How payments work — UPI, cards, netbanking, COD
A clear look at how a Varchas store accepts UPI, cards, netbanking, and Cash on Delivery.
If you have been selling through Instagram, payments probably mean sending a UPI QR code by DM and waiting for a screenshot before you pack the order. It is a workable system for a small number of orders, but it puts you in the middle of every transaction, and it gives customers no real receipt or confirmation beyond your word.
What a customer sees at checkout
On your Varchas store, a customer reaches a checkout page where they can pay with UPI, a debit or credit card, or netbanking, all processed through Cashfree. They do not need to leave the page, screenshot anything, or wait for you to confirm receipt manually. Once the payment goes through, the order is placed, an order confirmation email goes out, and the order appears in your admin with an invoice already generated.
If a customer prefers to pay when the order reaches them, Cash on Delivery is available as an option too, so you are not forcing every buyer through an online payment if that is not how they are comfortable buying. For a closer look at how COD orders specifically flow through your admin, this post on Cash on Delivery covers it in detail.
Why routing payments through Cashfree matters
Handling UPI and card payments yourself means dealing with a payment gateway account, reconciling transactions, and manually matching a payment to an order, all before you even get to packing anything. With Cashfree behind your store's checkout, that reconciliation happens as part of the order itself. When a payment succeeds, the order in your admin already reflects that it is paid, so you are not cross-checking a bank statement against a spreadsheet of orders.
What happens when a customer does not finish paying
Not every checkout ends in a payment. Someone might get to the payment screen, get distracted, or decide to think it over. On a DM-based system, this kind of half-started order simply disappears, since there is no way to see it happened at all. On your Varchas store, an unpaid checkout shows up in your admin as a Lead, so you can see that someone was interested and reach out if you want to close that sale.
Stock reserved for an unpaid checkout is not held indefinitely either. After a while, if the payment is not completed, the reserved stock is released automatically, so it becomes available to the next buyer instead of sitting locked against an order that was never going to happen.
- 1Available
- 2Reserved at checkout
- 3Checkout expires
- Available again
Why this matters for how you run the brand
None of this requires you to sit by your phone waiting for a payment screenshot before you can start packing. The order status in your admin already tells you whether it is paid, and Cash on Delivery orders are clearly marked as such so you know to collect payment on delivery. This frees up the hours you used to spend manually verifying screenshots for actually running production and fulfilment.
- 1Catalogue
- 2Checkout
- 3Order record
- Fulfilment
A note on what stays simple
There is nothing here you need to configure repeatedly. Payments are set up once as part of getting your store live, and from that point on, every order that comes through your store follows the same flow, whether it is a ₹500 order or a bulk order at lot pricing. You are not maintaining a separate payment process for different kinds of orders.
Next step
If you are still taking payments by DM and want to move to a proper checkout, the Founding Offer for the first 10 stores includes setup done together, with no setup fee. Reach out at /early-access to get started.