u/StonerSensei

I've been reading about how selling on Amazon and Flipkart works in India and the fee structure seems insane when you add everything up.

Commission 5-20%
Shipping charges
FBA/warehouse fees
TCS 1%
TDS 0.1%
Return shipping
GST filing costs
CA fees

For someone doing say ₹5-10L/month in sales what's the actual take-home
after ALL deductions and compliance costs?
Is it actually profitable at that scale or do you need ₹50L+ monthly before it makes real sense?

Genuinely curious because from outside it looks like a great business but the cost structure seems brutal.

Genuine question for sellers here. I'm a software engineer trying to understand how ecommerce sellers manage their monthly GST compliance — specifically:

1. Settlement report se GSTR-1 tak ka journey kaise karte ho? Excel mein manually? Ya koi tool use karte ho?

2. TCS reconciliation — Amazon/Flipkart jo 1% TCS deduct karta hai, wo GSTR-2B mein sahi se reflect hota hai? Ya mismatch aata hai?

3. Kabhi overcharge detect kiya hai? Shipping fees, commission mein Amazon/Flipkart ne extra charge kiya ho?

4. CA ko kitna pay karte ho monthly sirf ecommerce GST filing ke liye?

I'm exploring building something in this space but pehle samajhna hai ki actual sellers

ko kya problems aati hain.

Agar koi 15 minute baat kar sakta hai call ya Google Meet — DM kar do. Koi pitch nahi hai. Genuinely sirf samajhna chahta hoon.

PS: Agar aap seller nahi ho but koi seller friend hai — please tag karo ya ye post share kar do.

Genuine question for sellers here. I'm a software engineer trying to understand how ecommerce sellers manage their monthly
GST compliance — specifically:

1. Settlement report se GSTR-1 tak ka journey kaise karte ho? Excel mein manually? Ya koi tool use karte ho?

2. TCS reconciliation — Amazon/Flipkart jo 1% TCS deduct karta hai, wo GSTR-2B mein sahi se reflect hota hai? Ya mismatch aata hai?

3. Kabhi overcharge detect kiya hai? Shipping fees, commission mein Amazon/Flipkart ne extra charge kiya ho?

4. CA ko kitna pay karte ho monthly sirf ecommerce GST filing ke liye?

I'm exploring building something in this space but pehle samajhna hai ki actual sellers ko kya problems aati hain.

Agar koi 15 minute baat kar sakta hai call ya Google Meet DM kar do.

Koi pitch nahi hai. Genuinely sirf samajhna chahta hoon. If someone helps i would be glad.

In return — agar aap apna last 3 months ka settlement report share karo, main free mein check karke bataunga ki koi overcharge hua hai ya nahi.

PS: Agar aap seller nahi ho but koi seller friend hai please tag karo ya ye post share kar do. 🙏

I've been reading about how selling on Amazon and Flipkart works in India and the fee structure seems insane. when you add everything up.

Commission 5-20%

Shipping charges

FBA/warehouse fees

TCS 1%

TDS 0.1%

Return shipping

GST filing costs

CA fees

For someone doing say ₹5-10L/month in sales — what's the actual take-home after ALL deductions and compliance costs? Is it actually profitable at that scale or do you need ₹50L+ monthly before it makes real sense? Genuinely curious because from outside It looks like a great business but the cost structure seems brutal.

Was reading about GST for ecommerce sellers and came across something
that blew my mind. Amazon and Flipkart deduct 1% TCS (Tax Collected at Source) on every single sale. This goes to the government.
Sellers are supposed to claim this back when filing GSTR-3B every month. But it only shows up in their GSTR-2B AFTER Amazon files their own return (GSTR-8) — which sometimes happens after the seller's own filing deadline.

So the seller either:
a) Files without claiming TCS = loses money
b) Waits for Amazon to file first = files late = penalty

And apparently up to 15% of a high-volume seller's working capital can get stuck in unclaimed TCS.Is this actually true? Any sellers here who can confirm
or am I misunderstanding something?

Also curious — does anyone actually do TCS reconciliation properly every month or do most people just let the CA handle it and hope for the best?

I've been reading about how selling on Amazon and Flipkart works in India and the fee structure seems insane when you add everything up.
Commission 5-20%
Shipping charges
FBA/warehouse fees
TCS 1%
TDS 0.1% Return
shipping
GST filing costs
CA fees

For someone doing say ₹5-10L/month in sales — what's the actual take-home after ALL deductions and compliance costs? Is it actually profitable at that scale or do you need ₹50L+ monthly before it makes real sense? Genuinely curious because from outside it looks like a great business but the cost structure seems brutal.