Writing

Field notes on
cash on delivery.

Arithmetic, operating practice and hard-won detail from running COD in India. No growth-hacking, no invented statistics.

RTO18 June 2026·7 min read

The real cost of one returned COD order

Freight is the part everyone counts. It is rarely the largest number on the page. Here is the full arithmetic on a single RTO, and what it means for the rules you set.

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RTO

The real cost of one returned COD order

7 min read

All articles

RTO

27 May 2026

Why OTP verification works on COD (and where it doesn't)

Verification does not detect fraud. It imposes a cost on carelessness — which is what most failed COD orders actually are. The distinction matters when you configure it.

6 min

Prepaid

9 May 2026

Moving COD shoppers to prepaid without losing the sale

A prepaid order cannot be returned to origin. That single property makes conversion the highest-leverage change available to a COD-heavy store — if the incentive is framed right.

6 min

Operations

22 April 2026

Six COD rules that actually reduce RTO

Pincode blocking, cart-value caps, category exclusions and deposits — in the order we would switch them on, and how to tell whether each one paid for itself.

8 min

Operations

3 April 2026

How to read your COD logs in ten minutes a week

Four things to check every Monday. Each takes about two minutes and each one catches a class of problem before it turns up in your RTO rate a fortnight later.

5 min

Benchmarks

14 March 2026

COD benchmarks: what to measure and what 'good' looks like

Six metrics worth tracking, how to define each one so it stays comparable over time, and why the absolute number matters far less than the direction.

6 min