Should I self-ship each order internationally, use a courier aggregator like Shiprocket X, or hold stock abroad via FBA?
The short answer
For your first 50-100 international orders, use a cross-border courier aggregator (Shiprocket X, or similar), it handles customs paperwork per parcel and needs no upfront inventory commitment abroad. Move to holding stock in-country (Amazon FBA, or a 3PL) once one market has predictable, repeat demand, because in-country storage cuts delivery time from 10-15 days to 1-3 and meaningfully lifts conversion. Pure self-ship via India Post only makes sense for low-volume, low-urgency, high-margin niche orders.
A quick summary to orient you. The real value is below: the resources worth your time, from people who've actually done it, not us.
Here are the resources
Hand-picked from around the web, each with a note on why it earns your time. India-specific ones carry a badge.
Why we picked it
A clean four-step walkthrough, register, list, ship via FBA or self-fulfil, get paid, that answers 'how does the mechanics actually work' better than any third-party blog.
Why we picked it
A practical rundown of the major global shipping partners and carrier options an Indian D2C brand can actually plug into, from a company that runs one of the bigger cross-border aggregation platforms itself.
Why we picked it
The India-based way to ship cross-border with customs paperwork handled for you, relevant here because it bundles compliant export documentation with the actual shipment, reducing what you have to file yourself.
