Data report
Prepaid vs COD on Meesho: fewer RTOs, more returns
Key findings
Prepaid Meesho orders came back as RTO 10.3% of the time against 23.5% for cash on delivery, across 4.8 million orders of sellers on OneClickOMS. But prepaid buyers returned more after delivery: 14.9% against 9.3%. Since RTO carries no Meesho charge and a customer return costs a reverse shipping charge from ₹157, the gap in cost between the two is smaller than the RTO numbers suggest.
Prepaid vs COD at a glance
| Cash on delivery | Prepaid | |
|---|---|---|
| Share of orders | 36% | 64% |
| RTO | 23.5% | 10.3% |
| Customer returns | 9.3% | 14.9% |
| Delivered and kept | 67.2% | 74.8% |
Forward Meesho orders placed 9 August to 7 October 2026 by sellers on OneClickOMS that had finished by 7 November, where the payment type was known: 4.8 million orders.
Why prepaid buyers refuse less but return more
A buyer who has already paid has little reason to refuse the parcel at the door, so RTO falls by more than half. But the same buyer gets a refund only by returning the product after delivery, so an unwanted product comes back as a customer return instead of an RTO.
By price, the pattern holds
| Sale amount | COD: RTO | COD: returns | Prepaid: RTO | Prepaid: returns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under ₹200 | 21.9% | 5.2% | 8.7% | 8.4% |
| ₹200 to ₹399 | 24.3% | 8.2% | 11.8% | 15.4% |
| ₹400 and above | 23.7% | 15.4% | 10.9% | 25.1% |
At ₹400 and above, one in four prepaid orders comes back after delivery.
What the difference costs, per 100 orders
Per 100 orders, prepaid gives 7.6 more orders that stay delivered, but 5.6 more customer returns. At the lowest reverse shipping charge on Meesho’s rate card, ₹157 with GST, those returns cost about ₹880 more in return charges. RTO adds no Meesho charge, only your packaging and time.
So prepaid comes out ahead when you make more than about ₹116 on an order that stays delivered, plus whatever a returned item loses in packaging or damage. For low-margin products, the extra returns can eat most of the gain.
COD share and RTO by state
| State | COD share | COD: RTO | Prepaid: RTO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assam | 43.3% | 28.5% | 16.0% |
| Bihar | 41.5% | 32.4% | 16.8% |
| Chhattisgarh | 41.1% | 19.6% | 9.8% |
| Andhra Pradesh | 41.0% | 22.9% | 10.6% |
| Jharkhand | 40.6% | 26.5% | 12.7% |
| Telangana | 39.7% | 24.2% | 9.3% |
| Odisha | 39.5% | 19.4% | 9.0% |
| Jammu & Kashmir | 37.4% | 34.4% | 15.8% |
| Tamil Nadu | 37.2% | 20.4% | 9.1% |
| Madhya Pradesh | 36.9% | 26.8% | 11.6% |
| Uttar Pradesh | 36.3% | 23.9% | 11.3% |
| West Bengal | 35.2% | 15.7% | 6.2% |
| Rajasthan | 35.0% | 27.3% | 11.4% |
| Karnataka | 34.8% | 22.3% | 9.1% |
| Uttarakhand | 34.4% | 22.3% | 8.1% |
| Gujarat | 33.3% | 21.5% | 8.6% |
| Punjab | 32.3% | 27.4% | 12.8% |
| Maharashtra | 32.0% | 22.9% | 9.1% |
| Kerala | 30.5% | 19.5% | 8.0% |
| Himachal Pradesh | 30.0% | 21.2% | 8.2% |
| Haryana | 27.3% | 26.5% | 11.3% |
| Delhi | 23.2% | 22.9% | 8.5% |
States with at least 30,000 orders of known payment type, highest COD share first. In every state, COD orders had roughly two to three times the RTO of prepaid orders.
What sellers can do
- Watch COD-heavy pincodes: COD orders to pincodes with high RTO are the ones most worth checking before shipping.
- Price higher-value products for returns: above ₹400, a quarter of prepaid orders come back, so count the return charge in your price.
- Make the listing match the product: prepaid buyers send back what disappoints them, so clear photos and size charts cut returns.
How we measured
- Source: the orders of sellers using OneClickOMS, read from their Meesho accounts. Totals and shares only; no seller or buyer is shown.
- Orders: forward Meesho orders placed 9 August to 7 October 2026 that ended delivered, RTO or returned by 7 November 2026. Payment type was known for 80% of them.
- Return charge: Meesho’s reverse shipping rate card in the supplier panel, November 2026.
- You may quote these figures with a link to this page.