Offering Cash-on-Delivery as a payment option in India is no joke.
While Cash-on-Delivery comes with attractive advantages of customer satisfaction and convenience, e-commerce sellers are not strangers to the costs associated with it. Ever since the introduction of online shopping in India, many companies have employed Cash on Delivery to win Indian hearts.
Over time, Cash-on-Delivery has faced its fair share of struggles in the Indian market. While the popular notion is that Flipkart introduced it in 2010, the origins of CoD date back all the way to 2001 with early players like Sify Mall, Rediff, etc. adopting it.
Even today, more than 60 per cent of e-commerce orders in India are still paid Cash on Delivery. This number can go further up to 70 per cent if you look at e-commerce brands outside Flipkart and Amazon.
So, why do online shoppers in India prefer CoD?
- Convenience: If you move away from metros and Tier 1 cities, a majority of shoppers are still not comfortable with paying online. As they say, old habits die hard, and paying by cash seems like second nature to Indians, who have made their way from traditional institutions.
- The Indian psyche: Indians are used to the concept of physically receiving the product before paying up. This provides the customer with the trust to pay for the item after receiving it. This is one of the reasons why Indian street shopping has been consistently popular over the decades, even after the intervention of online commerce.
- Lack of digital penetration: It is estimated that 30-40% of the Indian population still do not have the means to pay online or do not know how to. Reliance Jio, amongst others, has created a digital revolution in India, bringing a lot of people online for the first time. The Indian market still requires time before most, if not all, of the population is tech-savvy enough for online payments. Over recent years, UPI has made huge strides towards financial inclusion but the country still has a long way to go for complete digital adoption.
- Lack of trust: Paying online is based on mutual trust. Judging from shopping patterns, we can infer that took a while for Indians to even trust the likes of e-commerce giants like Flipkart and Amazon. CoD helps in nudging customers towards trying new products while keeping the trust factor intact.
- The Impulse Purchase: Often, shopping can end up to be impulsive to many and Cash on Delivery is the perfect catalyst for impulsive shoppers. CoD provides the customer more time to think about the purchase and cancel it later, too. This provides the shopper with the ‘freedom’ to place orders at whim.
Though Cash-on-Delivery seems like a rosy option for buyers all over, it’s not the same for businesses. [bctt tweet=”The cost incurred by Cash-on-Delivery orders can be unforeseen to online sellers. Retailers are impacted negatively as they face high RTO percentages with CoD orders, apart from cash handling fees to the 3PL provider.” via=”no”]
What’s the way out?
Converting your risky Cash on Delivery orders into prepaid orders
PrePay CoD from Razorpay Thirdwatch is India’s first-ever solution to help you convert your risky CoD orders to prepaid. Offering Cash on Delivery freely has not just proven to be a cumbersome process, but also mildly ‘risky’ given the latest developments in the world.
With the all-new PrePay CoD feature on Thirdwatch, you can now send a payment link to your CoD customer with discounts right after they have placed an order. This will enable them to make the payment faster and safer, not to mention the hassle-free payment experience.
Salient features of PrePay CoD
Discounts
Convert visitors and impulse shoppers into paying customers with the discounts feature on PrePay CoD. Incentivize your customers to make purchases by offering flat rate or percentage-based discounts on your PrePay CoD payment links. Sending discounts has also proven to increase the chances of payment and reduce the likeliness of RTO and cancellation.
Automate
What if you could automate taking care of your risky orders? Thirdwatch helps you identify risky orders with Artificial Intelligence and then automate sending them, too. You can set rules to automate Payment Links to risky orders, orders with high value or just about any other criteria you like.
Real-time synchronization
Whether you are signed up with Shopify, WooCommerce or whether you have your own website, Thirdwatch uses deep integration to make sure everything happens in real-time. Thirdwatch captures orders directly from your online storefront and passes on the status back to your store once the link is paid for. It’s that easy!
Customize
Personalization is key to acquiring and retaining customers. Send custom payment links to different sets of customers and configure PrePay CoD to your business needs. Set expiry limits, auto-approve paid orders, add payment reminders and many more with the fully-customizable PrePay CoD.
Activating PrePay CoD for your business
Getting started with PrePay CoD is very easy and requires less than 10 minutes!
All you need to do is head over to your Thirdwatch dashboard -> Apps to get started. If you’re already using Razorpay to receive payments, just click on “Connect with Razorpay”. In case you don’t have a Razorpay PG account, all you need to do is click sign up to start receiving payments instantly.
- PrePay CoD requires you to link your Razorpay PG with Thirdwatch. This allows Thirdwatch to send Payment Links on your behalf. We are also in the process of integrating other payment partners in the future.
- In order to get quick, easy and instant settlements, kindly ensure that your Razorpay account is KYC-enabled, too.
Advantages of using PrePay CoD for your business
Here are some key advantages why PrePay CoD can scale your business to new heights:
- Reduce RTO losses
One of the biggest unforeseen losses for e-commerce businesses is RTO. With PrePay CoD, you can now send payment links to selective orders and reduce the chances of RTO and cancellation by over 70 percent!
- Increase conversion rates
Configure discounts and set up loyalty programs for your top-paying customers with PrePay CoD. Discounts help boost conversion rates and incentivise the shopper to keep coming back for more.
- Reach unresponsive customers
Sometimes, IVR calls or emails may not be the best last-mile communication to convince customers to make a purchase. With customization and PrePay CoD on WhatsApp, you can now reach unresponsive customers easier than ever and convince them to speed up payment.
In conclusion, PrePay CoD is affordable, easy-to-use and a revolutionary feature for e-commerce sellers looking to go the extra mile to convert every risky Cash-on-Delivery order to safety. Get started with our introductory offer on PrePay CoD and get a taste of the future of e-commerce.
