Inflation at 10.3%: Should You Raise Prices on Your Online Store in Pakistan? A Rs Example for COD Sellers

What the new inflation numbers say

If your supplier, your packaging vendor and your courier have all asked for more money lately, the data now backs them up. The question every Pakistani seller is asking this week is simple: should I raise prices on my online store, and by how much? This post answers that with the numbers released on October 1 and a worked Rs example you can redo with your own costs.

According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics data reported by ProPakistani and TechJuice, headline CPI inflation was 10.26 percent year on year in September 2026, down from 11.15 percent in August. A year earlier, in September 2025, it was 5.76 percent. The average for the first quarter of FY27 (July to September) was 10.20 percent, against 4.30 percent in the same quarter last year. Core inflation, which leaves out food and energy, eased to 8.6 percent from 8.8 percent in August, but is still above the 7.0 percent of a year ago.

The Nation reported that urban CPI rose 10.1 percent and rural CPI rose 10.5 percent year on year. Utilities were among the largest jumps at 12.39 percent. Onions rose 39.38 percent in rural areas and 29.17 percent in urban areas. Education rose 7.77 percent and health 7.88 percent. Some items fell: tomatoes were down 27.87 percent, chicken 7.57 percent and eggs 2.92 percent. The Ministry of Finance said it expects headline CPI to stay elevated in the near term, in a range of 10 to 11 percent, depending largely on international oil prices.

Two more numbers matter for sellers. The State Bank kept its policy rate unchanged at 11.5 percent at its September 14 meeting, as reported by The Friday Times, so borrowing for stock is not getting cheaper yet. And petrol went from Rs 387.40 per litre on October 1 to Rs 392.76 per litre from October 3, with high-speed diesel at Rs 399.64, according to The Nation and Pakera. The Petroleum Division linked the change to international fuel prices.

How 10 percent inflation hits a COD seller from both sides

Inflation squeezes an online seller twice. On the cost side, almost everything you pay for is moving up: stock from your wholesaler, flyers and boxes, printing, courier charges that follow diesel, electricity for your office or warehouse, and the salary your packer or confirmation agent needs to keep up with their own bills. Your Meta and TikTok ad costs do not follow Pakistani inflation directly, but every rupee you spend there now has to be earned back from a customer whose budget is tighter.

On the demand side, your customer's money buys less. Food and utilities come first in a household budget, so a Rs 2,500 kurta, gadget or skincare set is the kind of purchase people delay or cancel. For a COD seller this shows up in a specific way: more orders where the customer was keen when they clicked, then says no at the door because the money for that week went to the electricity bill. Rural inflation at 10.5 percent was slightly higher than urban at 10.1 percent in September, so if a large share of your orders go to smaller towns, watch your refusal rate there closely.

This is why a seller who simply keeps the old price and hopes for the best usually loses more profit than the inflation number suggests. The worked example below shows why.

Worked Rs example: what a 10 percent cost rise does to your profit

Example (illustrative numbers, not from any real store). You sell one product at Rs 2,500 on COD. Before the cost rise: product cost Rs 1,200, packaging Rs 50 per order, delivery charge Rs 250 per parcel, and Rs 400 of ad spend per order placed. Out of every 10 orders, 8 are delivered and 2 come back. A returned parcel costs you delivery both ways (Rs 500 in this example) and the product goes back into stock.

Before: for 10 orders you spend Rs 4,000 on ads, Rs 500 on packaging, Rs 9,600 on product for the 8 delivered, Rs 2,000 delivery for the 8 delivered and Rs 1,000 for the 2 returns. Total cost Rs 17,100. Revenue from 8 delivered orders is Rs 20,000. Profit: Rs 2,900 per 10 orders.

Now say product cost, packaging and delivery all go up 10 percent, in line with headline inflation, while ad spend per order stays at Rs 400. Product becomes Rs 1,320, packaging Rs 55, delivery Rs 275. Total cost for the same 10 orders becomes Rs 18,410. Revenue stays Rs 20,000. Profit falls to Rs 1,590. A 10 percent rise in costs has cut profit by about 45 percent, because your margin was thin to begin with.

Two things stand out. First, you do not need to raise the price by 10 percent to recover. A rise of Rs 170, about 6.8 percent, brings profit back to where it was, because the extra rupees land only on delivered orders and go straight to profit. Second, cutting returns from 2 in 10 to 1.5 in 10 recovers more than half of the lost profit without touching the price at all. In a high-inflation month, a lower return rate is worth as much as a price rise.

Redo this table with your own numbers before deciding. If you need the full method for counting returns into profit, our earlier post on COD profit calculation walks through it step by step.

Should you raise prices? A simple rule

There is no single right answer, but this rule works for most small COD stores. Raise the price when your profit per 10 orders has dropped more than you can win back by cutting returns in the next month. Hold the price, and work on returns and order value instead, when your product is easy to compare on Daraz or Instagram and a higher price would clearly lose you the sale.

• Raise prices in small steps, for example Rs 100 to Rs 200 at a time, not one big jump. Watch your conversion rate for a week after each step.
• Round to prices people are used to seeing, such as Rs 2,649 or Rs 2,690, and keep the same ending across your store.
• Raise first on your best sellers that have few direct look-alikes. Keep your entry-level or traffic product where it is.
• Do not raise prices on orders already placed. Honour the old price on any order waiting for confirmation.
• If you sell in bulk to resellers, give them notice of the new rate and a date, as they also need to reprice.

Ways to protect margin without a big price hike

When customers are counting every rupee, these moves often protect profit better than a headline price change.

• Bundles and quantity offers: Buy 2 at a small discount raises the order value, while your delivery and packaging cost per parcel stays the same. One parcel carrying Rs 4,800 is far better than one carrying Rs 2,500 when delivery costs Rs 275.
• A free delivery threshold: charge delivery below a set order value and make it free above it. This nudges people to add a second item.
• Confirm before you dispatch: a quick WhatsApp or call confirmation stops orders the customer has already changed their mind on, which matters more when budgets are tight.
• Cut what you send to high-return areas: look at which cities and products come back most, and slow down ads or ask for advance delivery charges there.
• Check your packaging: a lighter flyer instead of a box can save on both packaging and weight-based courier charges for small items.
• Pay attention to ad waste: pause ads and products that bring orders that mostly come back. A cheap order that returns is the most expensive order you have.

If you are on Shopify, RabbitROI's one-page COD order form supports bundles, quantity offers and 1-tick order bumps, which is a direct way to raise order value without changing your base price. It also shows return rates by courier, city and product, and net profit per ad campaign after returns, ad spend, product cost and shipping, which is the number you need for the table above.

What to do this week

1. Collect your new costs: ask your main supplier, packaging vendor and courier for their current rates in writing. Note the date.
2. Fill in the example table above with your own price, costs, ad spend per order and return rate.
3. Work out the price that restores last month's profit per 10 orders. That is your ceiling, not your target.
4. Work out how much a 5 percentage point cut in returns would recover. If it covers most of the gap, focus there first.
5. Pick three best sellers and raise each by a small step. Leave the rest for now and compare conversion after seven days.
6. Add or improve one bundle offer on each of those three products.
7. Plan for 11.11: stock you buy for November will likely cost more than it did in September, so lock in supplier prices now if you can.

Inflation of 10 percent does not mean you must charge 10 percent more. It means you must know your numbers this month, not last month's.

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