Only D2C teams know how BIG a news it is that Shopify's Advanced Cash on Delivery (COD) app shut down 3 days ago With multiple brands reaching out to us for help I was contemplating how this poorly rated app has been the backbone of building the D2C ecosystem in India The Shopify India team got it built through a dev agency back in the day, because literally no other country had these problems Brands have a deep love / hate relationship with COD Why Love? - Even after a small brand gets someone interested in their products & story It is still tough for the buyer to trust the brand enough to Pre-pay online COD gives them enough comfort to give the "new kid on the block" a chance In numbers, ~60-70% of D2C orders are still COD despite high UPI penetration. Brands see non-trivial increase in conversions when they give cash on delivery Why hate? ~10-30% of COD orders are never delivered for variety of reasons - fraud, bad addresses, change in mind etc That is very expensive for a small business -- ZERO revenue from the returned order, but o Cost of sending the package back and forth o Blocked inventory o Damages to the product This app attempted to solve this by providing control on who gets to see COD based on products, order sizes, pin-codes This problems with offering COD were however much deeper, as we realized over time shopflo merchants helped us create Advanced++ COD functionality, right within our product. As brands try to keep COD problems in check, we're doing our bit by creating "Priority onboarding for those using Advanced COD" DM me if you'd like to speak to us or visit www.shopflo.com End of an era, indeed
Shopify shutting down Advanced COD options. Interestingly now, D2C complete checkout solution players and third-party plugins might now experience a similar boom impact as UPI apps like Paytm and Gpay realized did during demonetization. All the best for Priy Ranjan and Shopflo team!!
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Shout out to Roy on your team for helping us with this.