A Practical Guide to Courier, Delivery Charges, and Returns

A lot of the profit in F-commerce quietly leaks out at the delivery stage — not from bad products or weak ads, but from unclear charges, damaged packages, and failed deliveries that weren't handled with a system. None of what follows is complicated; it's mostly about deciding things once instead of re-deciding them, stressed, for every single order.

What actually matters when choosing a courier

Price per parcel is the easiest number to compare and often the least useful one on its own. What affects your business more day to day: how fast COD cash actually reaches you after delivery, how well the courier covers the specific upazilas your customers order from, and how carefully they handle anything fragile. Most sellers end up using two couriers — one for strong Dhaka/Chattogram coverage, one that reaches remote districts better — rather than forcing everything through a single provider.

State the delivery charge before the doorstep does

A huge share of doorstep refusals trace back to one thing: the customer didn't clearly know the delivery charge until the rider told them. Show delivery cost by zone — inside Dhaka, outside Dhaka, and any weight-based surcharge — at checkout, not as a surprise. A customer who agreed to the exact number in advance rarely disputes it in person.

Packaging is cheaper than a damaged-item return

A few extra taka on bubble wrap, a snug-fitting box instead of a loose one, and tape reinforcement on corners costs far less than the courier fee, replacement item, and lost customer trust from a damaged delivery — especially for anything with glass, liquid, or a screen. Photograph the packed parcel before handover; it settles most damage disputes in your favor within a message.

Give failed deliveries their own list, not a scattered mess

A parcel that comes back unreceived needs a decision — redeliver, refund, or write off — and it needs it fast, not weeks later buried in old chat threads. Keep failed deliveries in one dedicated list separate from active orders, and work through it on a fixed schedule (we'd suggest daily) so returned stock gets back into inventory and back on sale instead of sitting untracked in a corner.

Book straight from the order — don't retype anything

Copying a customer's name, phone number, and address from your order list into a separate courier app is where most address typos happen — and a wrong digit in a phone number or a missight in an address is exactly what turns into a failed delivery later. Booking the consignment directly from the order screen, with the same data that's already on file, removes that entire category of mistake.

Reconcile the settlement report — don't just trust the total

Couriers remit collected COD cash in batches, and the batch total should match your own delivered-orders total for that period — but it's worth actually checking, not assuming. A downloadable settlement report you can line up against your own order records catches missed remittances and mismatched amounts while they're still recent enough to raise with the courier.

Delivery will never be perfect — some parcels will always fail, some packages will always arrive dented. The businesses that keep their margin intact are the ones that treat every one of the steps above as a fixed system, not a judgment call made fresh under pressure each time.