How to Start a Dropshipping Business in IndiaSell without stock — your store, the supplier ships

Dropshipping is a retail model where you sell products without holding any stock. You list a supplier's products on your store at your own price; when a customer orders, the order is forwarded to the supplier, who ships it directly to the customer. You keep the margin between your selling price and the supplier's cost. Because there's no inventory or upfront purchase, it's one of the lowest-risk ways to start selling online in India.

Pick a niche, connect a supplier like CJ Dropshipping, list their products on your own store with a markup, and start selling — the supplier ships each order directly. Your only fixed cost is the store: HOD Media is free for the first 3 months (no credit card), then ₹299/month with 0% commission, and you pay the supplier's product cost only after a customer has paid you. There's no stock to buy upfront.

CJ Dropshipping is one of the most widely used and integrates directly with HOD Media (catalogue import with price and stock auto-sync). There are also India-based suppliers and aggregators for faster local delivery. For custom/printed products, Printrove and Qikink offer print-on-demand. HOD Media lets you connect CJ for catalogue dropshipping and Printrove/Qikink for POD, so you're not locked to one source.

It can be, but margins are tighter than holding stock, and ad costs decide whether you make money. The winners focus on a niche with real demand, price for a healthy margin over supplier cost, keep platform costs low (0% commission, no per-order fee), and watch RTO carefully since COD returns can wipe out profit. Product research and marketing matter far more than the store itself.

On your own store you must register for GST once you cross the threshold (₹40 lakh turnover for goods in most states, ₹20 lakh for services), and you'll generally need it to work with suppliers and gateways smoothly. Either way, your store should issue compliant GST invoices automatically — HOD Media does this for every order with the correct CGST/SGST/IGST split.

Yes, and COD is important for converting tier-2 and tier-3 buyers. Your HOD Media store accepts native COD (with partial-advance COD to reduce RTO) alongside UPI and cards. Note that some suppliers handle COD differently — for example, with CJ Dropshipping the product and shipping cost is debited from your supplier wallet when the order is forwarded, and you collect the cash from the customer.

Dropshipping resells a supplier's existing catalogue products as-is with no stock. Print on demand sells your own custom designs printed onto blank products on order. Reselling usually means sourcing products (sometimes holding a little stock) and selling them under your brand. HOD Media supports all three — CJ Dropshipping for catalogue, Printrove/Qikink for POD — so you can combine them in one store.

Very little upfront. The store is free for the first 3 months on HOD Media (no credit card, then ₹299/month, 0% commission), a domain is ₹500–₹900/year, and you pay supplier product costs only after a sale. The real variable cost is advertising — budget a small test amount for Meta Ads, since traffic is what makes or breaks a dropshipping store.