How to start an online store in Pakistan with Cash on Delivery
A step-by-step guide for first-time sellers: what to sell, the store itself, COD and couriers, WhatsApp, photos, and the first month of marketing — with realistic costs.
Most online sales in Pakistan are still Cash on Delivery, confirmed on WhatsApp, delivered by a courier rider. If you build around that reality from day one, your store will work. Here is the order to do things in.
1. Pick products that survive COD
COD has a return rate — customers refuse parcels. Products that do well: clothing with clear sizing, cosmetics, accessories, home items, anything under Rs 5,000 with photos that match reality. Products that struggle: fragile items, very high-value items without advance payment, and anything where the photo oversells.
2. Domain and hosting (Rs 6,000–10,000 a year)
Buy the domain in your own name. Any PHP + MySQL shared hosting works — Hostinger, Namecheap or a Pakistani provider. Avoid “website builder” plans; they cannot run a real store. Full checklist here.
3. The store itself
You have three realistic options: a marketplace (Daraz), a monthly platform (Shopify), or your own store built once. We wrote about the three-year cost of Shopify; the short version is that a one-time build on your own hosting costs less after month one and you own the customer list. Our Online Store is Rs 10,000 one-time and ships with everything below already built in.
4. Cash on Delivery and couriers
Open an account with Leopards or PostEx (both take individual sellers). They collect the cash and pay you weekly. Set your delivery charge (Rs 150–250 in-city, Rs 200–300 nationwide is typical) and decide your advance policy: for orders above a threshold, ask for a partial payment on JazzCash/Easypaisa to cut refusals. A store that books the courier from the admin panel and sends the tracking number to the customer saves you an hour a day.
5. WhatsApp is your checkout
Put a WhatsApp button on every product and at checkout. Pakistani customers want to ask one question before paying. Make sure the order arrives in your chat complete — product, variant, quantity, address, photo — so you can confirm in one reply. Set up a WhatsApp Business greeting and quick replies for “price?”, “delivery time?”, “size chart?”.
6. Photos
Consistent product photos matter more than a fancy design. One clean background, same lighting, front and detail shots, sizes in the description. If you cannot shoot them yourself, budget for it — we offer graphic work as an add-on because it is the single biggest conversion factor we see.
7. The first month of marketing
- Instagram and Facebook page with the same product photos; post three times a week.
- Rs 500–1,000 a day of Facebook ads to “Send WhatsApp message”, targeted to your city first.
- Google Business Profile even if you have no shop — it ranks for your brand name.
- Ask every happy customer for a review with a photo; publish them on the product page.
Realistic budget for month one
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Domain + hosting | Rs 6,000–10,000 / year |
| Store build (one-time) | Rs 10,000 |
| Product upload / photos (optional) | Rs 5,000–15,000 |
| Courier account | Free (COD fee per parcel) |
| Ads | Rs 15,000–30,000 |
Under Rs 60,000 gets a real store live with stock, photos and a month of traffic. Message us if you want it set up this week.