Glossary

Speak D2C checkout.

RTO, NDR, partial COD, gclid — the vocabulary of Indian e-commerce checkout, explained without the jargon fog.

6 terms

Orders & delivery

COD (Cash on Delivery): The shopper pays in cash (or UPI) when the parcel arrives. Dominant in Indian e-commerce — and the source of most delivery risk, since nothing is committed until the door opens. → Smart COD
RTO (Return to Origin): A shipment that comes back undelivered — refused, unreachable, fake address. The merchant pays shipping both ways, blocks stock for weeks and often damages packaging. The single biggest hidden cost of COD. → RTO control
NDR (Non-Delivery Report): The courier's flag that a delivery attempt failed and why. The window between an NDR and an RTO is when an order can still be saved — call the buyer, fix the address, reattempt. → NDR queue
Partial COD: A hybrid: the shopper pays a small advance online and the rest on delivery. Keeps the comfort of COD while making the buyer committed enough to open the door. → Partial COD
COD confirmation: A WhatsApp/SMS/email sent after a COD order asking the buyer to confirm before dispatch. Cancellations at this stage cost nothing; cancellations at the door cost double shipping.
Pincode serviceability: Which of India's ~19,000 postal codes you actually ship to, and on which terms. Blocking or prepaid-gating high-RTO pincodes is one of the fastest RTO levers.

8 terms

Checkout conversion: Of shoppers who open checkout, the share that completes an order. Every extra form field, page load and doubt taxes it. → 1-click checkout
1-click checkout: A checkout where a returning, verified shopper needs no typing — identity, address and payment preferences are already known. Verified by OTP, not passwords. → How it works
OTP (One-Time Password): A short code sent by SMS or WhatsApp that verifies the shopper controls the phone number. In Indian D2C the phone number is the real identity key.
Cart abandonment: Shoppers who add to cart or start checkout but don't buy. Industry studies put Indian cart abandonment near 70% — most of it at the address form. → Cart recovery
Recovery journey: A timed sequence of messages (say WhatsApp after 30 minutes, SMS after 6 hours, email next day) that brings an identified shopper back to a prefilled cart — and stops the moment they return.
AOV (Average Order Value): Revenue divided by orders. Free-shipping thresholds, upsells and bundle offers are AOV levers that run inside checkout.
Free-above threshold: "Free shipping over ₹599." Paired with a live progress bar in the cart, it reliably stretches order values — the cheapest AOV lever there is. → Smart Shipping
BXGY (Buy X Get Y): An offer shape: buy two, get one free. Enforced at checkout, scoped to products or collections. → Offer engine

5 terms

Prepaid share: The percentage of orders paid online rather than COD. Higher prepaid share means less RTO risk, faster cash and cleaner ops — the metric most worth moving.
UPI intent: A payment link that opens the shopper's UPI app (GPay, PhonePe, Paytm) with amount and payee prefilled — one approval and done. India's fastest-growing payment path.
Prepaid discount: A small discount (flat or tiered) for paying online instead of COD. Costs a few rupees; saves an RTO.
Payment gateway: The licensed processor (Razorpay, PayU, Cashfree, PhonePe…) that actually moves money. IndiSell orchestrates your gateways; funds settle directly with you. → Payments & platform
COD fee: A surcharge on cash orders reflecting their real handling and risk cost — shown transparently next to the prepaid price it nudges shoppers toward.

6 terms

Server-side conversions: Purchase events sent to ad platforms from the server rather than the browser — immune to ad blockers, closed tabs and the fact that a COD order 'converts' at the doorstep days later. → Conversions & analytics
Enhanced conversions: Attaching hashed (irreversible) email/phone to conversion events so ad platforms can match them to signed-in users. Higher match rates than cookies alone.
CAPI (Conversions API): Meta's server-to-server event channel — the server-side twin of the Pixel, deduplicated against it by event id.
gclid: The Google click identifier appended to ad-click URLs. Captured at checkout, it lets a later (even offline) COD completion be credited to the exact ad click.
Attribution: Working out which channel earned an order. UTMs, click ids, landing page and referrer captured at checkout and written onto the Shopify order make it auditable.
Exit survey: A one-question prompt to shoppers leaving checkout — the cheapest source of truth about why people don't buy.

5 terms

Draft order: Shopify's server-side order-in-progress. Pricing from a draft order means the browser can't tamper with what gets charged — Shopify stays the source of truth. → Tamper-proof pricing
Risk score: A 0–100 number summarising how likely a COD attempt is to end in an RTO — built from network history, address quality, velocity and location signals. → Risk engine
Audit log: A record of every settings change — who, what, when. Turns "who changed the COD rules?" from an argument into a lookup. → Security
GST invoice: A tax invoice with GSTIN details that B2B buyers request. Generated per order for shoppers who ask.
White-label: Running the checkout under your own brand — relevant to agencies offering checkout as part of their stack. → Partnerships

See it live on your own store — a private preview link runs the real checkout for you before a single shopper sees it.