Refused cash-on-delivery parcels: 8 things that actually reduce them
Every refused parcel costs delivery both ways, packaging and time. Eight practices from the online stores we work with — with numbers, not generic advice.
A refused parcel doesn't show up in your sales. It shows up on the courier's bill — twice.
Cash on delivery is the norm in Bulgarian e-commerce. The customer pays at the door or at the courier's office. If they refuse, the store pays for delivery there and back, the packaging, and the time of whoever puts the goods back on the shelf.
We work with online stores that ship hundreds to thousands of parcels a month — herbs and supplements, phones and accessories. Here is what we've seen actually reduce refusals. And what doesn't.
Why people refuse
Rarely because they're bad customers. More often:
- They forgot. They ordered on Friday night; the parcel arrives on Wednesday.
- The total surprised them. They saw the product price but not the delivery.
- The parcel went to the wrong place. The office was typed by hand, and not clearly.
- They ordered twice. They weren't sure the first order went through.
- The parcel waited at the office and the holding period ran out.
- They didn't order it. Someone else entered their phone number.
Most of these can be caught with one well-timed call. Here's how.
1. Call fast — minutes, not days
The best time to confirm is while the customer still remembers what they ordered. At Lowprice.bg the agent calls about 10 minutes after the order. The product is still on the person's mind and the phone is still in their hand.
2. Say the total including delivery
"Your order is €54.90 plus delivery" is an invitation to be surprised. "€59.80 in total with delivery, payable on receipt" isn't. A surprise at the door is one of the easiest reasons for refusal to avoid.
3. Fix the office before the label is printed
At one of the stores we work with, about one order in five (584 of 2,861 over three weeks) had an office or town the system couldn't recognise with certainty. "Econt near the station" makes sense to the customer — not to the courier.
The system recognises clear cases on its own. For the unclear ones, one call before the label saves a parcel from going to the wrong place.
4. Catch duplicate orders
When someone orders the same thing twice within a few days, they usually don't want two. In one check at a store we work with, we found 19 repeat orders of the same product within 3 days — 7 of them were later refused. The confirmation agent asks whether to merge the orders instead of sending two parcels.
5. Start with quick-checkout orders
A "quick order" with two fields is convenient for the customer — and the easiest to forget. At the stores we work with, these orders are refused more often than regular ones. If you can't call everyone, start with them.
6. Send a reminder when the parcel is waiting at the office
A parcel sitting at a courier office is on its way back. Our agent calls when a parcel has been waiting for about three working days — in two windows during the day, to catch people who work. It first reminds them what they ordered, because "I don't want it" sometimes means "I forgot what it was".
7. Respect "no" — and "I didn't order this"
If someone says they never ordered, the agent apologises and doesn't call again. If someone doesn't want calls, they go on a "Do not call" list. It sounds like a detail, but it's the difference between a store that cares and a store that pesters.
8. Measure with and without a call
Confirmation isn't magic. At one of the stores, even among confirmed orders about one in ten still comes back (606 of 6,431 over two months). That's why the reminder for a waiting parcel matters so much — it catches the refusals that confirmation can't.
Measure orders with a call and without one separately. That's the only way to see where the call earns money and where it just slows down the warehouse.
When not to call everyone
One of our clients decided to stop automatically confirming every order. Their warehouse prints labels straight away, and calling everyone was slowing down everyone's parcels. Now the agent calls only where there's a reason: an unclear office, a delayed parcel, an item out of stock.
That's the right question: not "should we call?" but "who is worth calling?"
Where an AI agent helps
A person can do everything above. The problem is that at 50 orders a day it's hours of phone calls every day — and people start skipping. The agent calls at the same minute, says the same total and records the outcome next to the order. Every day.
See what we do for online stores or read how Bilkalek and Lowprice.bg do it.
Octupo — AI voice agents for online stores contact@octupo.com