Selling Electronics on Shopify in India, BIS and EPR First

Electronics is a category where the product can be ready, the photos shot and the store built, and you still cannot legally sell. Most gadgets sold in India need a BIS registration for each model, and a brand that sells electrical or electronic goods under its own name usually has to register as a producer under the E-Waste Rules too. This guide covers both, plus the warranty, returns and product page setup an electronics brand needs on Shopify.

Legal details are from the Gazette notifications published on bis.gov.in, the E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022 published by the Central Pollution Control Board, and the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020. All checked on 5 November 2026. This is general information, not legal advice. Confirm your own products with BIS, CPCB or a compliance consultant before launch.

Do electronics sold online in India need BIS registration?

Many of them do. The rule comes from the Electronics and Information Technology Goods (Requirement for Compulsory Registration) Order, 2012, first published as S.O. 2357(E) on 3 October 2012. BIS runs it as its Compulsory Registration Scheme, which BIS lists as Scheme II, the registration scheme. Products in the Order's schedule must be tested against the named Indian Standard in a BIS recognised lab, registered with BIS, and carry the Standard Mark with the registration number before they are sold.

Selling only through your own Shopify store does not change this. The Order covers the product, not the sales channel. If your earphones, power bank or keyboard falls in the schedule, an unregistered model is a problem whether it sells on a marketplace, on Instagram or on your own website.

The schedule has grown many times since 2012. A MeitY notification dated 1 April 2020, S.O. 1236(E), shows how. It added twelve product categories, numbered 45 to 56, including:

• Wireless headphones and earphones, tested to IS 616:2017
• Keyboards, USB external hard disk drives, and USB solid-state storage above 256 GB, tested to IS 13252 Part 1
• Electronic musical systems with input power below 200 watts
• Standalone LED modules, rope lights, induction stoves and rice cookers

The same notification lists nine earlier amendments to the principal Order between 2013 and 2018. More have followed since. So do not rely on a list from a blog post, including this one. Check the current schedule on the BIS website for your exact product category before you place a production order.

What does BIS registration mean for a D2C brand in practice?

Three things catch founders out.

Registration is per model and per factory. If a contract manufacturer in India or abroad makes your product, the registration has to cover that manufacturing unit and the model you sell. A supplier that holds registration for one model of earbuds has not registered your custom variant. Ask for the registration number and check your exact model appears under it.

Standards change underneath you. The April 2020 notification says that for every category in the schedule, "the latest standards as published & notified by BIS from time to time would apply on expiry of six months from the date of notification of such standards by BIS." Renewals are also done to the latest standard. A product that passed testing three years ago may need retesting when its registration comes up for renewal.

Imports need the mark before clearance. The same notification gives foreign manufacturers with an Indian liaison or branch office a transition period of up to three months for "affixing Standard Mark at the ports", and only for goods "which are already having unique registration number from the Bureau". The registration has to exist before the shipment arrives. Build that lead time into your launch plan, because testing and registration take longer than designing a Shopify homepage.

Do you need E-Waste EPR registration as a brand?

If you sell products listed in Schedule I of the E-Waste Rules, very likely yes. The E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022 were notified as G.S.R. 801(E) on 2 November 2022 and came into force on 1 April 2023. They define a producer as anyone who:

• manufactures and offers to sell electrical and electronic equipment "under its own brand", or
• offers to sell under its own brand equipment "produced by other manufacturers or suppliers", or
• offers to sell imported electrical and electronic equipment,

and the definition applies "irrespective of the selling technique used such as dealer, retailer, e-retailer". The Rules define an e-retailer as a business that uses "internet, social media, telephone or any other media, to sell its goods". A white-label gadget brand selling from its own Shopify store fits that definition squarely.

Rule 4 says producers "shall register on the portal" run by CPCB, and that "no entity referred in sub-rule (1) shall carry out any business without registration." Rule 6 then makes the producer responsible for registration, meeting extended producer responsibility (EPR) targets, creating awareness, and filing annual and quarterly returns on the portal.

Schedule I is broad. It lists laptops, tablets, cellular phones, routers, data storage devices, digital cameras, audio amplifiers, electric kettles, hair dryers, electric shavers, air purifiers, hand-held video game consoles and sports equipment with electronic parts, among many others. Check your product's category against the current Schedule I, since the list can be amended.

How do EPR targets and certificates work?

EPR means you are responsible for a share of the e-waste your products become. Under Rule 13(3), the producer must "fulfill their extended producer responsibility through online purchase of extended producer responsibility certificate from registered recyclers only and submit it online by filing quarterly return." Your targets depend on what you put on the market, as declared on the portal, the product's life period set by CPCB, and the targets in Schedules III and IV.

For a small brand, this is a recurring compliance cost and a filing calendar, not a one-time form. Budget for it in your unit economics alongside BIS testing, and ask your compliance consultant to estimate your certificate cost before you price the product.

Rule 16 also restricts hazardous substances. New equipment listed in Schedule I must not contain lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium and two classes of brominated flame retardants above 0.1 per cent by weight in homogenous materials, or cadmium above 0.01 per cent. Ask your manufacturer for the test reports that show this.

What should an electronics product page show on Shopify?

Three sets of rules overlap: BIS marking, Legal Metrology declarations for packaged goods, and the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 for your website.

A PIB release on the 2017 Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) amendment says goods displayed on e-commerce platforms "shall contain declarations required under the Rules like name & Address of the manufacturer, packer and importer, name of the commodity, net content, retail sale price, consumer care complaint, dimention etc." Our Legal Metrology guide for online sellers covers those declarations in detail.

If you sell your own stock on your own site, you are an inventory e-commerce entity under the E-Commerce Rules. Rule 7(1) requires you to display "all mandatory notices and information required by applicable laws", along with return, refund, exchange, warranty, delivery and grievance information. For a gadget brand we recommend a fixed specification block on every product page with:

Store these as product metafields rather than typing them into each description. A metafield is a structured field such as "BIS registration number" that you fill once per product and display in the same place on every page. Our guide to metafields and metaobjects explains the setup. A developer can also make the theme hide the add to cart button when the registration field is empty, so an unregistered model never goes on sale by accident.

How should you handle warranty and serial numbers on Shopify?

Shopify does not track serial numbers or warranties out of the box, and most electronics brands need both. A practical setup we use:

1. Capture the serial number at dispatch, not at checkout. Your warehouse or 3PL scans it into the order, either as an order note, an order metafield or through your inventory system's integration.
2. Start the warranty from the delivery date, which your courier or shipping aggregator already records. That avoids disputes when a parcel takes a week to reach a smaller town.
3. Give customers a warranty lookup by order number and phone, so they can see the serial, the purchase date and the expiry without emailing you.
4. Send claims to one place. A form that creates a ticket with the order, serial and photos attached saves days of back and forth.

For marketplaces and your own store together, keep serial capture in the system that handles fulfilment, not in Shopify alone. Otherwise a unit sold on Amazon will have no record in your warranty lookup.

How do returns work for gadgets sold on your own store?

Electronics returns are expensive. A returned pair of earbuds often cannot be resold as new, and "not working" frequently turns out to be a pairing issue. Write your policy around the cases you will actually see: dead on arrival, defects inside the warranty, damage in transit, change of mind, and opened hygiene products such as in-ear earphones.

Rule 7(4) of the E-Commerce Rules limits what you can refuse. An inventory e-commerce entity cannot refuse to take back goods or refund if they are "defective, deficient spurious" or not as advertised, or delivered late beyond the stated schedule. Your change-of-mind policy is yours to set, but defects are not optional.

Two things cut returns in our experience. First, a short troubleshooting step before a return is booked: a pairing video or a reset guide linked from the order status page and the return form. Second, honest product copy. If the battery life figure comes from your supplier's test at 50 per cent volume, say so. Our returns and exchanges guide covers how to set up the return flow itself in Shopify.

What should you have ready before your electronics store goes live?

Before you remove the password page, check each of these:

• Every listed model is covered by a BIS registration for that exact model and factory, if its category is in the CRS schedule.
• Your brand is registered as a producer on the CPCB E-Waste EPR portal, if your products are in Schedule I, and someone owns the quarterly return calendar.
• Your manufacturer has given you hazardous substance test reports.
• Product pages show the registration number, model, Legal Metrology declarations and warranty terms from metafields.
• Warranty, returns, take-back and grievance contacts are published and linked from every product page.
• Serial numbers are captured at dispatch and tied to the order.

None of this is difficult once the store is built to hold the information. It is very difficult to retrofit after a marketplace delists you or a customer complaint reaches a regulator.

Launching an electronics brand on Shopify?

Free electronics store review. Get in touch or email hello@exactwhy.com with the subject "Electronics Store Review" and your store URL or launch plan. Tell us what you sell, who manufactures it and whether it is imported. We reply within 4 hours with the product page, warranty and returns gaps we see, and the questions to take to your BIS and EPR consultant.

If you go ahead. We build your Shopify store with compliance fields for registration numbers, standards and warranty, an add to cart check that blocks unregistered models, serial and warranty lookup, and Indian payment, COD and courier setup. We quote the build after the review, once we know your catalogue and integrations, and ongoing store support is available on a monthly retainer.