The Indian online marketplace is growing ever since it started. We’ve reached a point where there are approximately 250 Million Online Buyers in India alone. 4 out of 10 businessmen sell their products online and make 2 times more sales than the others. But, there’s a challenge!
✔ 3 out of 4 people in India choose cod option over pre-paid option due to many reasons.
✔ Not having access to a digital payment method, Lack of trust in online sellers, Fear of poor product quality are just some of the reasons.
✔ When the customer chooses cod or cash-on-delivery, he pays for the product during delivery rather than paying in advance. So, it’s a kind of risk that small sellers should take while selling online.
So, are you looking forward to selling your products online with Cash-on-delivery (COD) but don’t know how? It’s simple!
Follow these 6 Easy Steps to successfully sell online with COD payment option:
Here’s a list of products sold highest on the internet today according to Google (2019) :
- Electronics
- Apparel and Accessories
- Books
- Beauty and Personal Care
- Home and Furnishing
- Healthcare
- Baby Care
The list doesn’t end. You can sell whatever adds value to your customers’ lives to be profitable!
Here’s are the top online platforms to sell your products:
- Facebook Marketplace
- Indiamart
- Flipkart
- Amazon
- Alibaba
- eBay
- Myntra
- HomeShop18
- Snapdeal
- Paytm
- ShopClues
- Quikr
✔ Choose where you want to register on.
✔ Better is to register on multiple platforms as most of them allow FREE registration.
✔ Work out the profit-sharing part with them and get your product details and pictures added on their platform.
Apart from this, you can even build your own online store if you’re technically sound or if you have someone to help you with that.
Most of the eCommerce platforms (Amazon, Flipkart, etc) take care of marketing. You just have to relax till the customers start coming in. Whereas if you want to sell on social media platforms or sell through your website, then you’ll have to do some basic marketing yourself.
✔ Sign up for free & create an account on social networking platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, etc.
✔ Posting your product picture along with its details is FREE in almost all.
✔ If you decide to use paid advertising on social media, you can even start with a budget as low as Rs. 100.
✔ Not only are there lakhs of users on social media, but you can target specific people.
For eg, You may want to sell hair accessories to women or you may want to sell men wallets to the men who fall into an age group of 25- 55 in Bangalore, social media provides you all such options
You may want to read this: 17 Reasons Every Small Business Market Social Media
Once you have your eCommerce store up and running, your next step is to start connecting with your potential customers.
- If it’s an eCommerce platform (Amazon, Flipkart, etc) that’s got you sales, you don’t have to worry about anything. Right from receiving orders to delivering the product, everything is taken care of.
- Here, you get your payments not from the customers, but from the platforms on which you’re listed (in most of the cases!).
- Whereas if you’ve got customers via Facebook, Instagram or if it’s a direct inquiry over call or WhatsApp, you may have to process the order pretty much differently.
✔ Get their details like Customer Name, Delivery/Shipping Address, Payment Mode, Item name and quantity they wish to buy. Ask for confirmation. If it’s a bigger buy, ask for partial payment and confirm it by calling them.
✔ Then, check if you can deliver the package to the mentioned location.
✔ Depending on their location, shipping charges may apply, give them the final quote that includes shipping charges too.
✔ Once your customer places order, generate invoice/order form (you can use a good billing App here) and attached it to the package to be dispatched.
Once you’ve taken the order, the next step is to deliver it on time.
✔ Partner with a logistic company
✔ Choose logistics that offer cash on delivery option.
✔ Some may do delivery but not COD. Primitive companies that operate in courier modes like DTDC or equivalent couriers may not have many options. It’s recommended not to go for such services especially in India where majority of payments are made cod.
Here’s the list of top 10 courier companies in India you can go for:
- Most companies charge regular courier charges and additional COD charges.
- Check if the charges are feasible for your selling.
- Sometimes, when a COD is returned back to you as customer refusal or unavailable, you will be charged both ways courier charges. Check if you have any concession over that.
So once you have your logistics partner ready, a delivery boy picks the shipment from you and delivers it to the address provided by the customer.
Once the logistics company ships the product to the customer. They receive money from the customer.
✔ If the payment is made by the customer, the logistics company will cut its share of postage and handling charges, and hands over the money to you.
✔ If the payment is not made it is returned back to the retailer. You may have to pay the courier charges for both ways and extra COD service charge.
Having doubts about this process? Please ask your questions below.
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