Twenty-six percent of COD shipments in India come back as returns-to-origin, according to Shipway's ShipNotes logistics report. For fashion and footwear stores, that number climbs past 40%. Every one of those failed deliveries costs you the product, the forward shipping, the return shipping, and the re-stocking labor — roughly triple the original shipping cost with zero revenue to show for it.

Most RTO advice focuses on OTP verification and partial prepayment. Both work. But there's a simpler fix that most COD merchants overlook: the right COD order form fields. The information you collect at checkout directly determines whether a courier can find your customer on the first attempt. Five specific fields reduce RTO by giving delivery agents what they need to succeed on the first try.

Why Do Default COD Order Forms Cause Failed Deliveries?

The standard Shopify checkout collects a name, address, city, and phone number. That's enough for prepaid orders in markets with reliable postal infrastructure. It's not enough for COD delivery in India, Pakistan, the Gulf, or Southeast Asia.

COD couriers in these markets face problems that don't exist in prepaid logistics. The customer needs to be physically present with cash. The address might be a building with no street number. The phone number might be unreachable during delivery hours. Address errors, impulse refusals, and fake orders collectively account for 48–72% of all COD RTOs.

You can't control whether a customer changes their mind. But you can control whether the courier actually finds them. That's a form problem, not a logistics problem.

Field 1: Alternate Phone Number

The single most common reason for "customer unreachable" RTO is a phone that goes to voicemail. The customer is in a meeting. Their phone died. They're on the metro with no signal. The courier tries twice, marks it undeliverable, and your order starts its return journey.

An alternate phone number field gives the courier a second chance. It could be a spouse, a roommate, a family member, or a work number. The key is that someone picks up and can either accept delivery or give directions.

Make this field optional but visible. Label it "Alternate contact for delivery" — not just "Phone 2." When customers understand why you're asking, they're more likely to fill it in. Merchants who've added this field report that couriers resolve 15–20% of previously-failed deliveries through the second number alone.

Field 2: Nearest Landmark

In dense urban areas across India, MENA, and Southeast Asia, street addresses often don't map to a specific building. A landmark field — "near City Center Mall," "opposite the blue mosque," "behind the petrol pump" — gives couriers the context that Google Maps can't.

This is especially critical for Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities where mapping data is incomplete. A courier who knows the landmark can find the address in minutes. Without it, they're calling the customer repeatedly, burning time, and eventually marking the order as undeliverable.

Use a simple text field, not a dropdown. Landmarks are too varied and localized for a pre-set list. Keep the label specific: "Nearest landmark (mosque, mall, school, etc.)" works better than just "Landmark" because the examples prompt useful answers.

Field 3: Preferred Delivery Time Slot

The number-one reason for RTO across all COD markets isn't fraud or wrong addresses — it's "customer not available." The courier shows up at 11 AM. The customer is at work until 6 PM. Nobody's home to hand over cash.

A delivery time slot field solves this by aligning the delivery attempt with the customer's schedule. You don't need precise 1-hour windows. Three broad slots work: morning (9 AM–1 PM), afternoon (1 PM–5 PM), evening (5 PM–9 PM).

Adding time slot selection to COD order forms cuts failed deliveries by 20–30%, according to delivery optimization data. The reason is straightforward: when customers pick a time they'll actually be home, couriers don't waste attempts on empty doorsteps.

Use a dropdown or radio buttons with three to four options. Don't add "any time" as the default — it defeats the purpose. If a customer genuinely doesn't care, they'll pick whichever slot is first.

Field 4: PIN Code With Real-Time Validation

A wrong PIN code doesn't just slow down delivery — it can route the package to the wrong distribution hub entirely. By the time someone catches the error, your order has already traveled to the wrong city and needs to be re-routed or returned.

Real-time PIN code validation checks the code against your courier partner's serviceable areas the moment the customer types it. If the PIN code isn't deliverable, the customer sees an error immediately — before they submit the order, not three days later when the courier can't find them.

This does two things. First, it catches typos and wrong codes before they become failed deliveries. Second, it filters out orders to areas your courier doesn't actually serve, which would have been guaranteed RTOs. You can also block high-RTO PIN codes entirely if certain areas consistently produce failed deliveries. Address validation at checkout prevents up to 40–60% of delivery failures caused by bad address data, according to logistics platform 1Checkout.

If you're using EasySell, you can add PIN code validation directly to your order form with the address validation feature — the field checks serviceability in real time and blocks undeliverable codes before the order goes through.

Field 5: Delivery Instructions

This is the catch-all field that handles everything the other four don't. "Ring the bell twice, the doorbell is broken." "Leave with the security guard if I'm not home." "Gate code is 4521." "Call before coming, the dog will bark."

Delivery instructions are especially valuable for apartment buildings, gated communities, and commercial addresses where the courier needs specific information to reach the customer's door — not just their building.

Keep this as an optional text area with a character limit (150–200 characters is enough). Label it "Special delivery instructions" and add placeholder text with an example: "e.g., Ring doorbell twice, apartment 3B on the left." The placeholder teaches customers what kind of information is useful without making the field feel mandatory.

This field has a secondary benefit: customers who take time to write delivery instructions are more committed to receiving the order. It's a subtle psychological signal. Someone writing "leave with the guard at Gate 2" is planning to pick up that package — not placing an impulse order they'll refuse at the door.

How to Add These Fields Without Killing Your Conversion Rate

Five extra fields sounds like a lot. Won't it slow down checkout and hurt conversions? It depends on how you implement them.

Make only PIN code and primary phone mandatory. The other three fields should be optional. Customers who want smooth delivery will fill them in. Customers in a rush can skip them.
Use conditional display. Show the landmark field only for PIN codes in areas with known delivery challenges. Show delivery time slots only for COD orders, not prepaid.
Group them visually. Put all five fields in a "Delivery details" section below the standard address. This signals that the fields help with delivery, not that you're harvesting extra data.
Keep labels short and clear. "Alternate phone for delivery" is better than "Please provide an alternative telephone number where our delivery partner can reach you."

The conversion math works in your favor here. If adding these fields drops your conversion rate by 2% but reduces RTO by 20%, you're coming out far ahead. Every prevented RTO saves you triple shipping costs and recovers revenue that would have been lost entirely.

Measure the Impact Before and After

Track these three numbers for 30 days before adding the fields, then for 30 days after:

RTO rate — total RTOs divided by total COD orders shipped. This is your primary metric.
First-attempt delivery rate — orders delivered on the first courier attempt. This improves before RTO drops because some orders that would've failed on the first try now succeed.
Form completion rate — what percentage of customers who start the form actually submit it. Watch for any meaningful drop after adding fields.

If your RTO rate doesn't move after 30 days, check the fill rates on each new field. If customers are skipping the optional fields entirely, your labels or placement need work. If they're filling them in but deliveries still fail, the problem is downstream — your courier partner isn't using the information you're collecting.

Share the delivery instructions and time slot data with your courier partner directly. Some logistics providers ignore custom fields unless you specifically configure the data handoff. The fields only reduce RTO if the person carrying the package actually sees them. For a deeper look at how order-to-delivery communication affects RTO, see our guide on COD order-to-delivery communication.

Start with one field this week — alternate phone number is the easiest to add and has the most immediate impact. Track the results for two weeks, then add the next one. Five small changes to your order form, and your courier starts finding customers on the first try instead of bringing your inventory back.