Cross-border shipping is the part of shipping software that sends a parcel to a customer in another country, with the customs forms and the duties worked out for the seller. Online sellers use it when they sell abroad one parcel at a time, rather than by the container.
A parcel that crosses a border must clear customs twice: once when it leaves India, and once when it enters the buyer's country. For each parcel, the seller must declare what is inside, its value and its HS code. The HS code is the number in the world's shared customs list that identifies the product. The buyer's country may then charge import duty and tax. If nobody has paid them in advance, the courier asks the buyer to pay before delivery, and some buyers refuse the parcel.
In India, an online seller can export through a courier company under a simpler procedure than the one for containers. The courier files an electronic courier shipping bill with customs for each parcel, instead of the full export declaration. The seller still needs an import export code, the registration that every Indian exporter must hold. So the software has three jobs. It fills in the export papers for India. It calculates the duty and tax in the buyer's country. And it chooses a courier and a service for the parcel.
Consider a handloom seller in Varanasi who sells a silk saree for ₹18,000 to a customer in Toronto, Canada, through her own website. The software reads the order and fills in the commercial invoice, with the saree's HS code, its weight of 900 grams and its value. It looks up Canada's import duty and tax for a silk saree of that value, and adds them to the price at checkout. So the customer pays everything at once, and has nothing to pay at the door. This way of shipping is called delivered duty paid, or DDP. The software books an express courier, prints the label and the invoice, and sends the export details to the courier for filing in India. Six days later, the saree reaches Toronto. The courier pays the Canadian duty on arrival and bills the seller, who has already collected it from the customer.
The software also checks the rules. Some goods cannot be sent to some countries, and some need extra papers, such as a certificate for silk or wood. It warns the seller before the parcel is booked.
Cross-border shipping is the parcel-sized version of customs clearance software, which handles whole containers. It is a part of shipping software. The money from the foreign customer reaches the seller's Indian bank account through cross-border payment collection, as described in the scene on cross-border payments.