Confirming orders to cut refusals

The hidden cost of a refusal

In Algeria, most online purchases are paid for on delivery. Customers pay only when they receive the parcel, and they can refuse it. A refusal is not just a lost sale: you pay for the outbound delivery, then the return, at 50% of the outbound price with a minimum of 200 DZD, and your product is tied up for days.

Refusal rates vary a great deal between wilayas, product categories and amounts. On a thin margin, a few refusals a day are enough to wipe out the profit. The good news is that many of them can be seen coming.

Why customers refuse

The reasons keep coming back: an impulse order forgotten, a product found cheaper elsewhere in the meantime, a size or colour that does not match, a longer wait than expected, a customer who cannot be reached or a vague address. Less often, there are fake orders.

Almost all of these have one thing in common: they are settled before dispatch, with a simple exchange with the customer. Once the parcel has left, it is too late.

• An impulse buy, forgotten.
• A product found elsewhere.
• Size, colour or model misunderstood.
• A longer wait than announced.
• An unreachable customer or a vague address.

Confirming before you ship

Confirming means reaching the customer within hours of the order to check they still want it, that they understood the product and the price, and that the address and landmark are right. A confirmed order ships; an unconfirmed one waits or is cancelled, at no cost to you.

You can do it yourself or hand confirmation to our call centre, at 70 DZD per order. Our agents call in the customer’s language, Arabic, Darja or French, note the answer and update the order in your space.

What to check on the phone

A confirmation call takes under a minute if it always follows the same order. The point is not to sell a second time but to clear the doubts that lead to refusal.

• The product, size, colour and quantity.
• The total to pay on delivery, charges included.
• The commune and a precise landmark.
• The expected lead time for their wilaya.
• Home or stop-desk.
• A number that answers during the day.

The risk score: a signal, not a sanction

In your seller space, every new order gets a refusal-risk score with its reasons: the product category, the wilaya, the amount to collect, the confirmation result and the recipient’s history on the network. That history is kept against a hash of the number, never the number itself.

The score is not a blacklist and blocks nobody. It simply tells you which orders deserve a call first, or an option that reassures: open before paying, the stop-desk or an exchange.

Other levers

Accurate photos and a size guide cut disappointment at the door. An honest lead time, by zone, avoids the customer who refuses after waiting too long. Fast dispatch, the day of confirmation or the next, leaves no time for second thoughts.

Open before paying often lowers refusals rather than raising them: a customer who can check the product accepts it more readily. For clothes, an exchange keeps the sale even when the size is wrong.

When the customer does not answer

An unreachable customer is the first sign of a likely refusal. Call twice, at different times, then send a short message recalling the order and its amount. With no answer after a day or two, put the order on hold rather than shipping it.

That is not losing a sale: many customers call back when they see the message, and the order then ships confirmed. Those who never call back would, in most cases, have refused the parcel at the door.

Fake orders

They are rare but expensive: an invented number, a made-up name, a commune that does not belong to the wilaya. The confirmation call almost always exposes them, because nobody picks up or the person who answers ordered nothing.

Never ship without confirmation an order whose number does not answer, especially if the amount is high or it is going far. Note these cases: if they keep coming from the same place, your seller space helps you spot them.

Measure to improve

Your seller space shows refusals by wilaya, product and reason. Look at them every week: a wilaya that refuses more than others may call for a better-stated lead time or the stop-desk by default; a product often refused calls for better photos or a clearer description.

Confirmation is not an extra cost: it is the cheapest way to stop paying for round trips that lead nowhere. Sellers who confirm every order know it: they ship slightly fewer parcels, and deliver far more of them.