, checked October 24, 2026).

If export proceeds are not realised in time, section 16(3) makes you repay an LUT refund with interest within thirty days of the deadline (IGST Act 2017, Section 16: Zero rated supply, checked October 24, 2026). The LUT route avoids paying IGST upfront and waiting for a refund, which helps working capital.

Destination taxes are separate: holding stock in the UK or the UAE can bring VAT registration duties; see our UK and UAE guides.

What is the new Exporter-on-Record framework, and should a brand use it?

Since August 2026, Foreign Trade Policy chapter 9 has a framework for inventory-based ecommerce exports (Foreign Trade Policy 2023, Chapter 9: Promoting Cross Border Trade in Digital Economy, checked October 24, 2026). It splits the export into two roles:

A marketplace ecommerce entity cannot be an EOR itself; an ecommerce company that exports this way under the July 23, 2026 FDI press note must use a separate legal entity (Foreign Trade Policy 2023, Chapter 9: Promoting Cross Border Trade in Digital Economy, checked October 24, 2026).

For a brand, the framework is a choice between doing exports yourself through Global Selling and selling to an EOR that does them. Either way you need clean records: confirmed export orders, FOB value per shipping bill, the 7-day payment date and your share of rebates. If tracking that is manual work for your team, send us the workflow and a person replies within 2 business days with a written plan: what to automate, what stays with your team, and a fixed price.

How should an Indian exporter ship: FBA, courier or India Post?

There are three routes, often combined:

• FBA abroad. You send stock in bulk to Amazon fulfillment centers abroad, and Amazon picks, packs, delivers and handles customer service. SEND is Amazon's cross-border carrier option for that inventory: a partnered carrier picks up in India and handles shipping and customs to the fulfillment center (How Amazon Global Selling works, checked October 24, 2026).
• Merchant-fulfilled parcels by courier. You ship each order from India. Foreign Trade Policy 2023 sets no value limit per consignment for courier exports (Foreign Trade Policy 2023, Chapter 9: Promoting Cross Border Trade in Digital Economy, checked October 24, 2026).
• India Post. Foreign Trade Policy 2023 provides for Dak Ghar Niryat Kendras across the country that link to Foreign Post Offices, so artisans, weavers and MSMEs in inland regions can reach buyers abroad by post.

Destination rules change the math. The US suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for low-value shipments from every country on August 29, 2025 (CBP ready to enforce end of de minimis loophole, checked October 24, 2026), a February 2026 order kept it suspended (Continuing the Suspension of Duty-Free De Minimis Treatment for All Countries, checked October 24, 2026), and CBP rules made the suspension indefinite for courier and other non-postal shipments from June 24, 2026 (Indefinite Suspension of the De Minimis Exemption for Merchandise Arriving Through All Modes Other Than the International Postal Network, checked October 24, 2026) and for mail from July 24, 2026 (Indefinite Suspension of the De Minimis Exemption for Mail Shipments and New Postal Informal Entry Process, checked October 24, 2026). Price that duty into every merchant-fulfilled US order before you choose parcels over FBA stock.

Amazon's US marketplace adds its own costs: a Professional plan at $39.99 a month or $0.99 per item on the Individual plan, and referral fees that Amazon says are mostly between 8% and 15% (Amazon Global Selling: cost to sell in the Americas, checked October 24, 2026).

How does export money come back to India?

Amazon pays proceeds into your bank account in INR or an international currency, as you prefer (Amazon Global Selling, checked October 24, 2026). RBI's master direction sets the clock (Master Direction: Export of Goods and Services, checked October 24, 2026):

• Nine months from the date of export to realise and repatriate proceeds. The limit moved to fifteen months by a November 13, 2025 notification and back to nine months by a June 5, 2026 notification, so ask your AD bank which limit applies to shipments made between those dates.
• Fifteen months from shipment for goods exported to a warehouse established outside India. Ask your AD bank whether stock you send to FBA counts; until it confirms, plan on nine months.
• Nine months from the date of sale for goods exported to a warehouse in Bharat Mart in the UAE, where AD banks may allow it.

Banks report export receipts to RBI's Export Data Processing and Monitoring System. So keep every marketplace settlement traceable to the shipments it pays for, rather than reconciling at year end.

Should you sell on Amazon.in and Flipkart at the same time?

Often, yes, because the home market can fund the export push, and the 2026 fee cuts make low-price SKUs cheaper to sell on Amazon.in. Amazon.in asks for GST registration, PAN and a bank account (Sell on Amazon.in, checked October 24, 2026). Flipkart asks for a GSTIN in most categories, except exempt ones such as books (How to Sell Products on Flipkart and Become a Flipkart Seller, checked October 24, 2026), and checks your GST certificate, PAN card and address proof at registration (A Complete Guide to Flipkart Seller Registration, checked October 24, 2026); see our Flipkart guide.

The risk is one stock pool split across domestic warehouses, two marketplaces and FBA abroad. A unit committed to a US inbound shipment cannot fill a Flipkart order, and a spreadsheet rarely shows that in time.

How does Growth OS run India and export channels together?

Ecomsellertool Growth OS is deployed on your own accounts and connects Amazon.in, Flipkart and each Global Selling store to one catalog and one stock view:

1. Listings and catalog. One master catalog pushed to every store with per-channel rules, plus AI listing audits and rewrites.
2. Pricing and stock sync. Prices, stock and content kept consistent across Amazon.in, Flipkart and each overseas store.
3. Replenishment. Days of cover and reorder points per SKU and channel from real lead times, so domestic stock and each FBA pool run on their own clocks.
4. Orders and shipping. Orders from every channel in one queue, routed to the right warehouse with carrier selection.
5. Reporting. A live P&L per order, SKU, channel and country, so contribution margin is visible store by store.

Export paperwork sits outside the base system. We can build a custom module that keeps invoice and packing-list data per shipment, matches shipping bills to settlements, and flags the RBI realisation deadline and the April to June IEC update.

We have built on Amazon's seller APIs since 2017 and have shipped integrations for 20+ marketplaces, including Flipkart and Meesho. Our India office is in Ahmedabad. You keep your accounts, your data and the custom code we build; the Growth OS base is licensed to you.

Where should you start?

Start with the free Quick Scan in our Ops Gap Diagnostic: upload five standard Amazon reports, no account access needed, and get your top three operations gaps with a yearly dollar estimate for each. The paid Deep Diagnostic covers every channel you sell on, plus marketplace and country opportunities. If the gap is manual export or reconciliation work, send us a project brief. To see the base system first, look at Growth OS.