Cash on delivery on courier services – Because your next customer could be your best customer

Who doesn’t fancy a Khadi? Benarasi silk? Or even a Kanjeevaram?

As a business owner, you fully understand the risks of allowing Pay on Deliver (commonly known as cash on delivery or CoD) for your products - problematic deliveries, customers not having the right change, customers refusing to pay, and of course, the incompatibility of cash in digital India. But for a lot of Indian customers, the choice of not having to enter their card details on a shopping website, is priceless. In fact, research indicates that 50-80% of online transactions in India happen through COD. So why is COD so popular? Well, there are a few reasons:

Customers buying small or low value purchases usually prefer to not use their cards.

When a customer orders a product for someone else and doesn’t want to pay for it.

Lack of access to or awareness of digital payment options.

Mistrust towards retailers to deliver a product that aligns with the product description.

Lack of comfort/fear of unsecured payment gateways.

Clearly, pay on delivery on courier services is directly related to customer preference. The customer base that prefers COD is too large to ignore. So how do you make the process as safe, streamlined and painless as possible?

Your key partner in the COD process is the courier company, particularly for last mile delivery. So to begin, you will need to register with the courier company and become eligible for COD transmissions through them.

There’s usually a cap on the price of the item that can be delivered. Start by ensuring that items that come with a COD payment option are below that price limit as mandated by your courier company/delivery partner.

A lot of courier companies require the payment of a small fee for COD articles, in addition to an insurance fee. Ensure that the fee is not prohibitive to your manufacturing and distribution costs.

Arm your delivery personnel with a mobile POS and mobile wallet payments. E-wallets are becoming increasingly popular and are a good alternative to cash.

On the other hand, if you partner with Amazon as a seller, we take on the complete burden of shipping and delivery. We also deduct our fees only after you make a sale and ensure you get timely payments. With our easy ship service, you just need to pack your product and keep it ready. An Amazon logistics executive will pick it up from you and ensure it gets delivered to the right customer at the right time. Once the customer pays for the product with cash, the money is processed to your account at the specified time, as per regular payment policies.

Additionally, if you opt for the Fulfilled by Amazon service, the total responsibility for warehousing and logistics will be taken care of by Amazon. Imagine that! A hassle-free COD option so you never lose a cash-friendly customer who just might become your most loyal customer. Sign up as a seller with Amazon today and make COD easy as pie.