Every Indian state has enacted certain rules and regulations with regard to conditions of work. The objective is to secure uniform benefits for employees working in different establishments, from shops, commercial establishments and residential hotels to restaurants, theatres and other places of public amusement or entertainment.

“Establishment” means a shop, commercial establishment, residential hotel, restaurant, eating house, theatre, or other place of public amusement or entertainment to which this Act applies and includes such other establishment as the [State] Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, declare to be an establishment for the purposes of this Act.

Shops Act Application is mandatory in some cases for businesses, as long as they qualify as an “Establishment” under the Shops and Establishment Act.
So if you run a business in Maharashtra, you need to obtain Shop Act License under Bombay Shops and Establishments Act, 2018.

Broadly speaking the premises governed by the Act are shops, commercial establishments, residential hotels, clubs, restaurants, eating houses, theatres and other places of public amusement or entertainment.

Reading the law, it becomes clear that any business which is involved in selling goods or services to customers out of a commercial office becomes liable to register.
To repeat the point made earlier then, if you work out of an office and your products or services are sold online, you could exploit the loophole that no customers are purchasing from your shop, and hence registration would not be necessary. If however, you also entertain walk in clients and sell products and services to them, that loop-hole would no longer be available to you to use.

No, unfortunately.
There are different laws for different regions in the country. So in addition to the Bombay Shops and Establishments Act, 2018 which we looked at earlier, there is the Delhi Shops and Establishments Act, 1954 and the Karnataka Shops and Establishments Act, 1961 among many, many others.
So before you register, you need to check the applicable law which affects you. In some cases, a single law may apply across States. Many laws created for the erstwhile State of Bombay apply to Gujarat and the Union Territories nearby. While some states like Manipur have their own Shops and Establishments Acts, some North East Indian states share a single law for Shops and Establishments Registration.

The employer of every establishment engaging less than ten workers shall submit an online intimation of commencement of the business along with the required documents. After receiving an Information along with all the documents, a receipt of such intimation in Form ‘G’ shall be issued to the applicant online

The establishment of the Central Government and the State Government are exempted from all provisions of the Act.