u/Jaymin096

I'm stress-testing a business model and would appreciate feedback from anyone with experience in international e-commerce, imports, payments, tax, or cross-border trade.

Proposed model:

• A foreign D2C brand continues to operate its existing international website.
• We import inventory into India under our own IEC on a consignment basis.
• Indian customers place orders on the brand's website.
• The India storefront uses our payment gateway to collect payments from Indian customers.
• Orders are fulfilled domestically from inventory stored in India.
• We charge storage, fulfilment, and handling fees.
• The remaining amount is remitted to the foreign brand periodically.

The idea is to help smaller foreign brands test the Indian market without establishing an Indian entity, warehouse, or local operations team.

My main concern is identifying legal or regulatory issues before spending time building this.

Some questions:

1. Can inventory legally be imported on a consignment basis and sold in this manner?
2. Are there FEMA or RBI restrictions on remitting sale proceeds (after deducting agreed fees) to the foreign brand?
3. Could payment gateway providers object to processing orders for products marketed under another company's website and brand?
4. Are there any major compliance issues that would make this model impractical?

Not looking for formal legal advice—just trying to understand where the biggest regulatory risks or blind spots might be.

Any insights, examples, or experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Does anyone know of any 3PL providers that are willing to work with smaller international D2C brands that are just starting to sell in a new market?

Most of the providers I've come across seem focused on brands already doing significant volume (50+ orders per day), but specifically interested in companies that can support lower volumes while a brand is testing demand.

have you ever added an item to cart from a foreign website and then immediately closed the tab after seeing the shipping cost? what was the item and what was the shipping charge?

Many brands use Global-e for international shipping. Did anyone have any problem buying from such brands?

Not talking about big brands with warehouses everywhere, they've already figured this out, more curious about mid-size D2C stores getting a steady but smallish trickle of India orders, like 5-15 a day, still shipping everything direct from the US/UK/wherever.

At that volume is local fulfillment even worth thinking about, or does it just not make sense until you're way bigger?

Curious what's actually holding it back — is it 3PL minimums (like needing 50+ orders/day before anyone will even talk to you), the GST/import registration stuff being too much hassle for the volume

if you're around that order volume and looked into it even casually, would love to hear what you found. trying to figure out where the actual breakeven point is.