Nepal’s eCommerce history is full of big launches and quiet endings.

Sastodeal ran for more than a decade, raised investment, partnered with Flipkart and Myntra, and still shut down by early 2024. Gyapu launched during the 2020 lockdown with zero commission for sellers. Today its website shows a “domain for sale” page.

Even the winner is finding it hard. Daraz, owned by Alibaba, has more than 3 million customers in Nepal. Yet in June 2026, a former employee told the Kathmandu Post that Daraz Nepal was still not net profitable.

And still, new players keep arriving. In 2026 alone, a courier company, a China-sourcing startup and a ride-hailing app all launched new ways to sell online.

So here’s the honest truth: eCommerce in Nepal is a money-burning business if you do it wrong. But it can work, if your go-to-market plan is built around profit, delivery and repeat customers, not just traffic.

I’m Bimal Raj Paudel, Head of Growth & Marketing at Trip Turbo, with over ten years in Nepal’s digital market. I’ve also worked directly with an eCommerce and delivery business in Pokhara. This guide is what I’d tell anyone planning an online store here.

The Short Answer

An eCommerce go-to-market strategy in Nepal should answer six questions before you spend on ads:

  1. What narrow niche will you own? Not “everything for everyone”. That’s Daraz’s game, and it costs billions.
  2. Why should someone buy from you instead of Daraz? Authenticity, expertise, curation, speed or after-sales service.
  3. Do you make a profit on each order? After product cost, delivery, returns, payment fees and ad cost.
  4. Can you deliver reliably, including outside the Valley? In Nepal, delivery is half the product.
  5. Is your website, support and follow-up good enough to earn a second order?
  6. How will customers come back? Repeat orders are where the profit is.

If you can’t answer these yet, don’t launch ads. Fix the plan first.

Why eCommerce in Nepal Burns Money

Many people think the hard part of eCommerce is getting traffic. In Nepal, the hard part is making money on each order once the traffic arrives.

Here’s where the money goes.

1. Discounts become a habit

Big sale days like 11.11 bring huge spikes in orders. In 2025, Daraz advertised flash-sale discounts of up to 85%.

The problem is what happens after. Customers learn to wait for the next sale. Your full-price sales drop. And smaller stores that try to copy these discounts don’t have Alibaba’s money behind them.

2. Cash on delivery and returns

Most Nepali shoppers still prefer to pay when the parcel arrives. During its 2025 11.11 sale, Daraz said only 35% of purchases were paid digitally.

Cash on delivery (COD) builds trust. But it also lets customers refuse the parcel at the door. When that happens, you pay twice: once to send it and again to bring it back.

One courier’s guide puts typical return rates at 15–25%. Treat that as a rough figure from a single courier, not official data. But the cost is real.

This is not a new problem. Back in 2015, the head of Kaymu (which later became Daraz) said at a panel that COD led to many returned goods. He also said they kept about 5% of margin aside to cover delivery losses like damage and theft.

3. Ads keep getting more expensive

Facebook and Instagram ads cost more each year as more businesses compete for the same people. I’ve broken down the numbers in my guide to Facebook ad costs in Nepal.

When a customer costs more to win than the profit on their first order, you only make money if they come back.

4. Trust is low

Shoppers in Nepal worry about fake products, wrong items and refunds that never come. In 2024, the Kathmandu Post linked the slowdown in online shopping to online fraud, late deliveries and complicated refunds.

Low trust means lower conversion rates and more COD. Both cost you money.

5. Demand goes up and down with the economy

In the same 2024 report, Thulo.com’s co-founder said overall online demand had fallen by about 40%. When the economy slows, online shopping falls with it. A store with thin margins has no cushion.

The Hardest Part: Delivering Across Nepal

If you ask people who run online stores in Nepal what keeps them up at night, delivery comes up again and again. The country’s geography makes every parcel harder than it looks.

Hills, mountains and roads

Roughly four-fifths of Nepal is hills and mountains. Only the southern Terai is flat.

Roads have grown fast, but quality hasn’t kept up. Of the roughly 36,000 km of roads in the government’s count, only about half was blacktopped as of March 2025. A World Bank estimate from around 2015 found that only 54% of Nepal’s rural people lived within 2 km of an all-season road.

So delivery times stretch quickly once you leave the Valley. One courier, ThuExpress, lists same-day delivery in the Valley, 2–4 days in the Terai and 5–7 days in hill areas.

In the far west, delivery can look very different. Nepal Can Move says it reaches Karnali and remote districts, often delivering on foot, on people’s backs and by donkey.

The monsoon closes roads

Every monsoon, landslides cut off highways for days. During the September 2024 floods, the main highways into Kathmandu were blocked, and vegetable supplies to the city fell by more than 90%.

It happens every year. In July 2026, nine highways were blocked at the same time.

For an online store, that means late parcels, angry customers and more refused COD orders, all in the busy season before Dashain.

No proper addresses

Most Nepali homes don’t have a standard street address. Delivery riders rely on landmarks, phone calls and directions like “near the temple, the blue gate”.

Even back in 2017, a UN trade agency report said the lack of a proper postal addressing system made last-mile delivery hard. Every phone call a rider makes to find a house costs time and money.

Most sellers are in one valley

Over 90% of active online merchants are in the Kathmandu Valley, according to a 2026 Kathmandu Post report. Yet in 2023, Daraz said about half its orders came from outside Kathmandu.

That gap means a lot of parcels travel long distances on difficult roads.

There is good news too. The same report says delivery through specialised logistics companies now costs around Rs 70–80 per order, down from Rs 200–300 before. Delivery is getting cheaper, but it isn’t getting easier.

The Hidden Operating Costs

Delivery isn’t the only cost that surprises new store owners. Running an online store in Nepal comes with costs that don’t show up on a launch plan.

  • Fuel. Petrol and diesel reached Rs 200 a litre in Kathmandu in August 2026. When fuel rises, so do delivery rates.
  • Import taxes. Imported goods pay customs duty plus 13% VAT on the value including duty. Your landed cost is much higher than the supplier’s price.
  • Waiting for COD cash. With COD, the courier collects your money and pays you later. Until then, your cash is stuck while you keep buying stock.
  • People. Someone has to confirm orders, answer messages, pack parcels and handle returns. In Nepal, most of this is still done by hand.
  • Stock and storage. Products that don’t sell tie up money and space. Returned items often can’t be sold at full price.
  • Payment fees. Digital wallets and gateways charge merchant fees. Small percentages add up when your margin is thin.

None of these are reasons not to start. They’re reasons to price properly and check your numbers before you grow.

A Simple Example: Where the Profit Goes

Here’s one order, step by step. These are made-up numbers to show the logic, not market data. Use your own.

Item Amount (Rs)
Selling price 2,000
Product cost (landed, after import taxes) −1,200
Delivery −150
Packaging and payment fees −50
Ad cost to win this customer −400
Profit before returns 200
Cost of returns (say 1 in 5 COD orders fail, about Rs 250 lost each time) −50
Real profit per order 150

Now add a 20% discount to “boost sales”. You’ve just given away Rs 400. That one order now loses Rs 250.

This is how stores burn money while looking busy. Orders go up, but every order loses money.

Do this maths before you launch. My free ROAS & CAC calculator helps you check how much you can afford to spend to win each customer. If you’d like a second pair of eyes on your numbers, I can help with that too.

Lessons From the Big Players

Daraz: The Winner That Still Isn’t Done Paying

Daraz started in Nepal as Kaymu and became Daraz in 2016. In 2018, Alibaba bought the whole Daraz Group.

What Daraz did well:

  • Reach. Nepal Khabar reported in June 2026 that it serves around 140 locations, with around 24,000 merchants, most of them small businesses.
  • Sale days as events. The 11.11 sale in 2021 served about 7 lakh shoppers in 24 hours. In 2025, 48% of 11.11 sales came from first-time buyers.
  • Its own delivery. In July 2026, Daraz launched a “Fast Delivery” badge for products that reliably arrive within 48 hours.

But look at the cost. Daraz Group cut staff in 2023, citing tough market conditions. It cut again in 2024, saying its costs were still too high for its targets. In June 2026, the Kathmandu Post reported that about 30 staff were leaving Daraz Nepal. Daraz said there were no layoffs, only a routine performance review, and called the figure of 30 incorrect. A former employee told the Post that Daraz Nepal was earning more than its operating costs but still not making a net profit.

The lesson: Daraz had Alibaba’s money, over a decade in the market and millions of customers. It reportedly still isn’t fully profitable. A small store can’t win by copying Daraz’s model. You need a different game.

Jeevee: Winning by Going Narrow

Jeevee didn’t try to sell everything. It focuses on health, beauty and baby products, categories where fake products are a real worry.

Its pitch is trust. It says its products are sourced directly from brands, and it promises three times the price back if a product is proven fake.

Jeevee has since added more categories and a quick-delivery service called Quickee for parts of Kathmandu. Its app has more than 5 lakh downloads on Google Play.

The lesson: pick a category where shoppers have a real problem, like fake products, and solve it better than a giant marketplace can. Trust is a stronger position than price.

Sastodeal: When the Money Runs Out

Sastodeal was one of Nepal’s earliest online stores, starting in 2011. It had tie-ups with India’s Flipkart and Myntra, and backing from Dolma Impact Fund, which first invested in 2018 and added $1 million in 2020.

In April 2024, the Kathmandu Post reported that Sastodeal had shut down, with about 200 jobs lost. Its co-founder, Amun Thapa, said: “Obviously, there is no demand.” He also admitted the customer base fell because they failed to deliver on time.

Nepali Telecom noted that he had earlier said things got harder after Alibaba invested in Daraz, and after investors took their money back.

In July 2024, IME Group bought a 70% stake and planned to restart it. As of October 2026, there was no working Sastodeal store online.

The lesson: competing head-to-head with a better-funded marketplace is dangerous. If your model depends on investor money, you’re in trouble when that money leaves. And late deliveries destroy trust faster than marketing can rebuild it.

Gyapu: Subsidies Don’t Buy Loyalty

Gyapu launched in March 2020, just as the COVID lockdown began. Its offer was generous: zero commission for sellers in the first year, fast payments to vendors, free delivery for the first year and orders delivered within 24 hours.

It grew quickly during the lockdown. Then it went quiet. I couldn’t find its Android app on Google Play, and in October 2026, gyapu.com showed a “domain for sale” page. I couldn’t find any public statement explaining what happened.

The lesson: we don’t know exactly why Gyapu went quiet. But its launch offer shows a common risk: zero commission and free delivery can buy fast growth. They don’t buy loyalty. When the subsidies stop, sellers and customers have no built-in reason to stay.

The New Wave: Who’s Betting on Nepal Now

Despite the failures, new platforms keep launching. What’s interesting is who is launching them. Many of the newcomers already own the hardest part of the business: delivery or supply.

NepalCAN.com, by Nepal Can Move. Nepal Can Move is a courier company that has been delivering since 2018. In August 2026, it soft-launched NepalCAN.com, a marketplace focused on Nepali products and sellers. It reported more than 70,000 products and over a thousand sellers at launch, with seller commissions of 2.5–5%. Its big advantage is its own delivery network, which it says has more than 600 branches.

Chynabazar. Launched in July 2026, Chynabazar sources products made in China and keeps stock in Nepal. Its CEO told Xinhua that sourcing, importing, warehousing and delivery all sit “under one roof”. It also opened a physical experience store in Lalitpur.

Pathao Commerce. In August 2026, Pathao launched a tool for sellers who take orders through Facebook and WhatsApp, with order management and a website builder linked to its parcel service.

Yetideal. Backed by Jain Group, Yetideal launched in September 2026 with a promise of 24-hour delivery inside the Valley and 48 hours to major cities, and a focus on Made in Nepal products.

Quick commerce. Startups like Fasto promise 10-minute delivery in parts of Kathmandu.

The market is busy. The Kathmandu Post reported that 1,530 eCommerce businesses had applied to register by August 2026.

The lesson: the new players are betting that whoever controls delivery and supply can finally make the numbers work. It’s too early to know who will last. But for small sellers, more marketplaces and lower commissions mean more channels to test, and less dependence on Daraz alone.

What This Means for Your Store

Put all these stories together and a clear pattern appears:

  • Don’t fight Daraz on price or range. You’ll lose. Use marketplaces as sales channels if they help, but build your own brand too.
  • Go narrow. One category, one type of customer, done really well.
  • Win on trust. Real products, honest photos, on-time delivery and easy returns.
  • Treat delivery as part of your product. Your customer judges you on the parcel, not the ad.
  • Check your profit per order before you scale. Growth that loses money on every order just burns money faster.
  • Don’t depend on subsidies. Free delivery and big discounts should be tools you control, not your whole business model.

The eCommerce GTM Plan for Nepal: 9 Steps

This is the plan I’d follow for a new online store in Nepal. For the full framework behind it, see my go-to-market strategy guide for Nepali startups.

Step 1: Pick a narrow niche and a clear customer

“Fashion” is too broad. “Ethnic wear for working women in Kathmandu” is a niche. “Skincare” is too broad. “Genuine Korean skincare for oily skin” is a niche.

A narrow niche makes everything easier. Your ads cost less because you know exactly who to target. Your content is easier to make. And customers remember you.

Write down your ideal customer in one sentence: who they are, what they buy, where they live and what worries them about buying online.

Step 2: Decide why people should buy from you, not Daraz

Your customer can probably find something similar on Daraz. So why buy from you?

Strong reasons in Nepal include:

  • Guaranteed genuine products, with proof.
  • Expert advice. Help choosing the right size, shade or model.
  • Curation. A smaller, better selection.
  • Faster delivery in your area.
  • After-sales service, like warranty support, easy exchanges or setup help.
  • Local identity. Made in Nepal, a local brand story, or a community people want to support.

Pick one or two. Put them in your website headline, your ads and your packaging.

Step 3: Test demand before you build big

Don’t spend months and lakhs building the perfect store first. Test cheaply:

  • Sell through Instagram, TikTok or Facebook first. If people message, order and come back, you have demand.
  • List a few products on a marketplace. Daraz or one of the newer platforms is a fast way to see what sells, at what price.
  • Pre-sell or take advance bookings for new products.

When orders are steady and you’re drowning in DMs, it’s time for a proper store.

Step 4: Check your numbers before you spend on ads

Use the example table above with your real numbers. Work out:

  • Profit per order after landed product cost, delivery, packaging, payment fees and returns.
  • The most you can pay to win a customer and still make money.
  • How many repeat orders you need to make a customer worth it.

If the numbers don’t work at small scale, ads won’t fix them. They’ll just make the losses bigger.

Step 5: Plan delivery around Nepal’s geography

Delivery is your product too. A great product that arrives late feels like a bad product.

  • Test couriers on real orders, inside and outside the Valley. Measure delivery time and failed deliveries, not just price.
  • Use more than one courier. One may be strong in the Terai and another in the hills.
  • Set honest delivery times by area. “2–4 days in the Terai, up to a week in the hills” beats a promise you can’t keep.
  • Set delivery charges by area. Don’t promise free delivery everywhere until you know the cost.
  • Plan for the monsoon. Stock up before Dashain, warn customers early about delays and avoid big promotions when highways are blocked.
  • Collect good addresses. Ask for a landmark, a phone number that works and a map pin at checkout.

Step 6: Cut COD returns

  • Confirm COD orders before you send them. A quick call or WhatsApp message cuts fake and impulse orders.
  • Reward digital payment. A small discount or free gift for paying with eSewa, Khalti or Fonepay reduces COD risk.
  • Take a part payment for expensive items. An advance on high-value orders filters out buyers who aren’t serious.
  • Show exactly what people will get. Real photos, sizes and honest descriptions mean fewer “this isn’t what I ordered” refusals.
  • Make returns simple and clear. It builds trust, and the law now expects it.

Step 7: Build a website and app experience that’s top notch

In Nepal, your store competes with Daraz’s app in the same customer’s pocket. If your site is slow or confusing, they’ll go back to what they know.

The basics have to be excellent:

  • Fast on cheap phones and slow data. Most of your customers shop on mid-range Android phones. Every extra second of loading loses buyers. I explain why I care so much about speed in why I moved my own site from WordPress to Astro.
  • Easy search and filters. People should find a product in two taps, by category, price, size or brand.
  • Product pages that answer every question. Real photos, sizes, materials, delivery time to their area, return policy and reviews.
  • A short checkout. Guest checkout, COD and wallets clearly shown, and no unnecessary fields.
  • Order tracking. A simple “where’s my order” page or automatic updates on WhatsApp or SMS.

Recommendations that actually help. A good recommendation engine raises order value and brings people back. Start simple: “frequently bought together”, “recently viewed” and “you may also like” based on what similar customers bought. As your data grows, personalise the home page and offers based on each customer’s behaviour. Bad recommendations are worse than none, so keep your product data clean and test what you show.

Website first, app later. An app makes sense when customers order often, like groceries, beauty or baby products. Until then, a fast mobile website is cheaper and easier to get right.

Tracking from day one. Set up the Meta Pixel and Conversions API, Google Analytics 4 and proper campaign links before any ads. Without tracking, you can’t tell which rupee worked. Here’s how the Pixel and tracking setup works, and my free UTM builder helps you tag every link.

Not sure which platform to build on? I compared the main options in my guide to the best eCommerce store builders for Nepal, from Zalient Shop and Blanxer to WooCommerce and Shopify.

Step 8: Make support your secret weapon

In a market where trust is low, great support is one of the cheapest ways to stand out.

  • Be where customers are. Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber and a phone number that someone answers.
  • Reply fast. Shoppers often message several stores at once. The first clear reply usually wins the sale.
  • Speak their language. Nepali, English and Roman Nepali all matter.
  • Tell people before they ask. Send updates when an order ships, when it’s out for delivery and when there’s a delay.
  • Fix problems generously. A quick replacement or refund costs less than a bad review on Facebook.
  • Track every complaint. If the same problem keeps coming back, fix the cause, not just the ticket.

Step 9: Build marketing lifecycle and automation

Your first order often barely breaks even once you count ad costs. The second, third and tenth orders are where the profit is. Lifecycle marketing is how you get them, and automation makes it affordable.

Set these up early:

When Automated message Goal
Someone signs up or follows Welcome message with your story and a small first-order offer First order
Someone leaves items in the cart Reminder within a few hours, then one follow-up Recover the sale
Order placed Confirmation, delivery updates and thank-you Trust
A week after delivery Review request and how-to-use tips Reviews and fewer returns
When the product runs out Reorder reminder for things people use up Repeat order
Before Dashain, Tihar and big days Early access for past customers Repeat order
No order for a few months “We miss you” message with a reason to come back Win back

Use the channels your customers actually read: WhatsApp, Viber, SMS, email and social media. Group customers by how recently and how often they buy, and how much they spend, so your best customers get the most attention.

Always get permission first. Nepal’s Advertisement (Regulation) Act restricts promotional SMS and email sent without consent.

Add retargeting ads for people who viewed products but didn’t buy, and a simple way to say thank you, like a handwritten note or a small sample. For the full channel playbook, see my eCommerce marketing strategy for Nepal.

Then launch, in three stages

Before launch (2–4 weeks). Build a small audience. Share behind-the-scenes content. Collect a waitlist on WhatsApp or Instagram. Line up a few micro-creators who genuinely fit your niche.

Launch week. Give early customers a reason to act now, like a launch offer, a free gift or limited stock. Keep the offer modest so you don’t train customers to wait for discounts.

After launch. Ask every customer for a review. Fix whatever goes wrong. Double down on the channels that bring profitable orders, not just clicks.

For a detailed day-by-day version, follow my 90-day plan to launch an online store in Nepal.

What I Learned From a Pokhara eCommerce Business

I’ve worked directly with an eCommerce and delivery business in Pokhara. I can’t name them, but three lessons stuck with me.

Trust mattered more than reach. Getting seen was not the hard part. Getting people to trust a new store enough to order was.

Delivery reliability mattered more than ad creative. A clever ad brings one order. Reliable delivery brings the next five.

Word of mouth on Facebook moved faster than any campaign. When customers were happy, they told others. When they weren’t, they told even more people.

None of those lessons are about clever marketing tricks. They’re about running the business well. That’s what most GTM plans miss.

Know the Rules: The E-Commerce Act

Nepal now has a law for online selling. The E-Commerce Act passed Parliament in March 2025 and took effect in April 2025.

In simple terms, it expects online sellers to:

  • Register with the Department of Commerce, Supplies and Consumer Protection.
  • Describe products accurately and keep the details up to date.
  • Refund or replace items that are wrong, defective or delivered late.

Registration has been mandatory since July 2025, and it includes people who sell only through social media. In August 2026, the Department issued a public notice telling online sellers to register or face action.

Detailed rules are still being updated, so check the latest requirements with the Department or your accountant before you launch. Being registered and honest is also good marketing. It’s one more reason for customers to trust you.

For Funded Founders: How Not to Burn Your Runway

If you’ve raised money for a marketplace or a fast-growing store, the pressure to show growth is huge. That pressure is exactly how Nepali eCommerce companies have burned through their funding.

A few rules worth following:

  • Track profit per order, not just total sales. Big sales numbers built on discounts are not a business.
  • Know how long it takes to earn back what you paid for each customer. If it’s longer than your runway, slow down.
  • Own or control the hard parts. The new wave of platforms is built by companies that already run delivery or sourcing. If you rely on others for both, your margin is in their hands.
  • Treat sale days as a way to win new customers, not a monthly habit. Measure how many of those new buyers come back without a discount.
  • Don’t subsidise forever. Free delivery and zero commission must have an end date and a reason.
  • Plan for investors to say no. Sastodeal’s co-founder had said things got harder after investors took their money back. Build a model that can survive on its own revenue.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is eCommerce profitable in Nepal?

It can be, but many stores lose money. Discounts, cash-on-delivery returns, delivery costs outside the Valley and rising ad costs eat into thin margins. Even Daraz was reported in 2026 to be not yet net profitable, according to a former employee. Stores that make money usually focus on a narrow niche, check their profit per order and earn repeat customers.

Why is delivery so hard for eCommerce in Nepal?

Most of the country is hills and mountains, only about half of the main roads are blacktopped, the monsoon blocks highways every year, and most homes don’t have a standard address. Delivery to hill districts can take a week, and failed deliveries cost money both ways.

Why did Sastodeal shut down?

In 2024, its co-founder told the Kathmandu Post that demand had fallen sharply and that the customer base dropped because they failed to deliver on time. Nepali Telecom noted that he had earlier said competing with Alibaba-backed Daraz was hard and that investors had taken their money back. IME Group bought a majority stake in July 2024, but no relaunched store was visible as of October 2026.

What happened to Gyapu?

Gyapu launched in March 2020 with zero commission for sellers and free delivery in its first year. Its Android app could not be found on Google Play, and by October 2026 its website showed a domain-for-sale page. I couldn’t find any public statement explaining what happened.

What are the new eCommerce platforms in Nepal?

Recent launches include NepalCAN.com by courier company Nepal Can Move, Chynabazar, which sources products directly from China, Pathao Commerce for social sellers, and Yetideal. Quick-commerce apps like Fasto offer very fast delivery in parts of Kathmandu.

Can a small online store compete with Daraz?

Not on price or range. A small store can compete on trust, expertise, curation, faster local delivery, great support and after-sales service. Many sellers also use Daraz and other marketplaces as sales channels while building their own brand and website.

How do I reduce cash-on-delivery returns?

Confirm COD orders by phone or WhatsApp before dispatch, offer a small reward for paying online, take a part payment for expensive items, use honest product photos and descriptions, and deliver on time. Most refused parcels come from impulse orders, wrong expectations or slow delivery.

Do I need an app for my online store?

Usually not at the start. A fast mobile website is cheaper and easier to get right. An app makes sense once customers order often, for example groceries, beauty or baby products, and you have a reason to send them regular offers and reminders.

Do I need to register my online store in Nepal?

The E-Commerce Act passed in 2025 requires online sellers to register with the Department of Commerce, Supplies and Consumer Protection. Registration has been mandatory since July 2025, including for social media sellers, and the Department issued a public notice in August 2026 warning of action against those who don’t. Check the current requirements before you launch.

How much should I spend on ads when launching an online store in Nepal?

Start small and only scale what is profitable. First work out the most you can afford to pay to win a customer, based on your profit per order and how often customers reorder. Spend a little to test, then increase spending only on ads that bring profitable orders.

If you’re planning to launch an online store, or your current store is busy but not making money, I can help you build a go-to-market plan around real numbers.

Talk to Bimal →