Research
20 articles
Working notes on the cost of cash on delivery in Indian e-commerce: the mechanics, the data that exists, and what it can and cannot tell a brand. Every piece lists its sources.
All articles
The real cost of a failed COD orderA failed cash-on-delivery order costs more than the return shipping. Here is the full cost stack, with a worked example for an Indian D2C brand.
RTO, returns and cancellations are different problemsRTO, customer returns and cancellations get mixed into one "returns" number. They have different causes, different costs and different fixes.
What Shipway's FY25 data says (and what it does not)Shipway's ShipNotes report put COD RTO at about 26% against under 2% for prepaid. Here is the detail behind the headline, and the limits of the data.
Why India still buys on COD, and why that is shiftingCOD survives in India because of trust, not technology. But prepaid share is climbing fast. What the shift means for D2C brands.
"Customer refused" is not a diagnosisCourier NDR codes like "customer refused" and "not contactable" hide at least five different failures. How to read them, and what to ask for.
The NDR window: the days that decide the orderCouriers make a small number of delivery attempts before marking an order for return. What happens between attempts decides whether the order survives.Confirming orders before dispatch: the cheapest place to stop a bad orderVerifying a COD order before it ships is the cheapest RTO intervention there is. How confirmation works, what the evidence shows, and where it fails.
Address quality: the quiet driver of RTOIncomplete addresses, missing landmarks and dead phone numbers quietly drive a large share of failed deliveries. How to score and fix address quality.Delivery speed is an RTO leverShipway's FY25 data: orders attempted in 1-2 days returned at 22%, after 5 days at 35%. Why slow delivery causes RTO and what to do about it.
Order value, impulse and regretOrders between ₹500 and ₹1,000 have the highest RTO rate in Shipway's data. The psychology of the impulse COD order, and what brands can do with it.Charging a COD fee: what changesAbout a third of Indian D2C brands charge a COD fee, typically around ₹39. What happens to orders, conversion and RTO when you add one.Moving customers from COD to prepaidPrepaid share in Indian ecommerce jumped from 32% to 41% in a year. How brands nudge COD customers to prepaid without losing the order.Pincode-level COD policyRTO varies from 18% to 35% by city, and some pincodes return most of what you ship them. When restricting COD by geography makes sense, and what it costs.
Fake orders and COD fraudGoKwik reported 2-10% of orders fraudulent on affected merchants, up to 20% for some. The patterns behind fake COD orders and how to filter them.
Why fashion returns more than beautyFashion RTO runs 25-40% while beauty runs 5-15%. What drives the category gap, and which levers work in each.The working-capital cost of CODCOD cash reaches your bank 7-14 days after delivery. The remittance lag is a quiet financing cost that grows with volume.COD reconciliation: recovering money already lostCourier remittances arrive in batches, net of deductions. Without order-level matching, shortfalls and weight overcharges go unnoticed. How to reconcile.The blocked-inventory problemAn RTO parcel locks stock in transit for one to three weeks. The hidden cost of inventory that exists but cannot be sold.What courier dashboards do not tell youAggregators give you NDR tools, RTO scores and tracking. What they do not give you is the cost truth. The gap between reports and reconciliation.A 30-day review of your COD lossesA practical playbook: export 90 days of orders, cost the failures honestly, pick one fix, measure for 30 days.