Did you know, at least 30% of all products are ordered online or returned? Moreover, 92% of consumers believe that they will buy from the store again if the return process is easy, and over 79% of consumers want free return shipping.
This implies that returns play a massive role in the decision-making process of purchasing a product. However, returns are not such a good story for eCommerce sellers. They involve huge commitments, shipping amounts, and resources that can drain out almost all funds out of the business. Most courier companies offer higher return charges as compared to forwarding charges.
Most times, the reasons for these return orders are the product not being delivered on time, receiving the wrong item, COD amount not available, a fake attempt to provide the product, etc.
In most cases, these situations can be avoided, and the product can be successfully delivered. You just need to be careful about a few things, and you will reduce your RTO. Let’s look at what RTO is and how you can reduce it for your eCommerce business.
What Does RTO Mean in eCommerce?
RTO in eCommerce stands for return to origin. It means that whenever an order is returned or undelivered, it will be returned to where it was picked up from. In most cases, courier companies ask the sellers if they want to return the order, and the sellers have to pay for the return charges.
Why are RTO Orders Difficult to Handle?
RTO in eCommerce is challenging to handle because you have to incur separate charges for them. In most cases, the shipped product also becomes unusable because of the constant to and fro. If the product was the last of the lot, there are huge chances that it might not be used. Also, if the product was sold in the sale and you had to incur forward shipment charges for it, there is a big chance that you might go into loss if you pay for the return charges. For cash on delivery orders, the situation is even worse as customers refuse to pay for the order, and you also have to bear the return delivery charges.
Most times, consumers just miss the order or are dissatisfied with the delivery because it is delivered late. In such cases, RTO can be avoided.
Why Should You Aim to Reduce RTO in eCommerce?
You should aim to reduce RTO as it directly impacts the delivery performance. If you are constantly getting an RTO from an area, it is indicative that either fraud is being committed or the pin code is acceptable to many RTOs. Also, higher RTO tells you about the customer’s delivery experience. If the RTO is happening because the product is being delivered late, faulty, or inaccurate, it means that the overall delivery experience is also being impacted. You must reduce RTO if you want to say that on your logistics costs and provide a superior delivery experience to your customers.
Let’s look at how you can reduce RTO with 3PL fulfillment providers like Shiprocket Fulfillment.
How Can You Reduce RTO in Ecommerce?
1. Verify Buyer Details
Many orders are returned to their origin because of the wrong buyer and delivery information. Thus, you must verify buyer details, like phone number, address, etc., before shipping an orde – check if the provided details are correct and authentic. You can reduce the chances of an order returning to the origin considerably.
2. Clear Product Information
Unclear product information is one of the biggest reasons customers return or cancel products. Customers buy products without having enough information about them, and upon receiving them, they feel the product might not serve its purpose efficiently. Thus, they return the product. To counter this, you must provide crystal clear product information that includes every detail about the product, like shape, size, and color.
3. Real-Time Order Tracking
Order tracking plays a crucial role in reducing eCommerce RTO orders. Keeping the customers updated about product tracking can help bring down customer anxiety while maintaining excitement. You can update your customers through SMS, email, and WhatsApp notifications.
4. Fulfillment Centers Across India
Shiprocket Fulfillment’s centers are located across several zones in India. This means that with fulfillment centres located in places like Delhi, Bengaluru, Gurugram, Kolkata, Mumbai, Surat, Jaipur, and Guwahati, you can quickly deliver products at a much faster rate. Also, you can practically have warehouses across the country and ensure that your products get delivered in the best shape possible.
5. Store Inventory Closer to Buyers
The next advantage of Shiprocket Fulfillment is storing inventory closer to buyers. With fulfillment centers in various cities, you can stock your products closer to the buyer’s delivery location. You can also conduct demand forecasting with the help of predictive analytics and assess which Pin code or zone has the maximum demand for a particular product. This will help you evaluate your business better, and you can logically decide in which fulfillment center you want to store the inventory. With this, you can deliver your products faster and ensure that the right product is delivered to the customer. This ensures that you reduce RTO by 60% by eliminating minor causes like skipped delivery or authentic products.
6. Deliver 3x Faster
A vital benefit of utilizing Shiprocket Fulfillment is that you can deliver orders 3X faster. Since your products are stored closer to the customer and shipped with 99.9% accuracy with a skilled team, the shipping time can also be reduced with a lower first-mile and last-mile completion time. Courier companies can also pick up the products in bulk and ensure that they successfully deliver them faster within a specific zone or region. This ensures that the products are delivered within time, and RTO, because of late delivery, faulty products, or orders being missed, can be avoided.
7. Reduced Order-to-Ship Time
Marketplaces usually have stringent fulfillment requirements for businesses. Also, customers expect receiving products within 1 to 2 days of ordering from significant marketplaces. To fulfill these requirements and ensure that the orders are not returned, you need to be on your toes to deliver them ASAP. With Shiprocket Fulfillment, the skilled team works on each order meticulously and ensures that ship time is reduced. This enables faster first-mile and last-mile fulfillment of the order. Hence, RTOs are avoided.
8. Robust Shipping Network
When you opt for Shiprocket Fulfillment, you ship with a robust network of couriers by Shiprocket. Shiprocket is one of the best shipping solutions in India, with a comprehensive shipping network across the country. In this way, you can deliver orders faster, and more accurately and also reduce RTO by 60%.
Final Thoughts
Shiprocket Fulfillment is a facilitator if you want to reduce RTO by a considerable margin. Outsourcing e-commerce fulfillment with a 3PL fulfillment provider can help you improve other aspects of your business. It helps you save costs, enabling you to give the best price for your products. These combined, can help you get an edge over your competitors and give your buyers the ultimate shopping experience they desire.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
With Shiprocket, you can deliver your orders faster for maximum customer satisfaction.
There are many ways through which you can reduce RTO rates in eCommerce. Some of these include providing faster delivery, undertaking proper address verification, initiating buyer order confirmation, and ensuring proper delivery attempts.
RTO means return-to-origin. When an order is undelivered either due to a wrong delivery address, buyer’s unavailability, or buyer’s denial of accepting the order, an RTO is initiated. In this case, the order is returned to the place from where it was shipped, i.e. retail store, warehouse, or manufacturing unit. Noteworthily, the seller has to bear an RTO fee.
Yes, you can reduce your RTO by taking certain steps like offering faster delivery, verifying addresses before shipping, and undertaking proper buyer confirmation of orders. This will ultimately reduce the RTO charges.
An RTO occurs when the product is returned to its origin. This can happen when the wrong delivery address is provided or when the buyer refuses to accept a package or is unavailable to accept one.
Customer return, on the other hand, happens when a customer accepts the order and asks for a return. In this case, the customer asks the seller to facilitate a return and refund the amount paid.
