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.
The most cited number in Indian D2C logistics right now comes from ShipNotes, the first logistics report from Shipway (a Unicommerce subsidiary), published in mid-2025 and based on millions of shipments processed through the platform in FY25. The headline: less than 2% of prepaid orders come back, while about 26% of non-prepaid orders do.
That headline is worth knowing. The detail behind it is more useful.
City spread is wide. Vadodara recorded the lowest RTO at about 18%; Patna the highest at about 35%. The ten lowest-RTO cities include Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad. The highest include Patna, Srinagar, Jaipur, Varanasi, Ranchi and Guwahati. Only cities with at least 5,000 non-prepaid orders on the platform were counted. A national average hides an 18-to-35-point spread, which means your own geography mix matters more than the average.
Delivery speed moves RTO. Orders attempted within 1 to 2 days returned at 22%. At 3 to 5 days, 27%. Beyond 5 days, 35%. Slow delivery is not just a customer experience issue; it is a direct RTO driver.
Mid-value orders return most. Orders priced ₹500 to ₹1,000 returned at 28%, against 25% for orders under ₹500 and 24% for orders above ₹1,000. The report's reading: mid-value purchases are the most impulsive and the most regretted.
Distance matters. Intra-city shipments returned least; inter-state non-metro shipments returned about 27%, and special zones (North East, Jammu and Kashmir) about 28%.
Three cautions before you use these numbers.
First, this is one platform's shipment data. Shipway processes a large volume, but its merchant mix is not every Indian D2C brand. Treat 26% as a well-sourced estimate of the order of magnitude, not a universal rate. Other networks report their own figures: GoKwik puts the industry average at about 20 to 25%, rising toward 40% for some category and geography mixes.
Second, these are platform-reported numbers covered by the press. We read the coverage, not the underlying report, and the two links below are two outlets covering the same single report, so they corroborate the reporting, not the data. The definitions (what counts as RTO, how partial data is handled) sit inside Shipway's methodology.
Third, correlation is not a fix list. The data shows that slow delivery and high-RTO geographies correlate with returns. It does not tell you which lever will move your number, because your number has its own causes.
Use the report as a benchmark and a set of hypotheses. If your COD RTO is far above 26%, something specific to your operation is wrong. If it is far below, understand why before you celebrate, because definitional differences (what you count as RTO) can flatter you. Then look at the dimensions Shipway exposes: your city mix, your delivery speed distribution, your order-value bands. Each is a place to dig in your own data.