How To Enable Cod Services On Your Website
Gone are the days when customers would roam around crowded streets bargaining for their favourite products. A majority of customers today prefer to “add to cart” from the comfort of their homes. A study estimates that in India alone approximately 250 million customers shop online. Since the audience is online, Indian business owners are now digital too. 4 out of 10 businesses in India sell their products through online marketplaces. They have revealed that their sales have doubled compared to their brick-and-mortar counterparts. But, there’s a challenge — almost 72% of Indians prefer Cash on Delivery (COD).
To build trust as a seller and keep up with your competition, you will also need to offer customers the option to pay on delivery. Let’s learn how you can enable COD services on your website and make the boost your sales-
What is Cash on Delivery (COD)?
Cash on delivery (COD) has dramatically transformed the online shopping experience. As the name goes, COD is a payment mode that requires no upfront payment. Customers do not have to pay for the product until they deliver it to their door-step. Shoppers, mainly in India, consider this option to be risk-free, unlike digital payments.
Enabling COD Services for your Online Store -
With the right resources and strategic planning, you can also offer cash on delivery for the products in your online store. To simplify the process, here is a step-by-step guide to help us sell more and gain the trust of your customers with COD on your website -
- Shortlist products from the catalogue:
If you are an online seller, you have a wide range of products. Avoid listing all your products for COD at once. Use internal data to analyze your product sales. First, pick a few of your fast-moving or best-sellers. According to Google (2021), the most evergreen products with the highest demand on the internet include electronics, apparel and accessories, books, beauty, and personal care. Second, add a few products with lower conversion rates. Offering COD is a surefire way of getting shoppers interested in your products.
- Research your selling platform:
It is important to sell products that add value to your customers’ lives to be profitable. But to do that, it is equally critical to choose the right eCommerce platform. The online marketplace has gained a lot of attention in the last decade. Every seller is familiar with marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, Indiamart, etc. Even Facebook introduced its own online shopping platform called Facebook Marketplace. Most sellers register on multiple platforms to reach a wider audience. Most of these platforms offer the cash-on-delivery feature. However, be prepared to lose a cut of the profit as these platforms have a commission model. If you have your own online store, you will need the help of a developer to get things running. If you have a technical background, it will take you less than a day to get the feature on your website using plug-ins and 3rd party software.
- Find a logistic partner:
Once you have enabled COD on your website or store, you need to plan how to execute it. It is important to choose a reliable logistics company that offers cash on delivery. In India, where a majority of payments happen via cod delivery, there is a tremendous burden on delivery providers. Therefore, most logistics providers focus on only delivering packages. While choosing your logistics partner, take time to research and compare. Trustworthy partners help to avoid incidents of stealing or loss of products. Your logistics partner should be easy to communicate with and responsible too.
At Shyplite, you have access to a dashboard that updates in real-time. As soon as the delivery partner picks the shipment from your store, the status is updated. Your customer also receives a message notifying the same. Once it is out for delivery, the tracking details are shared with the customer. To track the shipment yourself, you also received a unique tracking ID. This allows a completely transparent transaction. Once the product is delivered to the customer, the money is collected by the partner and updated on the dashboard.
Running an e-commerce business is difficult. From procurement to delivery, it involves work with different individuals. To be successful in the digital world, you need to focus on not only the quality of the product but also the shipping time. The average shipping time for a product is 1 day. Teaming up with a logistics partner helps to streamline your shipping operations and payments. Most logistics companies have fixed pricing based on the weight of the product delivered. In case of cash on delivery, the amount collected is credited to your account weekly. You can discuss this with your delivery partner at the time of onboarding. Remember, with returns, the payment for both ways of shipping is paid by you. It is easier to negotiate a good deal if the returns are low and orders are high.
