Selling luggage online in India: the numbers that bite

Luggage looks like an easy category to list. It is a box with wheels, the photography is simple, and the size chart seems to write itself. Then the returns arrive, and most of them trace back to one number on the listing that turned out to be wrong at an airport gate.

Cabin size is not one size

There is no single cabin bag dimension in India. IndiGo’s baggage policy permits one hand bag of up to 7 kg, not exceeding length 55 cm, width 35 cm and height 25 cm, plus one personal article of up to 3 kg. Air India permits 7 kg in Premium Economy and Economy and 10 kg in First and Business, at a height of 55 cm, length of 40 cm and width of 20 cm, with total dimensions not exceeding 115 cm.

Do the arithmetic and both carriers land on the same 115 cm total. They divide it differently. A bag built to 55 by 40 by 20 clears Air India and fails IndiGo, because 40 cm exceeds the 35 cm side. A bag built to 55 by 35 by 25 clears IndiGo and fails Air India, because 25 cm exceeds the 20 cm side. A listing that says “cabin size” without saying whose cabin is making a claim that is wrong for one of the two largest carriers in the country.

What that costs is not a return. It is a gate check, a charge the customer pays at the counter, and a review written from the airport. Air India publishes that charge as INR 3,000 on domestic sectors and USD 75 on international ones for baggage beyond its cabin limits.

Checked bags have a dimension limit too, which sellers forget because the conversation is always about weight. IndiGo caps checked-in baggage at 158 cm, or 62 inches, for length plus width plus height, and on its ATR aircraft at 152 cm by 58 cm by 101 cm. Large trolleys sit close to that ceiling.

The capacity number nobody governs

Capacity in litres is the second most quoted figure on a luggage listing and the least defined. No prescribed method exists for measuring it. Brands variously multiply external height by width by depth and divide by a thousand, measure only the main compartment, include or exclude the expansion zip, and count or ignore the lid pockets. Two bags both sold as 70 litres can hold visibly different amounts.

Nothing in Indian law fixes this. Under the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules the net quantity of a suitcase is one unit, because it is a good sold by number; volume is not a required declaration. There is no Indian standard prescribing a capacity measurement method for luggage, and no international one either. ISO 3832 covers the measurement of a car boot, not a suitcase.

That does not make the number safe, it moves it from metrology into advertising. Section 2(28) of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 defines a misleading advertisement to include one likely to mislead consumers as to the nature, substance, quantity or quality of a product. A capacity figure is a quantity claim. If you publish one, publish the method beside it, and use the same method across the range so your own 55 litre and 70 litre are at least comparable to each other.

IS 8517 exists, the mandate does not

Two Indian Standards cover this category: IS 8517:1977, Bag, Air Travel, and IS 8518:1977, Suitcase, air travel. Several BIS consultancy websites state that certification to IS 8517 is a mandatory legal requirement and that selling uncertified air travel bags violates the BIS Act, 2016. Checked against the Bureau’s own published lists, that does not hold.

BIS states that its product certification scheme is basically voluntary in nature, and becomes compulsory only where the Central Government issues a Quality Control Order. Travel luggage does not appear on the BIS list of products under compulsory certification under Scheme I, where every entry containing the word bag is a jute or geotextile sack. It does not appear on the BIS list of upcoming QCOs either. Certifying to IS 8517 is a decision you may take on merit. It is not a legal requirement, and a vendor who tells you it is has something to sell you.

Measure the bag, not the body

Airline sizers measure the object. Manufacturers frequently quote the shell. Wheels, feet, the retracted handle housing and the side grips are all part of the object that has to drop into a metal frame at the gate, and together they can add several centimetres that never appear on the spec sheet.

So publish two sets of figures and label them plainly: overall dimensions including wheels and handles, and internal packing dimensions. Publish empty weight in the same block, because the airline allowance is a total. A 4.5 kg hardshell consumes 4.5 kg of a 15 kg checked allowance before the customer packs a shirt, and against a 7 kg cabin limit a heavy shell is most of the budget.

Materials and moving parts decide the returns

Shell material is where listings go vague. Polycarbonate flexes and returns to shape. ABS is cheaper and stiffer, and is more likely to crack than to dent. Polypropylene sits between them. None of these is a quality tier, and describing a shell only as hardcase or premium polymer tells a buyer nothing and leaves you nothing to point at when one cracks. Name the polymer.

The same applies to the parts that actually fail. Wheel count and type, whether bearings are sealed, whether wheels are user-replaceable, zip construction and lock type are the attributes that surface later in disputes. Luggage almost never fails in the middle of a panel. It fails at a wheel, a zip, a handle or a lock, which is precisely where an airline’s own liability exclusions sit as well. Declaring those parts exactly is the cheapest thing you can do now to make the argument decidable later.