Table of Contents
Introduction
Massive growth has occurred in the e-commerce sector in India in the last two decades – more and more businesses are now turning to the internet to grow and prosper. E-commerce has made the shopping experience smooth and simple with prepaid payments and many other features. However, many people in India still prefer cash-on-delivery over online payments. The reason can be due to not having credit or debit cards, not finding online payments trustworthy enough, and so on.
Making the COD payment option available for customers is great for building a bond of trust and loyalty, and it has been noticed that it brings a change in the overall delivery success rate of the e-commerce business. The difficulties of introducing a cash-on-delivery service aren’t entirely unsolvable – picking a courier partner that can handle cash-on-delivery orders with care is the ultimate shipping solution to this.
In this article, we’ll be discussing the top ecom shipping solutions companies in India and how you can choose the perfect fit for your shipments and avoid all the cons.
Top 9 Best COD Courier Services Provider Companies in India
To offer cash-on-delivery options in your e-commerce platform, responsible courier partners that are well-equipped to handle COD deliveries are required. You must check whether the courier partners are properly trained or not, their mechanism, and even the means of transportation they use to deliver your orders.
To ease up your research, we’ve listed down the top 9 best shipping solutions companies that offer cash-on-delivery services in India.
BlueDart
This courier company provides its services in 35,000+ locations inside and outside India. Their services are efficient, time-bound and it assures reliable delivery. They pre-determine their delivery rates by measuring the weight of the cargo. BlueDart handles high-value orders and has a clear system for COD orders. Orders are only completed once the e-commerce partner receives the payment from the consignee.
FedEx
This courier company provides its services in over 6,000 pin codes in India. However, their COD facilities are only offered under certain categories. There are numerous terms and conditions involved in COD, but if a business has a decent number of pre-paid orders, FedEx is a great company to partner with.
Delhivery
This leading courier company ships orders to over 13,000 pin codes across 175 cities in India. Even though Delhivery’s COD services are a bit slower than other deliveries, you will get the assurance that your product will reach safe and undamaged without failure.
DTDC
Although this courier company caters to a smaller range of delivery, it is one of the most well-known courier services in India. DTDC’s prices are affordable, and they have a well-connected network of 12,000 offices all over India. They take a little longer than usual to deliver the packages and offer COD for specific pin codes, but you can be assured that your packages will reach safely even in remote places.
E-Kart
This logistics company is owned by Flipkart and run by Instakart. E-Kart approximately carries out over 1.5 million packages per month to about 4,000 pin codes across India. It offers single-day delivery and same-day delivery for certain locations as well. This company began its journey in 2009 and is now one of the leading names.
XpressBees
This logistics company of India lists among the top because of its speciality in same-day delivery and next-day delivery. XpressBees offers COD services and provides customers with a well-managed return and reverse logistics system. These reasons make it an excellent option for cash-on-delivery orders.
ShadowFax
This third-party logistics service provider caters to almost 7,000 pin codes and maintains a network of approx 150,000 delivery partners. ShadowFax comes with a highly equipped streamline for the process of COD reconciliation, and its payment can be made in both cash and UPI. This process makes this company receive over 500,000 orders a day.
Ecom Express
This logistics company caters to over 27,000 pin codes in around 2500 different cities in India. Ecom Express provides reverse logistics and express delivery and offers 72-hour pick-up and delivery services. Besides, they also include doorstep quality checks to reduce the number of canceled COD orders.
India Post
This company remains at the head of the table because of its shipping services that include COD options for customers. India Post has over 100,000 postal offices all over India, making it one of the biggest and most well-connected postal networks globally. They provide COD to their contractual customers for bulk orders up to INR 50,000.
How to Pick the Best Shipping Solution for COD Orders in India?
It’s no secret that COD reconciliation is a long process, and that’s why it’s important to ensure that the responsibility is in the right hands. Here are some tips for finding the best shipping solution for your COD shipments.
Tie up with a COD-equipped Courier Company
To start with, you can tie up with a courier company of your choice that provides COD shipping solutions from the list mentioned above. You can visit their websites to know more about their policies and services (including COD). This way, you will learn more about which company has properly trained staff, optimum vehicles, and more to ensure the safe delivery of your packages every time.
Set up an NDR Management System
One of the crucial parts of the logistics of the e-commerce business is dealing with the Non-Delivery Reports (NDR) whether COD is offered or not. The e-commerce NDR management system allows you to track the failed orders with reasons in case of COD orders.
Have a Strong Customer Support Team
Having a strong customer support team is very important when it comes to COD orders so that they can be timely delivered. For example, if an order somehow fails to reach its right destination, the customer support team can help out to fulfil the order on time. This is something that will build a bond of trust between the business and the customers and enhance customer satisfaction.
Improve Visibility of Shipment Status
To maintain the transparency of shipments, it’s a great idea to find a platform that lets you view your order statuses. This is very crucial to COD orders, as your finance team will be able to take necessary steps quickly if your business remains unpaid even after delivering the order.
Make Use of a Courier integration Platform
By using an effective courier integration platform, such as Pickrr, you can integrate all your courier partners. Other than that, you can also get benefits from NDR management, returns management, and more aspects of data analytics. Using platforms like Pickrr, you can track the performances of your courier partners as well.
Conclusion
Despite the various methods of payments available now, COD is here to stay for a long time. It is a must for Indian e-commerce businesses to include COD as a payment method to attract all kinds of customers. We hope this article helped you find a simple shipping solution for your COD orders.
