COD is the most Indian of payment preferences — trust at the door, not on the payment page. The economics are simple: more conversions, but every failed delivery is a two-way freight bill with zero revenue attached.
The math that decides whether COD pays
COD wins when the conversion lift outweighs the refusal rate times two-way freight. That ratio is controllable — the playbook below is how sellers keep it in the black.
The playbook
Confirm before you ship
A WhatsApp or call confirmation on first-time COD buyers filters a chunk of fake/impulse orders before they ever get freight.
Set a COD cap
Limit COD to orders under a threshold — the higher the order value, the better prepaid incentives pay.
Offer prepaid discounts
₹50 off for paying online nudges the reliable buyers off COD, shrinking your exposure.
Watch the remittance ledger
Delivered ≠ settled. Track what each courier collected and what's come back — shortfalls hide in aggregates.
Photo: RoseBox / Unsplash
Pure Parcel books COD shipments with the collect-amount on record — the wallet ledger shows what's owed back to you.
See how →When to restrict it
Restrict COD on: high-RTO pincodes, first-order-plus-high-value combos, and categories with delivery-refusal histories. Most stores find 80% of RTO comes from 20% of lanes — the data shows you where.
The bottom line
COD isn't the problem — unmanaged COD is. Confirm, cap, discount prepaid, and audit remittance: do those four and the conversion lift is pure upside.
Ship every courier without leaving your store
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