Ways to cut COD refusals before the order is placed

Most of what you can do about COD refusals happens before the parcel leaves you. Show the full total early, promise a delivery time you can keep, collect an address the courier can find and a phone number that works, confirm COD orders, keep the shopper updated, and limit COD on the carts where a refusal would cost you most. Use the checklist below and fix the items that are weakest in your store first.

1. Show the full total before checkout

For example, a shopper who expected to pay AED 200 and is asked for AED 235 at the door has an easy reason to say no. Make the delivery charge visible before checkout:

• State your delivery cost, or your free delivery threshold, on product pages and in the cart.
• Say whether paying cash on delivery costs extra. If it doesn't, say that too.
• Keep the amount in the order confirmation message the same as the amount the courier collects.

Your shipping policy helps here. Shopify links store policies in the checkout footer, and in its free themes product pages can link to the shipping policy as well.

2. Promise a delivery time you can keep

Every extra day between ordering and delivery is another day for the shopper to change their mind or buy the same thing somewhere else. Two things help:

• Write the delivery time in words. Shopify's transit time feature, which shows a delivery time next to flat shipping rates at checkout, is only available for fulfillment locations in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia and the United Kingdom. If you ship from the GCC, put the estimate in the name of your shipping rate, on product pages and in the order confirmation, for example "Delivery in 1 to 3 working days in Dubai".
• Ship COD orders quickly. If you have a daily cut-off time, show it ("Order before 2 pm for dispatch today") and stick to it.

3. Collect an address the courier can find

A street-and-number form doesn't always capture what a GCC courier needs, such as a building name or a landmark. In Settings > Checkout you can set Address line 2 to Optional or Required and use it for the building, villa or nearest landmark. You can also change the wording of checkout fields in Settings > Checkout, under Checkout language, with Edit checkout content. A label such as "Building, villa or nearest landmark" tells the shopper exactly what you need. If your checkout is also in Arabic, update the Arabic wording to match.

For country-specific advice, read better UAE addresses with landmarks and Makani numbers and Saudi National Address and fewer failed deliveries.

4. Get a phone number that works

The courier needs to reach the shopper, and so do you if you confirm orders.

1. In Settings > Checkout, set Shipping address phone number to Required. Shopify recommends Required when your shipping carrier needs a customer phone number. It is also how you make sure every order has one, because the contact method can be "Phone number or email" or "Email", and a shopper who picks email gives no phone number there.
2. Change the field's wording (with Edit checkout content, as above) to say why you need it, for example "Mobile number, for the courier".
3. Look through last month's orders for numbers with missing digits or a missing country code. If you see a pattern, add an example number to the field's wording.

5. Confirm COD orders before you ship

A short confirmation catches orders placed by mistake, prank orders and wrong addresses before you pay for delivery. Shopify's own SMS order confirmations are only sent when the store's business address is in a short list of countries, none of them in the GCC, so GCC stores need another way: a WhatsApp message, an SMS app or a phone call. Each has a different cost. See confirming COD orders by phone, SMS or WhatsApp for the trade-offs.

Ask the shopper to confirm the order, the address and the total including delivery. A shopper who says "yes, AED 235 on Tuesday" before dispatch is less likely to be surprised on Tuesday.

6. Keep the shopper updated until delivery

Updates remind the shopper that the parcel is coming and when to have the cash ready. Shopify sends customer notifications for:

• Shipping confirmation, when you fulfill the order;
• Shipping update, when tracking information changes;
• Out for delivery and Delivered, when your carrier or fulfillment app sends a tracking event with that status.

The last two depend on tracking events from your carrier or fulfillment app, so an order fulfilled without a tracking number usually won't get them. Shopify also doesn't send them for local delivery orders. Add the courier's tracking number when you fulfill, and translate the notifications if you sell in Arabic.

7. Make cancelling easy before dispatch

A shopper who changes their mind and can cancel with one WhatsApp message costs you nothing. A shopper who can't find a way to cancel may simply refuse at the door, which costs you delivery both ways. Put your WhatsApp number or phone in the order confirmation and on your COD policy page, and say clearly that cancelling before dispatch is free.

8. Limit COD where the risk is highest

Some orders carry more risk than others: customers who refused before, very large carts, large first orders from shoppers you don't know, and custom-made products you can't resell. For these, hide COD and let the shopper pay online. Everyone else keeps COD.

Shopify lets apps hide a payment method at checkout with a payment customization. Khaleeji COD uses one to hide COD when any rule you switch on matches: a customer tagged cod-refused, a cart above an amount, a large first order, a no-cod product, or a blocked region or city. Start with how to hide COD above a cart total to choose a limit from your own orders.

How do you know it's working?

Measure your refusal rate before and after each change:

Change one thing at a time where you can, and give it a few weeks, so you know which change made the difference.