Introduction:
The E-commerce industry in India is growing at a faster rate. People are now preferring to buy things online rather than visiting shops. However, we still have a long way to go to start adapting to online payments. COD is the most preferred & accepting form of payment amongst the Indians.
What is Cash on Delivery?
Cash on Delivery is the type of payment option where the recipient pays for a good at the time of delivery rather than paying for it in advance.
Is disabling COD a good thing?
While we understand that just like customers, even sellers seek the security of their products & resources and that's why choose to accept payments on a prepaid basis, but disabling COD or not providing COD can lower your transaction rate by 75% (that's a big drop!)
Things to do instead of disabling COD:
The following points will help you to incentivize prepaid orders. So instead of disabling COD, follow the below pointers.
> Instead of disabling COD across entire India, consider disabling on certain Pincode. If you are seeing a big RTO rate from a specific area or Pincode, disable the COD for that area.
-- Additionally, you can consider disabling COD for certain states in India having a high RTO rate - like Bihar, U.P, North-east, etc.
> Consider giving a discount on online payments to encourage more people to opt for prepaid payments. Mention such prepaid offers on the checkout page clearly as a top banner.
-- Additionally, offers can also be set up in different payment gateways. For example, if you are paying via Paytm UPI, you will be getting a 10% discount.
> Consider getting COD orders first, then manually verify the order, and only then dispatch it. This will give you a good amount of trust and security.
> Enabling part payment options. It means that some amount of the product is to be paid online & the rest on delivery of the product.
Things to do when disabling COD:
While we do not recommend disabling COD from your website as it can hamper your performance badly, but if you still wish to go ahead with it, the following are some tips:
> In all of your Ad Copies & Ad Texts, mention clearly the fact that we only accept online payments. It is very important to set the right expectation for your target audience.
> Enable showing genuine customer reviews. The audience can learn from these reviews and understand the authenticity of a brand.
-- Encourage showing reviews on the website where customers have written their real experience with regard to online payment, brand, product, operational service, etc.
> A lot of scams are going in the web currently & hence the audience is very much concerned if they encounter anything shady or untrustworthy. One way to avoid this is to have professional-looking social media handles where we post regularly, have a good followers count, etc. This will boost trust among the buyers.