Customs for retail
Seasonal ranges, private labels and imported stock, cleared, labelled right and stored until your stores need it.
- Across our network
- 227+ Warehouses
- Under management
- 75,348.1 Lakh+ Sq. Ft. Live Space
- Customs to storage
- One team
Short answer
How does Lozy help retailers import?
Retailers importing into India need stock landed on time, labelled to Indian rules and stored until it’s needed. Lozy handles customs clearance, checks Legal Metrology and product compliance, offers bonded storage to defer duty, and warehouses stock across our network.
What slows retail imports down
The usual reasons shipments sit at the port longer than they should.
Seasonal deadlines
Stock that misses the season loses value fast.
Labelling rules
Packaged goods must carry Indian labelling details before sale.
Duty on unsold stock
Paying full duty up front on a range that may not sell hurts margins.
Peak-season space
Extra stock needs room without a long lease.
How Lozy helps
The services that fix each of those, run by one team.
- Customs ClearanceImports filed, assessed and released.View service
- Customs Bonded WarehousePay duty as stock goes to stores.View service
- ComplianceLabels and BIS checked per product.View service
- Cargo Liability CoverStock covered in transit and storage.View service
- VAT RecoveryIGST credit set up correctly.View service
What we check
Before anything ships, we go through these with you.
Every check is done before booking, when fixing a problem is quick and cheap.
- HS code and duty per product line
- Legal Metrology labels
- BIS for products under QCOs
- Release plan for bonded stock
- IGST credit
- Storage space and duration
Seasonal stock for Delhi NCR and beyond
Containers clear at the NCR ICDs — Tughlakabad, Patparganj, Dadri — land in a Lozy warehouse in NCR, and ship to stores or online customers as the season moves.
Bonded storage defers duty on the slow movers.
Building a season: what to clear, when
A season is won or lost in the order containers arrive, so the desk plans clearances against your buying calendar rather than the shipping one.
Start at the purchase order
Classification and labelling are settled when the purchase orders are placed, before factories print a single carton. A container that discovers a problem at the port is a container that has already missed the window it was ordered for, and no amount of follow-up gets that window back. The check is cheap at order stage and expensive at the port.
Core range first
Basics that sell all season clear duty-paid in a single entry and take the quickest retail customs clearance lane. These are the lines you cannot afford to have waiting on paperwork when stores are ready to set them, so they lead the shipping plan and everything else queues behind them. Repeat orders get the same treatment on the same classifications, season after season.
Trend pieces, kept flexible
Shorter-run lines can follow later, sit under bond and be released as sell-through data arrives. Seasonal stock import stops being a bet on the whole range at once and becomes a decision per line, taken with real numbers rather than a hunch. A trend piece that misses still leaves the margin on the core range intact.
Private label imports
Own-brand goods need the importer’s details, MRP and net quantity on the pack before they can sell. Private label imports are checked at artwork stage, where a change is an edit rather than a recall. That habit protects selling calendars more reliably than any amount of expedited freight ever will.
Duty on seasonal stock
Duty on a seasonal range is rarely one rate. Apparel, footwear, accessories and homeware each carry their own classification, and the IGST position behaves differently depending on how the business is registered. The desk quotes duty per product line and shows the bonded option beside it, so paying on arrival and paying on release can be compared before the season begins rather than after it has closed.
Rate per product line
Two pieces of clothing can land in different tariff lines if the fabric or construction differs, and the gap is not small. Invoices need enough detail — fibre content, style, function — for the right rate to apply the first time. The desk keeps a working library of classifications for every line you import, so the second season starts ahead of the first.
IGST, credited back
A GST-registered retailer claims the IGST paid at import as input credit. Clean entries at the border are what keep the tax on stock from hardening into a permanent cost.
Bonded release, phased duty
Under bond, duty stays unpaid until stock moves to stores. Slow movers wait and winners pay as they leave, so the cash follows sell-through instead of arrival. Duty becomes a variable tied to sales rather than a fixed bill tied to shipping.
Storage through the season
Rent, handling and dispatch belong in the season’s margin alongside duty, and stock that landed early has to be kept somewhere before stores can take it. Those lines belong in the quote from the start, not in a reconciliation at the end.
One sheet per line: duty, IGST and storage through the season — retail customs clearance is simpler when the numbers are visible up front.
Store until the shelves need it
Carry-over is where bonded storage earns its keep. A season ships to stores in waves — winners released first, slower lines left where they are — instead of everything paying duty on arrival to sit in a back room. The desk prepares release paperwork so a wave can move as soon as it is called, and unsold stock stays in a position you can still decide about. Deciding slowly is cheaper under bond than deciding under a duty bill.
Retail imports India run on timing more than on price, and that is the reason to hold stock under bond close to the store network. How long the stock stays is a decision, not a default.
How it works
Five steps from your first message to goods where you need them.
Tell us what’s moving
Products, values, origin and the sites they need to reach.
Check and quote
HS codes, approvals and landed cost confirmed in writing.
Ship and clear
Declarations filed, duty paid and goods released by customs.
Store or deliver
Straight to site, or into a Lozy warehouse until you need it.
Close the file
Customs documents and proof of delivery shared with you.
Customs and warehousing with one team
Most importers juggle a customs broker, a transporter and a warehouse. With Lozy, the paperwork and the space sit with the same people.
Clear it, then store it
Cleared goods can go straight into one of 227+ Warehouses across our network.
One point of contact
One team follows your shipment from filing to delivery, so nothing falls between vendors.
Checked before it ships
HS codes, licences and paperwork are reviewed at origin, where problems are cheapest to fix.
An itemised quote
Duties, taxes and our charges listed before you commit. Port or examination charges are flagged as they come up.
Frequently asked questions
Can’t see your question? Ask it in the quote form and we’ll answer it with your quote.
What labels do imported retail goods need?
Packaged goods need the importer’s name and address, MRP, net quantity, month and year of manufacture or import, country of origin and customer care details.
Can I defer duty on seasonal stock?
Yes. Keep it in a bonded warehouse and pay duty as you release it to stores.
Which retail products need BIS certification?
Items covered by Quality Control Orders, such as toys and many types of footwear, need BIS certification before import.
Can I take storage for just the peak season?
Yes. Lozy offers flexible warehousing, so you can take space for the season without a long lease.
What should be ready before our first seasonal stock import ships?
Three things: the product list with descriptions detailed enough for classification, the label artwork, and a packing plan by store or channel. If any line falls under a Quality Control Order, its BIS position is confirmed before the order is placed. Getting these settled at purchase-order stage is what a clean seasonal stock import looks like, and it is where most of the eventual savings are quietly made. The finished list becomes the spine of the next season’s file.
Can private label imports carry our own brand name and MRP?
Yes. Your brand can lead the pack, with the importer’s details and the MRP you set printed on it. What cannot change is the mandatory side, which stays the same whatever name is on the front, so the artwork review happens before production starts rather than at the warehouse on arrival. The desk runs that check line by line and flags anything that reads wrong — one review covering every pack in the range.
Where do retail imports India lose the most time?
At classification and labelling, almost always. A vague invoice description invites questions from customs, and one missing line on a label holds stock at release. Both problems are fixable at origin, where the supplier still has the goods and the cartons are still open. When the product list and artwork are pre-checked, retail imports India move at the speed of the shipping schedule instead of the query desk.
Does carry-over stock need to be re-cleared next season?
Not if it stays under bond. Stock that never left the bonded warehouse simply continues there until it is released for sale, and no fresh import is involved because nothing left the customs perimeter. If the MRP or packaging changes for the new season, relabelling is done before release, and the duty follows the release rather than the arrival. Carry-over that stays in place is genuinely cheaper than carry-over that gets re-imported.
What happens when retail imports India stock misses its season?
It still has options. It can wait under bond while you decide, move to an online or discount channel, or, where the paperwork supports it, go back abroad. Because bonded stock has not paid duty yet, a slow line is not a sunk cost before you have had the chance to price it again for a different market, and that second chance is often where the margin hides.
Can one batch of stock serve stores and online at the same time?
Yes — and after the first markdowns it usually should. One pool of duty-paid stock can dispatch to shelves and to online pickers from the same warehouse, with the same records behind both. A line that cools in stores gets a second life online without a second import, and sell-through keeps moving across both channels. The desk plans releases with both destinations in view from the start.
Other industries
Get a landed-cost quote
Tell us what you’re shipping. We’ll reply with duty, taxes and our charges itemised, so you can decide before anything moves.
- Product description or HS code
- Value and quantity
- Origin and delivery city
Prefer to talk? Call +91 93547 12345 or email support@lozy.in.
