Cash on delivery in Nepal, and why we keep it

A large share of our orders are paid on delivery. Not because online payment is unavailable, but because a buyer in Nepalgunj has a fair question: how do I know the parcel is what I ordered.

Cash on delivery is the honest answer to that question. You open the parcel, you check the colour and the size, and you pay the courier.

It costs us something. The courier collects on our behalf and takes a fee, and a refused parcel costs the full two way freight. We absorb that because the alternative is asking people to trust a shop they have never used with money they cannot easily get back.

There are limits worth knowing.

COD is not available at every address. Remote districts sometimes have no collection service, and in those cases we will tell you before dispatch and offer a bank transfer instead. Our bank details are on the site and the account is a real one in the business name, so a transfer is not a leap of faith either.

COD also slows things slightly, because the courier reconciles collections in batches.

For larger institutional orders, COD is usually not the right instrument anyway. A hospital pays against an invoice, through its own accounts process, and we would rather support that than force a cash transaction.

If you are a first time buyer and you are unsure, COD is the safer choice. If you are a repeat buyer, a transfer is faster and we can dispatch sooner.