Almost every online sale in Algeria is paid in cash at the door. The customer orders from an ad, someone confirms by phone, a delivery company brings a parcel, and the customer pays the courier. If the customer is not there, or changes their mind, the parcel comes back. This is cash-on-delivery, and it shapes everything about selling online here.
The number nobody tells beginners
Across two years of our own shipments, and across our students' stores, the share of confirmed orders that come back undelivered sits between roughly 45% and 60%. It moves with the product, the wilaya and the season, but it never disappears. A course that promises a 10% return rate is describing another country.
Why it happens
- The order was an impulse. The ad worked, the customer filled a form, and three days later the feeling is gone.
- Nobody confirmed properly. A confirmation call is not "did you order?", it is "the courier comes tomorrow between two and six, will you be there, is the address right?"
- The courier could not reach them. A wrong number, a phone off, a second number missing.
- Delivery took too long. Algiers in 24 hours is fine; a week to the south is a returned parcel.
How our students price for it
Take a product that costs 1,000 DZD to buy, 500 DZD of ads per order, and sells for 2,500 DZD. On paper that is a 1,000 DZD margin. With a 50% return rate you pay delivery both ways on half your parcels, so the real margin per shipped order is lower, and the price has to absorb it. In the program the pricing expert makes you run this calculation before the ad account is even opened.
How to reduce it
- Confirm every order by phone, with the delivery window and the address, and ask for a second number.
- Ship the day of confirmation. Every day of delay adds returns.
- Use a delivery company that calls before delivering and shows you the status in real time. We use Yalidine and ZR Express across the 69 wilayas.
- Re-call the customer the day before delivery. A third of the people who ghost the courier answer a call from the seller.
- Send a WhatsApp message when the parcel leaves. People wait for what they can see.