Cash on delivery in the UAE: a guide for Shopify stores

On a Shopify store, cash on delivery is a manual payment method. The shopper places the order without paying, the courier collects the money at the door, and the order stays Pending in your admin until you mark it as paid. For UAE orders, Shopify's checkout asks for the emirate from a fixed list of seven and a city that the shopper types in. There is no postcode field. So if you want COD rules based on location, set them by emirate or by city name.

How does COD work for a UAE Shopify store?

1. You turn on cash on delivery in your Shopify admin under Settings > Payments, in the manual payment methods section.
2. The shopper picks COD at checkout. Shopify marks the order as Pending on the Orders page.
3. You ship with your courier. The courier collects the money and pays it to you on the schedule in your contract, minus any COD fee they charge.
4. Once you receive the money, you mark the order as paid in Shopify.

If the shopper refuses the parcel or can't be reached, the courier brings it back. In Shopify, the refused order stays Pending until you cancel it.

What does Shopify's UAE checkout ask for?

For a UAE shipping address, Shopify's address data uses these fields: name, company, address, a second address line, city, emirate and phone. The emirate is chosen from a dropdown. The city is free text.

Shopify stores each emirate as a short code. Rules that check the region join the country code and this code, for example AE-DU for Dubai.

The English spellings above are Shopify's own. Use the codes, not the names, when you set a region rule.

Why don't postcode-based COD rules work in the UAE?

A COD rule based on postcode needs a postcode to check. Shopify's UAE address form has no postcode field, so a postcode rule has nothing to match. Use these instead:

• The emirate, when the whole emirate needs the same treatment.
• The city, when you need something smaller than an emirate.
• Non-location rules, such as cart total, first order, customer tags and product tags.

Without a postcode, the courier depends on what the shopper types in the address lines. Good address details matter more in the UAE than in postcode countries. See better UAE addresses: landmarks, Makani numbers and delivery notes.

Where do refusals hurt a UAE store?

A refused COD order costs you shipping out, shipping back, any COD or return fee in your courier contract, packaging, and the days your stock is away from the shelf. You also paid to win that order with ads. For a full worked calculation, see what one refused COD order really costs.

The loss is bigger in some situations than others. Look at your own cancelled COD orders for patterns like these:

• Large carts. More stock is away from the shelf, and more cash is at stake.
• First orders. You know nothing about a new shopper yet.
• Repeat refusers. A customer who refused before may refuse again.
• Products that are hard to resell after a return trip, such as custom or fragile items.
• Long delivery routes, where your courier charges more for the trip back.

What can UAE shoppers pay with instead?

Hiding COD only works if the shopper has an online option they trust. In the UAE you can offer:

• Cards. Shopify Payments is available for stores in the UAE and accepts credit and debit cards and accelerated checkouts. You can also use a third-party payment provider.
• Apple Pay. Apple lists the UAE as a country that supports Apple Pay. Whether it shows at your checkout depends on your payment provider.
• Buy now, pay later, if your payment provider offers it.

For ways to make online payment the easy choice, see nudging shoppers from cash to card.

How do you set COD rules per emirate or city?

Shopify lets apps change the payment step with payment customization Functions. A Function can hide, rename or reorder payment methods at checkout. Stores on any plan can use public App Store apps that contain Functions. Only custom apps with Functions need Shopify Plus.

By emirate

The emirate comes from a dropdown, so it is always spelled the same way. That makes emirate rules reliable.

By city

A city rule is useful when an emirate is too big. Blocking AE-AZ hides COD for the whole emirate of Abu Dhabi, including Al Ain. If you only want to change COD for Al Ain, use a city rule.

The city is typed by the shopper, so the same place can arrive in several spellings: "Al Ain", "Alain", "Al-Ain" or «العين». Before you rely on a city rule, export your orders and check what shoppers actually typed in the Shipping City column. Add each common spelling to your list.

Khaleeji COD has both rules: blocked regions written as codes like AE-AZ, and a blocked city list that matches the exact English or Arabic name, without caring about upper or lower case. More detail is in how to limit COD by emirate, region or city.

Check the rule

Place a test order to an address in the emirate or city you blocked, and open the payment step. COD should be missing. Then try an address outside the rule and check that COD is back.