Pune's online sellers look different from Mumbai's or Bengaluru's. A large share of them make something, or are one step away from someone who does: packaged foods, home and kitchen, auto and industrial accessories, apparel with an owned production line, and engineered products that found a consumer market on a marketplace.
That changes the accounting problem. For a pure trader, cost of goods sold is a purchase invoice. For a business that manufactures or assembles, it is a computation, and getting it wrong distorts margin on every online order in both directions.
If you make what you sell, three questions decide whether your reported margin means anything.
What goes into cost? Inventory is valued at the lower of cost and net realisable value. Cost includes materials net of recoverable taxes, inbound freight, customs duty where applicable, and the costs of conversion that bring the goods to their present location and condition. It excludes selling costs: marketplace commission, advertising, fulfilment fees and storage of finished goods.
Where does packaging sit? E-commerce packaging is not the same as retail packaging. Primary packaging that is part of the product goes into product cost. Shipping cartons, void fill and marketplace-mandated labelling are distribution costs. Businesses that started in wholesale routinely carry all of it in one account and cannot then explain why online margin looks worse than trade margin.
How is stock at a fulfilment centre treated? It is still yours, still in closing stock, and still needs to reconcile. Storage charged by the platform is a period cost, not part of inventory value.
Get those three right and contribution margin per SKU becomes a number you can act on. Get them wrong and you will price online orders off a cost figure that quietly includes selling expenses, or excludes conversion costs it should carry.
Most Pune files we open have both. A trade channel selling to distributors, and a direct channel on marketplaces or an own storefront.
They belong in one set of books with two reporting segments, not two sets of books and not one blended figure. The reasons are practical:
When a founder tells us the online channel "isn't really making money", the first thing we check is whether online is being measured after costs that trade never carries. About half the time, the channel is fine and the comparison was not.
Your warehouse is very likely in your own state. The belt serving Pune runs through Chakan, Talegaon, Wagholi and Ranjangaon, with Bhiwandi available for wider western India coverage. All of it is Maharashtra. So a Pune seller putting stock into a fulfilment centre normally adds the address to the existing registration as an additional place of business through a REG-14 amendment, with no government fee and no second registration.
Marketplaces will not inbound stock to a warehouse that is not on your registration, so the amendment has to be done first. We handle it through our add place of business service.
If you later take space in Gujarat, Karnataka or Telangana, that state is a distinct person under GST and moving your own stock there becomes a supply under Schedule I of the CGST Act, needing a tax invoice and IGST.
PTEC and PTRC both apply. Maharashtra employers register for PTRC for tax deducted from employees and PTEC for the entity's own enrolment. Manufacturing-adjacent sellers usually have more staff than a pure D2C brand at the same revenue, so this lands earlier here than elsewhere. We handle it through PTEC and PTRC registration.
Intra-state e-way bills. Maharashtra sets its own threshold for movement within the state, distinct from the inter-state figure. Check the current notification before assuming a Pune to Chakan movement is exempt.
Since the July 2025 tax period, the outward liability in GSTR-3B is locked to your GSTR-1, so corrections have to go through GSTR-1A before filing. Both channels have to be reconciled before anything is submitted.
Where the stock model needs serial or batch tracking, we generally keep the books in Tally rather than pushing a cloud product that handles it less well. The right software is the one that fits the inventory, not the one the accountant prefers.
Professional fees are quoted excluding GST; government fees are payable at actuals. Pricing follows channels, volume, registrations and inventory complexity, not turnover.
At the lower of cost and net realisable value, where cost includes materials net of recoverable taxes, inbound freight, duty and costs of conversion. It excludes marketplace commission, advertising, fulfilment fees and storage of finished goods. Getting that boundary right is what makes online margin comparable to trade margin.
No. Both are in Maharashtra, so the warehouse is added to your existing registration through a REG-14 amendment. A separate registration is needed only for a warehouse in another state.
Maharashtra levies professional tax through PTRC for employee deductions and PTEC for the entity's own enrolment, alongside PF, ESI and salary TDS.
Yes, and it should. One ledger, two reporting segments. Separate books create reconciliation problems at year end and make the GST return harder, not easier.
Primary packaging that forms part of the product goes into product cost. Shipping cartons, void fill and platform-mandated labelling are distribution costs. Mixing them is the most common reason online margin looks artificially poor next to trade margin.
Yes, across the Pune district. The compliance position is the same throughout Maharashtra; what changes is the warehousing decision and the stock model, which is where the actual work is.
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Reviewed by the CA and CS Team, CorporateWalla · Last updated 28 August 2026 · · Sources: GST portal, Income Tax Department, CBIC
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