Daraz vs Hamrobazar vs pasal.biz: which fits your shop in Nepal?

The fees that actually matter

Third-party fees and policies change. Treat Daraz numbers as illustrative; verify exact rates on the Daraz seller portal before deciding. pasal.biz fees are committed: 0%, written into the pricing page.

What each platform actually does

Daraz — what to watch out for

Daraz is the largest national platform, and for the right kind of seller it works. The drawbacks for small Nepali shopkeepers:

• Commission on every sale — eats directly into your margin. For a kirana shop running thin margins on rice and dal, even 5% is the difference between profit and loss.
• You don't see your money immediately — payouts come on Daraz's schedule, after returns windows close. Your cash flow is at the platform's mercy.
• KYC and paperwork upfront — PAN, bank account, business registration. Most home sellers and side-business owners can't or won't clear this bar.
• You compete with sponsored listings — paid placement lets bigger sellers buy visibility. A new small shop starts at the bottom of search.
• Standardized return policy — Daraz enforces returns on your behalf, which is convenient but removes your control. Customers can return for reasons you'd never accept yourself.
• Built for branded goods at scale — designed for sellers with consistent SKUs and inventory. A momo shop, a home tailor, or a service business does not fit cleanly.
• No services, no appointments, no quotes — Daraz is a goods marketplace, full stop. A barber, an electrician, or a contractor has nothing to sell here.

Hamrobazar — what to watch out for

Hamrobazar has been around forever and works well for one-off classifieds. But it is not a marketplace — and that gap shows for any seller who wants to run a real shop:

• No order flow at all — there's no "place order" button. A buyer calls or messages, and from there everything happens off-platform. Lost in translation, lost in phone tag, lost.
• No record of the transaction — once you exchange numbers, nobody on Hamrobazar's side knows what was sold, for how much, or whether anyone got their money. No protection if something goes wrong.
• No shop profile that grows over time — every listing is independent. The reputation you build today doesn't carry over to your next listing in any meaningful way.
• No chat-to-order, no quotes, no appointments — everything that lets a real business operate happens by phone, on WhatsApp, in person. Fine for one item; impossible for a running shop.
• Listings expire and get buried — without an active feed and order system, you have to keep re-posting and "bumping" to stay visible.
• Spam and scam risk is higher — without an order system and chat record, disputes are one person's word against another's.
• No support for services, appointments, or quotes — same gap as Daraz. If you're a tutor, a fabricator, or a wedding photographer, Hamrobazar can list you, but it cannot run your business.

pasal.biz — what it's actually built for

pasal.biz is designed around how Nepali commerce actually works — neighborhood, varied, often informal, sometimes a side business, sometimes a service, sometimes a one-off sale. Concrete examples:

You have one item you don't use anymore and want to sell

Your daughter outgrew her school uniform after one Baisakh. You bought a lengha for a cousin's wedding and wore it once. There's a working iPhone 11 in your drawer that nobody uses. List as an ePasal (no business registration), put up one product, set your price, take payment directly via cash or eSewa when the buyer comes. 0% commission. Done.

Hamrobazar can list this but won't manage the order or build any reputation for you. Daraz can't take it without business KYC. Full guide for home sellers.

You rent out occasion wear — bridal lengha, suits, ornaments

A lengha that cost Rs 25,000 and was worn once sits in a suitcase. Rent it out at Rs 3,000 per evening with a refundable Rs 5,000 deposit. List it on pasal.biz, use the in-app quote feature to confirm dates with each renter, take the deposit directly via eSewa or in cash. Cleaning, return, condition — between you and the renter.

You're a service business — barber, tailor, electrician, beautician, tutor, mechanic

A barber in Maitidevi who takes 6 walk-ins on a busy Saturday and has to send people away. A tailor in Patan who needs three days lead time. A home-call electrician in Pokhara. A maths tutor in Biratnagar. pasal.biz lets services list themselves and accept appointments — customers book a time slot inside the app, the service confirms, both sides get a reminder. No more missed bookings on WhatsApp.

Daraz and Hamrobazar do not run appointments at all.

You're a contractor or fabricator who needs to quote first

Custom kitchen cabinets in Kalanki. A daura suruwal stitched for a wedding. A photographer hired for a Bratabandha. Construction for a small house extension. None of these have a fixed price — the customer has to send specs and the seller has to quote.

pasal.biz has quotes built in. The customer submits a request, the seller responds with a price (and counter-prices), and when accepted it converts atomically into a confirmed order. No phone tag, no forgotten WhatsApp threads, no "but you said Rs X last week."

You sell daily essentials and want price-conscious shoppers to find you

A kirana shop in Hetauda, a vegetable seller near Kalimati. pasal.biz also shows live Nepali market rates inside the app — vegetable prices from Kalimati daily, petrol and diesel rates from NOC, gold and silver from AMPIS, forex from Nepal Rastra Bank. Shoppers come to check rates, stay to buy from local pasals. None of the other platforms surface this.

You like to know what your customer needs before they ask

pasal.biz has a built-in shopping list — customers add items as they think of them and the list can be shared straight with a pasal. For neighborhood kirana shops this turns into pre-orders for the week, not last-minute "do you have Wai-Wai?"

The mobile app comparison

• pasal.biz — Flutter, built mobile-first for Nepal. Nepali language and English. Optimized for lower-end Android devices common in Nepal. Smart offline caching. Neighborhood-first home feed. Live market rates on the home screen.
• Daraz — global codebase shared across multiple countries. Functional, but heavier and not Nepal-specific in feel.
• Hamrobazar — app mirrors the classifieds web experience. Built for browsing listings, not for running a shop.

So which should you choose?

Honest summary:

• Choose Daraz if you're a registered business with national-scale branded inventory, can absorb the commission, and want centralized fulfillment and returns.
• Choose Hamrobazar if you have a one-time used item, you don't mind the phone-tag, and you're not building an ongoing business presence.
• Choose pasal.biz if you're a small shop, a home seller, a service business, a contractor, a tutor, or anyone selling locally in Nepal who'd rather keep 100% of every rupee and control payment, delivery, and customer relationship yourself.

Can I use more than one?

Yes — many sellers do. The most common pattern: pasal.biz as the primary shop for direct relationships, local repeat customers, and zero-cost listings; Daraz for high-volume catalog items where the commission is worth the national audience; Hamrobazar for one-off items that don't belong in your regular catalog.

Keep stock in sync across platforms. Selling the same item on two platforms and not de-listing fast enough is the quickest way to lose karma.

Already have a website or WooCommerce store?

You don't have to start over. pasal.biz supports catalog ingestion from WooCommerce, Google Merchant Center, and plain CSV — your products appear on pasal.biz and traffic gets forwarded back to your existing site, free.

Common questions