Effective Strategies to Reduce RTO (Return to Origin) Rates in eCommerce

RTOs (Return to Origin) are a curious case in eCommerce. Unlike customer returns triggered by their dissatisfaction, RTOs occur when products never reach the customers in the first place, i.e. they remain undelivered. 

Our analysis of last year’s shipment data across multiple categories uncovers a striking pattern: nearly 27% of orders ended up as RTOs. However, here’s the silver lining— 99.12% of these orders were eventually delivered to customers, ensuring full revenue recovery. 

So, can a failed delivery get back on track without being cancelled or shipped back to the warehouse? The answer is Yes. With AI-driven RTO optimization suite like ClickPost and effective strategies you can waive goodbyes to RTOs. This article will guide you. 

What is Return to Origin?

In logistics, the term RTO is reserved for shipments that are marked as returned to the origin after a series of failed delivery attempts by carriers. In other words, it is the reverse journey of a shipment from customers to the business and the warehouse. 

For every RTO, a brand pays twice the amount of shipping charges. RTOs are a major source of revenue drain and customer churn for eCommerce companies.

Though it is not a cause for concern in many geographies, RTOs are particularly vexing in countries like India, Indonesia, and other SEA countries where COD (Cash On Delivery) orders are highly prevalent. 

For example, a DHL report found that 41% of shoppers in India like to buy products online at least 2-3 times a week. However, for 65% of them the preferred mode of payment remains COD. This trend is particularly observed in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. 

In our analysis, 49.3% i.e. 1 in 2 orders become RTO while only 3.1% of pre-paid orders or 1 in 32 pre-paid orders had the chance of being a RTO. In other words, customers opting for COD are 30 times more likely to reject a delivery than a pre-paid order. The categories that most experience RTO is apparel and fashion. 

Though risk associated with returns or order cancellations is higher in COD orders, it is not the sole reason that makes up the RTO count. 

Top 5 Causes Behind Return to Origin (RTO) in eCommerce—And Their Business Impact

A wide range of factors result in RTO—from changes in customer intent to delivery exceptions. While the former is harder for brands to control, the latter is within their sphere of influence. 

RTOs hurt brands and customers alike. Long delivery windows frustrate 52 % of shoppers, prompting some to cancel when promised dates slip. Each undelivered parcel triggers back‑haul costs, lost revenue, inventory bottlenecks, in‑transit damage, and a hit to brand reputation—a domino effect that slows down growth and profitability. 

Understanding the RTO Lifecycle

Every RTO journey follows a sequence, tracing itself to the time when an order is first placed. Below is a quick breakdown of the process:

10 Effective Strategies ClickPost Uses to Help eCommerce Brands Tackle RTO

ClickPost has handled RTOs for nearly a decade, mapping root causes and building a closed‑loop channel that keeps customers, carriers and brands in sync to rescue failed deliveries. Its NDR‑management module automates the heavy lifting. Below are ten proven tactics from that workflow to cut your RTO rate.

1. Real-Time Detection of Failed Deliveries 

The first rule to recoup a RTO is to track the shipment movements in real-time. An incorrect address or customer unavailability at the time of delivery can be easily handled without letting the matter escalate into repeated failed delivery attempts. Tracking orders in real-time maintains your control over the process and prompts corrective actions. 

Here’s how ClickPost helps:

• Receives real-time order status from 500+ carriers.
• Automatically detects and alerts failed deliveries on its centralized dashboard. 
• Offers an easy way to loop up specific NDR cases and perform bulk search for multiple AWBs.
• Systematically tracks the movement of NDR cases from the first failed delivery to subsequent delivery reattempts. 
• Consolidated view of shipments including hub-level details of stuck and lost parcels. 

2. AI-Driven Categorization of NDR Buckets

Your operations and customer support teams need more than a “failed delivery” ping—they need to know why. Most carriers’ NDR feeds include that context, passing along exception codes and driver remarks. However, they may not give you the required context to get to the root cause and the action that needs to be taken to address it. 

For eg, instead of seeing a note that says delivery failed due to exceptions, your team would need granularity. The exception could be a mismatch in the delivery code or OTP not shared with the customer. Moreover, every carrier has their unique delivery status codes. You would lose precious time  decoding the jargon instead of saving the order. 

With ClickPost, you don’t have to make any guesswork, since it:

• Uses AI to organize standardized failed delivery reasons. 
• Offers granularity with 16 NDR buckets and NDR counts. 
• Updates the latest NDR remark provided by the courier with timestamps. 

3. Rule-Based Notification Triggers 

The core of the RTO recovery engine lies in addressing the customer on time. With an automated solution, you coordinate with customers via strategically planned and executed communications. Take a rule-based approach to trigger notifications across all customer touch points—SMS, WhatsApp, Emails, and IVRS. This increases the chances of customers responding and providing feedback. 

Here’s what ClickPost does:

• Follows the rule based workflow, triggering notifications at 0 min, 60 mins, and 120 mins.
• Offers custom-build action paths of communication mediums and time intervals tailored to business needs. 
• Enables multi-format communication via WhatsApp, Email, SMS, and AI voice agent. 
• Uses API and reports to relay customer feedback as instructions. 
• Triggers automatic re‑delivery attempts when customers don’t respond, ensuring carriers meet SLA‑mandated retries.

4. AI-Voice Agent for Live Resolution

The first hour after an unsuccessful reattempt is the most crucial to connect with customers. The faster they respond, the faster you can reroute a same day delivery. As Mckinsey reports, AI agents have become the most promising solution to handle situations when rule-based tend to break down at untrained customer responses. 

Managing the NDR flow with an AI voice agent trained in natural language processing enables it to interact with customers more fluidly and provide better resolution. According to the report, a general customer service agent can increase issue resolution by 14% per hour. ClickPost’s agent Parth, purpose built to boost customer engagement and drive resolution under 2 minutes lowers manual support work by 75%. 

Here’s how ClickPost’s Parth helps reduce failed delivery instances:

• Offers instant customer resolution and reschedules deliveries in real-time. 
• Records call summaries and analyze every customer interaction for behavioral insights.
• Operates round the clock and easily configured into your NDR sequences. 
• Has multi-languages setting along with noise cancellation. 

5. Custom NDR Workflows Aligned with Business Rules

NDR management needs an approach tailored to your orders and customers. If COD volume is high, sending a payment link after the first failed attempt cuts cancellations and keeps buyers engaged. Likewise, if customers use WhatsApp to reschedule, keep the conversation on that channel. Finally, having the flexibility to route each exception to the right operations queue so specialists resolve issues before parcels head back.

ClickPost offers ways to align with your customer preferences and business set-up with:

• Pre-built templates and automated customer feedback collection on WhatsApp.
• Sub user management and multiple ways to allocate NDR cases based on AWBs, even distribution, carrier partners, and custom rules. 
• Personalized NDR rules based on carriers, customer types, and NDR buckets. 

6. Formatted NDR Escalation Pathway

The process of handling shipments at their intended destination is often not a simple task. Your team has to loop in carriers, forward customer feedback, provide default instructions, and make several calls just to catch up with the customer. Given the operational bandwidth needed, brands either have to establish an in-house team or hire agencies. However, with an automated NDR management system like ClickPost things become simpler. 

 How to use ClickPost’s lean framework and make RTOs manageable:

• Coordinate the entire chain of operations—trigger notifications via communication gateways, receive feedback, escalate it to carriers as instructions. 
• Check the adherence rate of the courier partner after it passes the instruction to ensure the committed number of reattempts have been made.
• Offer a default feedback instruction when no customer feedback is received. 
• Use the embedded click to call functionality in the dashboard for quick support.

7. Centralized Dashboard for NDR Case Management

Give yourself a centralized dashboard and the benefit is clear—fragmented carrier alerts merge into one real‑time control tower. ClickPost’s unified NDR management normalizes status codes, surfaces failures instantly, and routes each case to the right allocated carrier based on pre-configured business rules. Overall, it slashes reaction time, enforces accountability, and exposes systemic leaks. 

Here’s how you can handle every case on ClickPost’s unified platform:

• Establish a systematic task sequence: new cases, processed, mailed, and closed, for concerted actions at each stage of the NDR journey.
• Access multiple filters to track the status of shipments involving carrier partners, NDR buckets and dates, and enterprise-level customization. 
• Take quick actions, such as selecting multiple NDRs to provide specialized instructions to assigned carriers. 
• Auto-allocate carriers following business parameters and performance based analysis. 

8. AI-Powered Data Analytics and Insights 

Having the right data  converts RTO into a controllable equation. Unifying carrier performance, customer feedback, and order metadata, you pinpoint root causes of RTOs and gap areas. Moreover, AI-powered analytics can further predict at‑risk parcels in real time. It also gives you visibility of fraud‑prone COD zones, damage‑susceptible SKUs, under‑performing couriers. 

Below are a couple of ways you can tackle RTOs with ClickPost’s insights:

• Identify the exact points in your NDR management processes that need to be optimized. 
• Get intelligent recommendations and highlighted KPI metrics across 50+ data points. 
• Access comprehensive and granular reports covering everything from—first‑through‑fifth delivery attempts, lifecycle‑stuck flags, etc. 
• AI‑driven insights help fine‑tune communication flows, pre‑empting future NDRs.

9. Integration with Carriers and Communication Gateways

For enterprises tackling a constant in-flow of RTO cases, having a single API that integrates into every carrier collapses the gap between a “failed scan” and "successfully delivered”. Automated messages fire in the customer’s preferred channel and reattempts are scheduled in the carrier’s own system. The tighter the pipeline, the faster you rescue the parcel. 

Here’s how ClickPost helps:

• Pre-built integrations with 40+ communication gateways for every channel ( WhatsApp, SMS, IVR, email). 
• 500+ carrier integrations enabling shipping label generation, order creation, tracking, and more. 
• Pre-integrations with leading storefronts and WMS, OMS, ERPs to enable sync fulfillment actions and inventory management. 
• Enterprise graded NDR API to handle bulk updates and actions. 

10. Scalable RTO Prevention Across Industry 

A solution that scales—across volumes, geographies, and verticals—lets you keep RTO in control even during festive‑season spikes or rapid expansion into new regions. It successfully handles thousands of exceptions per minute, enables custom integrations for new couriers, and NDR management approach that flex for fashion, electronics, or beauty products. 

Below are a couple of ways you can scale your NDR management for RTO:

• Automate for high volume operations with AI agents and APIs. 
• Adaptive process flows that leap into action with every NDR case—detecting failures, notifying customers, scheduling retries, looping in customer support.
• Use machine‑learning models for actionable insights to reduce RTOs and flag suspicious activities. 
• A single API to connect with carriers, gateways, and plug into your existing system.

Power-up your RTO reduction plan with ClickPost’s intelligence and AI-enabled workflows. Book a demo with us to get first-hand experience.

Final Takeaways 

 RTOs don’t have to be a pressure point; with the right software they can be managed and steadily reduced. ClickPost’s AI‑driven, automated playbooks make that possible. This guide outlined ten proven strategies for building a resilient, high‑performing NDR management system. Put these ten tactics to work and track your metrics to watch the impact unfold.