Rakuten Offers Cash on Delivery (COD) Option

If you're hear "e-commerce website", the first thing that cross your mind will be everything electronic. Payment method is usually by credit card or debit card using Internet banking. Even so, most of Indonesian people by nature has less faith towards online shopping. Rakuten Belanja Online (RBO) offers other alternative, Cash On Delivery (COD) that enables customers to pay AFTER the goods is delivered, not before.

This method is at the moment available for Jakarta area and yet to be applied by all merchants, we haven't find out what mechanisme needed for merchant to use this method as well. Unlike regular transaction where delivery is done by each merchants, COD delivery will be done by Rakuten themselves. Rakuten will collect goods from merchant and deliver them to buyer.

For July 7 up to July 14, no delivery fee will be applied, and after the mentioned date delivery fee will be IDR 25.000 per delivery. It might sound expensive but for those who are more comfortable in this method, it surely is worth it. They'd rather pay more to ensure their goods are delivered than feeling "cheated".

A maximum value for this method is IDR 1 million. More than that customers are expected to use online payment method instead. Seeing at the amount of money involved, it will be a lot better to prevent unwanted things from happening if we give cash money to the delivery person.

Other than the option, RBO collaborates with several merchants in Jakarta to offer free delivery. With delivery fee less than IDR 10.000 if using courier services like TIKI or JNE, this fee can be taken from merchant's profit. This will increase user's appreciation.

The innovation will increase RBO's competition power more than other similar services. Although frankly for me this is quite a backward step into a more traditional way, but at least for users who are more familiar with COD will start to use ecommerce principles in their area. After they have more faith, it is expected that customers will use it for complete online shopping, especially when dealing with a larger amount of money. At least with online shopping you can do it anytime of the day (and night) and no need to bother yourself with the trip to the store - that means, less traffic hassle.