How to Accept Digital Payments on Your Online Store in Nepal

If you sell in Nepal, you already know the question every customer asks before they buy: "eSewa, Khalti, ki bank?" Cash on delivery still moves a lot of orders, but more shoppers now expect to pay instantly from their phone. If your online store can't accept digital payments cleanly, you lose sales at the last step — checkout.

This guide walks you through setting up eSewa, Khalti, and bank transfers on your online store, the practical Nepali way. No jargon, no fake numbers — just what actually works for a small shop in Kathmandu, Pokhara, or anywhere with a delivery address and a phone.

Before you start: what you need ready

Getting approved for digital payments is faster when your paperwork is in order. Keep these handy:

PAN or VAT registration — most payment providers ask for your PAN certificate. If you cross the VAT threshold, you'll need VAT registration too.
A business bank account — payouts from eSewa, Khalti, and gateways land here. Using a personal account makes reconciliation and taxes messy.
Citizenship or business documents — for KYC verification.
A registered mobile number and email — used for the merchant dashboard and settlement alerts.

Have scanned copies ready before you apply. Half of all delays come from blurry document uploads.

Step 1: Add eSewa to your checkout

eSewa is the wallet most Nepali customers already have, so it's usually the first one to enable.

Apply for an eSewa merchant account with your PAN and business details. A personal wallet is not the same as a merchant account — only the merchant account gives you a product code and settlement to your bank.
Once approved, you receive a merchant code (and secret key). These are the credentials your store uses to verify payments.
Enter those credentials into your store's payment settings, then run a small test transaction — pay yourself NPR 10 and confirm the order is marked paid automatically.

The key thing: when a customer pays via eSewa, your store should mark the order as paid on its own. If you're manually checking screenshots, something isn't connected properly.

Step 2: Add Khalti to your checkout

Many customers prefer Khalti, so offering both widens your reach. The setup mirrors eSewa:

Register for a Khalti merchant account and complete KYC with your PAN and bank details.
From the Khalti merchant dashboard, copy your public and secret keys.
Paste them into your store's Khalti settings and test with a real low-value payment.

Offering eSewa and Khalti together is not redundant — shoppers are loyal to whichever wallet they topped up last. Giving both options removes a real reason to abandon the cart.

Step 3: Enable bank transfer (and QR)

Not everyone uses a wallet. For larger orders especially, customers — and other businesses buying from you — often prefer a direct bank transfer or a scan-to-pay QR (Fonepay/connectIPS-style).

For bank transfer, two approaches work:

Manual bank transfer: Show your account name, number, and bank at checkout, plus a QR. The customer transfers and uploads the reference or screenshot; you confirm before dispatch. Simple, but you verify each one by hand.
Connected gateway: Use a payment gateway that supports bank/QR payments so confirmation is automatic.

If you use manual transfer, always ask for the transaction reference number, not just a screenshot — screenshots are easy to fake, and the reference lets you match the payment in your bank statement.

Don't drop cash on delivery

Digital payments are growing, but COD still drives a large share of online orders in Nepal, especially outside the valley and for first-time buyers who don't trust a new store yet. Keep COD as an option alongside digital — but nudge customers toward prepaid by offering it as the default, or a small incentive like free delivery on prepaid orders. Prepaid orders also cut down on the failed-delivery and return losses that eat into COD margins.

Step 4: Match payments to delivery

Accepting payment is only half the job; the order still has to reach the customer. Connect your payment method to how you fulfil:

Prepaid orders (eSewa/Khalti/bank) can ship immediately — payment is confirmed.
COD orders go to your courier (Pathao, NepCan, Aramex, or a local delivery partner), who collects cash and remits it to you on a cycle.

Reconcile weekly: match courier COD remittances and wallet settlements against your orders. This is where many shops quietly lose money — a few unremitted COD orders or unsettled wallet payments add up fast.

Where Saauzi fits

Doing each of these integrations separately — eSewa, Khalti, bank QR, COD, and a courier — is a lot of moving parts for a small team. Saauzi brings them into one place: you build your online store, switch on eSewa, Khalti, and bank payments at checkout, and connect delivery and POS from the same dashboard. Payments, orders, and inventory stay in sync, so a sale online and a sale at your counter live in the same system instead of three different apps and a notebook.

Get ready for Dashain and Tihar

The festival season is the biggest sales window of the year for most Nepali retailers, and it's also when checkout problems cost the most. A few things to do before the rush, not during it:

Test every payment method with a real low-value transaction a week ahead. Don't discover a broken Khalti key on the busiest day.
Make sure your bank account is verified so settlements aren't held up when volume spikes.
Decide your prepaid vs COD policy for festival orders in advance — many shops go prepaid-only on high-value or made-to-order items to avoid returns.
Keep enough float and stock visible in your system so you don't oversell.

Your actionable takeaway

This week, do three things: (1) apply for eSewa and Khalti merchant accounts with your PAN, (2) add eSewa, Khalti, and a bank-transfer/QR option to your checkout and run a real NPR 10 test on each, and (3) set prepaid as your default while keeping COD available. Get this working now, reconcile weekly, and you'll head into Dashain–Tihar with a checkout that actually closes sales instead of losing them.