COD Multi-Courier Strategy: Pick the Right Mix

EasySell
2026-04-14T03:24:26+01:00

Nearly 26% of COD orders end up as return-to-origin. But that number isn't evenly distributed — some cities run at 18% RTO while others hit 35%. Using multiple couriers for COD ecommerce lets you route each order to the carrier most likely to deliver it, instead of averaging performance across regions where your single courier ranges from excellent to terrible.

If you're shipping every COD order through a single courier, you're averaging out performance across regions where that courier is strong and regions where they're weak. You're paying the same rate for a delivery in Mumbai (where your courier has 40 hubs) and a delivery in Patna (where they subcontract to a local partner who loses packages). That averaging is costing you money every single day.

Why Single-Courier COD Stores Bleed Money

Every failed COD delivery costs you three times: the forward shipping, the return shipping, and the product sitting in limbo for 10-14 days instead of generating revenue. On a ₹1,200 order with ₹80 forward shipping and ₹80 return shipping, one failed delivery eats ₹160 plus the opportunity cost of that inventory.

A single courier can't be the best option everywhere. Courier networks have strongholds — dense infrastructure in certain regions, thin coverage in others. Delhivery dominates metros. DTDC has deeper reach in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Shadowfax runs faster in hyperlocal. Ecom Express has solid COD remittance cycles.

When you route everything through one partner, you're optimizing for their best regions and accepting their worst ones. A multi-courier approach flips that equation: route each order to the courier most likely to deliver it successfully.

Track Three Numbers Before Adding a Second Courier

Don't add couriers blindly. You need data from your current courier first. Pull these three metrics by region for the last 90 days:

1. Delivery success rate by pin code cluster. Group your orders by state or zone. You'll find your courier delivers 90%+ in some zones and drops below 75% in others. The low-performing zones are where a second courier earns its place.

2. Average delivery time by zone. COD customers who wait 7+ days are far more likely to refuse the package. If your courier takes 3 days to metros but 8 days to tier-2 cities, that delay is driving RTO in those regions.

3. COD remittance cycle. How fast does the courier send you the collected cash? Some couriers remit within 2 days. Others take 8-10. Slow remittance chokes your cash flow — and if you're reinvesting in inventory, that delay compounds.

These three numbers tell you where your current courier is failing and what type of courier you need to complement them.

How to Split COD Volume Across Multiple Couriers

The goal isn't to use as many couriers as possible. Two or three, strategically selected, outperform five used randomly. Here's how to split:

By geography. Assign your primary courier to regions where they perform best. Add a regional specialist for zones where your primary courier's delivery success rate drops below 80%. A courier with 500 hubs in South India will outperform a national player with 50 hubs there.

By order value. High-value COD orders (above ₹2,000) deserve your most reliable courier — even if they charge ₹20-30 more per shipment. The cost of a failed ₹3,000 delivery dwarfs the savings from a cheaper courier. Route low-value orders through your most cost-effective partner.

By weight and product type. Fragile items need couriers with lower damage rates, not just lower prices. If you sell electronics and clothing, the ideal courier for each category is probably different.

Courier Aggregators Handle the Routing for You

Manually assigning couriers per order doesn't scale past 50 orders a day. Courier aggregators connect your store to 20-40+ courier partners and use algorithms to pick the best one for each shipment.

The major players in this space:

Shiprocket integrates with 42+ courier partners across 29,000+ pin codes. Their CORE recommendation engine scores couriers by delivery success rate, speed, and COD remittance speed. Early COD remittance within 2 days of delivery is available. Best for D2C brands shipping 100-5,000 orders/month who want discounted rates without negotiating individual courier contracts.

ClickPost supports 550+ carriers globally and focuses on logistics intelligence rather than discounted rates. You bring your own courier contracts; ClickPost's AI decides which carrier delivers fastest to each pin code. Their automated NDR (non-delivery report) workflow triggers WhatsApp verification to the customer when a delivery fails, cutting manual follow-up. Best for brands shipping 5,000+ orders/month who already have negotiated rates.

iThink Logistics offers AI-based courier allocation and integrates with Shopify directly. Their algorithm considers pin code serviceability, courier performance history, and cost to auto-assign each order. Good middle ground for growing brands that want automation without enterprise pricing.

The right aggregator depends on your volume. Under 500 orders/month, manually splitting between two couriers works fine. Above that, the time savings from automated routing pays for the aggregator fee within the first month.

Set Up Performance-Based Routing Rules

Once you're on an aggregator (or managing two couriers manually), set these routing rules:

Rule 1: Pin code priority. Map each pin code to a primary and backup courier based on historical delivery success rate. Most aggregators build this map automatically after 30 days of data. If your primary courier's success rate drops below a threshold (say 80%) for a pin code cluster, the system routes to the backup.

Rule 2: COD vs. prepaid split. COD orders carry higher risk. Route COD to your courier with the best delivery success rate for that zone — even if they cost more. Route prepaid orders to the cheapest courier, since prepaid RTO stays below 2%.

Rule 3: NDR escalation. When a first delivery attempt fails, some aggregators can automatically reassign the reattempt to a different courier. If Courier A failed the delivery, Courier B might succeed — different delivery agent, different approach, sometimes a different local hub.

Rule 4: Remittance-based allocation during cash crunches. When cash flow is tight, temporarily increase volume to the courier with the fastest COD remittance cycle, even if their per-shipment rate is slightly higher. Getting cash back in 2 days instead of 8 can be worth the extra ₹15 per order.

The Address Problem That Breaks Multi-Courier Routing

Automated courier selection only works if the delivery address is accurate. Bad addresses cause 18-24% of all RTOs — and they cause the same failure rate regardless of which courier you use. No routing algorithm can fix "Near the big tree, opposite the old shop."

Before you invest in multi-courier infrastructure, fix your address collection. Use pin code validation to auto-fill city and state. Require a complete address with flat/house number. Send an address confirmation via WhatsApp or SMS before dispatch — a simple "Reply YES to confirm or send corrections" catches incomplete details before they become failed deliveries.

EasySell's order form includes built-in address validation and pin code lookup, so customers enter complete, verified addresses that feed clean data into your courier routing system.

What Should You Track After Switching to Multiple Couriers?

After switching to a multi-courier setup, track these metrics weekly for the first 90 days:

Overall RTO rate — compare to your single-courier baseline. Most merchants see a 15-30% reduction in RTO when routing is optimized by region.

RTO rate by courier — identify which courier performs best in which zones. Adjust your routing rules monthly based on actual data, not assumptions.

Average delivery time — faster delivery means fewer refusals. If your new routing cuts average delivery from 6 days to 4 days, your RTO will drop as a side effect.

Shipping cost per delivered order — not per shipped order. A ₹60 courier that delivers 90% of orders costs less per successful delivery than a ₹45 courier that delivers 75%.

The metric that matters most is cost per delivered order, not cost per shipment. A ₹45 shipment that fails costs you ₹135 (forward + return + reshipment). A ₹65 shipment that delivers costs ₹65. The "expensive" courier is cheaper.

Start With Two Couriers, Not Five

Pick your weakest region — the zone where your current courier's delivery success rate is lowest. Add one courier that specializes in that region. Run both for 60 days. Compare the numbers. If the new courier improves delivery rates by even 5 percentage points in that zone, the math works. Then expand to a third courier for your next-weakest region.

You don't need to overhaul your entire logistics stack this week. You need to stop sending every order through the same pipe and hoping for different results.