Cash on delivery in Morocco: what a refused order really costs

You have just paid for transport twice, tied up a product for six days, and lost the advertising budget that brought in that order. The product returns to stock, slightly damaged. On your dashboard, that order simply shows as “cancelled”.

This is the daily reality of cash on delivery, the dominant payment method in Moroccan online retail. This article gathers what we know, what we do not, and what can be done.

What we know, and what we think we know

Let us start with a clarification, because most of the figures circulating on this subject cannot be verified.

What is established. The survey by the National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency on the use of information technology, conducted with a sample of 5,760 units in early 2025, indicates that 83.8% of Moroccan online shoppers say they use cash on delivery. That is a solid figure, but read carefully what it measures: a statement by buyers, not a share of revenue.

What is measured elsewhere. According to Bank Al-Maghrib's report on payment methods, online retail settled by bank card accounted for around 38.5 million transactions worth close to 11 billion dirhams in 2024. It is the only part of Moroccan online retail that is officially measured, precisely because it goes through the banking system.

What does not exist. There is no public statistic for the real share of cash on delivery in transaction value. The figures you read here and there — “60%”, “80%”, “54% depending on category” — come from professional estimates and vendor blogs copying one another. They may be right, but nobody can prove it.

The same goes for the refusal rate. Moroccan estimates circulate between 20 and 40%, with no verifiable source. We will not repeat them as facts.

Published data does exist, however, on comparable markets where cash on delivery also dominates. In India, several e-commerce logistics players publish pre-delivery return rates of around 20 to 26% on cash-on-delivery orders, against less than 2 to 6% on prepaid orders. Those figures are Indian, not Moroccan, and it would be dishonest to present them otherwise. What they establish is the mechanism: cash on delivery multiplies refusals by a significant factor, everywhere it is measured.

Working out the cost of a refused order

Here is the method for finding your own figure, which is worth more than any imported statistic.

For one refused order, add up:

The outbound transport. What your carrier charges you for the delivery.

The return transport. Depending on the contract, it is charged in full, in part, or included in a package. Check your rate card: it is often the least-read and most expensive line.

The lost acquisition cost. If you spend on advertising, divide your monthly budget by the number of orders obtained. That amount is lost entirely on a refused order.

The tied-up stock. The product left your stock for several days. It was not sellable. On a seasonal or fast-moving item, that counts.

The time. Picking, packing, the courier's calls, the return to stock, the check. Count it in minutes and value it at your hourly cost.

Add it up, multiply by your monthly number of refusals. You get what cash on delivery really costs you each month. Almost every merchant who does this calculation for the first time is surprised by the result.

Why customers refuse

The causes always come back in the same order, and they are not mysterious.

The impulse purchase. The order was placed in the evening, on a whim. Three days later, the urge has passed.

No cash on the day of delivery. This cause is underestimated. A 300-dirham order placed on the 5th of the month is not the same thing as the same order delivered on the 28th.

The delay. The longer the parcel takes to arrive, the likelier the refusal. The Indian data cited above shows a clear gap between delivery in one or two days and delivery beyond five.

The gap between expectation and product. The colour, the size, the material do not match what the product page suggested. The customer finds out at the door, and refuses at the door.

The customer is not there. Wrong number, imprecise address, nobody home during the courier's hours.

The duplicate order, or the fake order. They exist, they are a minority, and they cost dearly.

The six levers, from the simplest to the heaviest

1. 1Confirm before shipping. This is the most effective and most used lever. A call, a message, a confirmation requested from the customer. It turns an impulse purchase into a conscious commitment, and it eliminates wrong numbers and addresses. Its cost: time, and a great deal of it if you do it by hand.
2. 2Check the phone number at checkout. An invalid number is an order lost in advance. Some platforms check it as the order is placed.
3. 3Shorten the delivery time. Every day gained lowers the probability of refusal. It is often a question of picking rather than of carrier.
4. 4Complete your product pages. Material, exact dimensions, photos from several angles, a photo to scale. Half the “it is not what I thought” refusals are settled there, upstream, for free.
5. 5Offer a delivery slot. The more the customer chooses, the less often they are out.
6. 6Encourage prepayment. A small advantage on online payment, a discount, free delivery. Everywhere it is measured, prepaid orders are refused at rates nowhere near those of cash on delivery. But be careful: in Morocco, cash on delivery is also what reassures a buyer who does not know you. Removing it would cut your refusals and your sales at the same time.

That last point deserves saying plainly, because it is often forgotten: cash on delivery is not a handicap, it is a trust device. It lets you sell to people who would never have given their card to an unknown shop. The problem is not that it exists, it is that it is poorly framed.

What to track, every month

Four indicators are enough:

• The refusal rate, as a percentage of orders shipped.
• The full cost of a refusal, calculated once then updated every six months.
• The average time between order and delivery.
• The confirmation rate, meaning the share of orders you managed to confirm before shipping.

If you track none of these four figures today, start with the first. It is the one that will tell you whether the other five deserve your attention.