Picking an e-commerce platform feels like a software decision, but in Nepal it is really a business decision. The wrong choice shows up later as a customer who cannot pay with eSewa, a Dashain rush your site cannot handle, or a VAT report you have to rebuild by hand at year end. Before you sign up for anything — whether it is a global name or a local platform — walk through these ten questions. They are written for the reality of running a shop in Kathmandu, Pokhara, or anywhere goods still move by courier and cash.
1. Does it support eSewa, Khalti, and bank payments natively?
This is the first filter, and it eliminates most foreign platforms instantly. Your customers expect to pay with eSewa, Khalti, IME Pay, or a direct bank transfer through ConnectIPS or Fonepay. A platform built for the US or India often only ships with Stripe, PayPal, or Razorpay — none of which serve ordinary Nepali shoppers. Ask specifically: are these wallets built in and officially integrated, or will you need a developer to patch in an unofficial plugin that breaks on the next update?
2. How well does it handle Cash on Delivery?
COD is still how a large share of Nepali online orders are paid. A serious platform treats COD as a first-class payment method, not an afterthought. Check whether you can mark COD orders separately, reconcile collected cash against your courier's remittance, and flag repeat no-show customers. If the dashboard cannot tell you how much cash is sitting with delivery partners right now, your accounting will leak.
3. Is pricing in NPR, and what are the real total costs?
A plan that looks cheap at "$29/month" is over Rs 3,800 before you sell a single item, and it swings with the exchange rate. Look for transparent pricing in Nepali rupees. Then add up everything: monthly fee, transaction or gateway charges, SMS costs for order updates, and any per-staff or per-product limits. The cheapest sticker price is rarely the cheapest platform once you are running real volume.
4. Can it produce VAT and PAN-compliant invoices?
If you are PAN or VAT registered with the Inland Revenue Department, your invoices must show your PAN/VAT number, the correct 13% VAT breakdown, and sequential billing. A platform that only prints a generic receipt creates work for your accountant every single month. Ask whether it generates compliant tax invoices and whether you can export sales data in a format your accountant can actually file with. This one question saves the most pain at year end.
5. Does it connect to Nepali couriers and delivery?
Selling is half the job; getting the parcel to Dharan is the other half. Find out how the platform handles logistics. Can it generate shipping labels, push orders to local courier partners, and let customers track delivery? Inside the valley you might self-deliver, but the moment you ship outside Kathmandu you need a clean handoff to a courier and a way to follow the package. A platform that ignores delivery leaves you copying addresses into spreadsheets at 9pm.
6. Can it run your physical shop and your online store together?
Many Nepali sellers are not purely online — they have a counter, a shelf, and walk-in customers. If that is you, ask whether the platform includes a real POS that shares one inventory with your website. When a product sells in-store, the online stock should drop automatically, so you never oversell during a busy Saturday. Running your shop and your storefront on one system is exactly the gap Saauzi was built to close for Nepali retailers, so unified inventory and POS are worth testing before you commit.
What to test
- Make a sale on the POS and confirm the website stock updates.
- Place an online order and confirm it appears in the same dashboard.
- Check that low-stock alerts cover both channels.
7. Will it survive Dashain and Tihar traffic?
Your biggest sales days of the year arrive in one festival window. A platform that feels fine in the quiet month of Shrawan can crawl or crash when Dashain and Tihar traffic hits and everyone is shopping at once. Ask about uptime during peak load, whether the checkout stays fast under pressure, and how easily you can run festival discounts, bundles, and coupon codes. The cost of a slow site during Dashain is not theoretical — it is a month of revenue.
8. Is support in Nepali time, and ideally in the Nepali language?
When your checkout breaks on a Friday evening, a support team in another timezone replying in two business days is useless. Prioritize a platform with support that runs on Nepal Standard Time and understands local context — a person who knows what eSewa is and why a customer in Birgunj cannot complete payment. Ask how you reach support (phone, Viber, WhatsApp, email), and how fast they actually respond. Local support is not a luxury here; it is the difference between a two-hour outage and a two-day one.
9. Can you grow without re-platforming?
Think about where your business will be in two years, not just today. Can you add staff accounts with limited permissions? Multiple locations or warehouses? More products without hitting a wall? A platform that fits a 50-product shop but cannot stretch to 500 forces a painful migration later — and migrating your catalogue, customers, and order history is never as clean as it sounds.
10. Do you own your data, and can you leave?
Before you commit, confirm you can export your products, customers, and orders in a standard format whenever you want. Your customer list is one of your most valuable assets. If a platform makes it hard to take your data and go, that is a warning sign. The freedom to leave is what keeps any platform honest about earning your loyalty.
How to use this checklist
You will rarely find a platform that scores a perfect ten, so weight the questions by your situation. A pure online seller should weigh payments, COD, and delivery most heavily. A shop owner adding an online channel should put POS and unified inventory near the top. Everyone should treat VAT compliance, NPR pricing, and local support as non-negotiable, because those are the costs that quietly compound every month.
Takeaway
Before you commit, do this: open the platform's free trial, run one test order paid by eSewa, print the invoice and check it shows your VAT number, and message support to see how fast a real human replies. If all three feel smooth, you have found a platform built for how business actually works in Nepal — not one you will be fighting against by next Dashain.
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