For international CPA businesses and ecommerce brands, generating an order is only the beginning. Revenue depends on what happens next: accurate fulfillment, reliable delivery, successful payment, and a product the customer decides to keep.
When that process breaks down, businesses can pay for acquisition, preparation, transportation, and return handling without retaining the sale.
Asendia’s cross-border research identifies inconsistent carrier performance, international delivery costs, and returns handling among retailers’ operational barriers. Solving these problems requires measuring where losses occur and assigning specific actions to each cause.
1. Separate Failed Deliveries From Customer Returns
An undelivered parcel returning to the warehouse is different from a delivered product that a customer sends back.
The first may involve an incorrect address, customer absence, payment refusal, or carrier failure. The second may reflect sizing problems, damage, inaccurate descriptions, or dissatisfaction.
Track them separately:
Return-to-origin rate = undelivered shipments returned to origin ÷ dispatched shipments × 100.
Post-delivery return rate = delivered orders subsequently returned ÷ delivered orders × 100.
Use consistent order cohorts and allow time for delivery attempts and return windows to close. Otherwise, recent shipments can make performance appear better than it is.
Assign standardized reason codes. “Customer issue” is too vague to guide improvements; “incorrect apartment number” or “product differs from advertised size” supports a specific intervention.
2. Measure the Cost of a Sale the Customer Keeps
A low shipping rate does not necessarily produce a low operating cost.
Calculate:
Logistics cost per retained sale = total logistics costs for an order cohort ÷ delivered, paid orders retained after returns.
Include fulfillment, packaging, outbound transportation, additional attempt charges, reverse transportation, inspection, and handling. Count only costs actually incurred, avoiding duplicate charges already included in bundled rates.
Consider this hypothetical cohort:
Metric | Result |
Dispatched orders | 1,000 |
Delivered and paid orders | 800 |
Fully returned and refunded orders | 80 |
Retained sales | 720 |
Total logistics costs | USD 7,200 |
Logistics cost per retained sale | USD 10 |
This USD 10 figure excludes acquisition, merchandise, and other expenses. It shows how operational costs are distributed across sales that remain.
For partial returns, supplement this order-based metric with retained revenue and contribution margin.
3. Prevent Avoidable Failures Before Dispatch
Improve order quality before paying to move the parcel.
Validate addresses against serviceable areas, request missing details, and check stock availability before promising delivery. Verify product, variant, quantity, and packaging during fulfillment.
For cash-on-delivery orders, communicate the payable amount and available payment method clearly. Confirm customer availability when appropriate, especially for incomplete or uncertain orders.
Set delivery promises using actual performance by destination and service. A national average can hide slower routes and create expectations the operation cannot consistently meet.
DHL’s ecommerce research highlights delivery-related checkout abandonment, reinforcing that the delivery offer affects conversion before shipment begins.
4. Manage Delivery Exceptions While Recovery Is Possible
Tracking creates value when it triggers action.
Define a response for incomplete addresses, missed attempts, stalled shipments, and customer rescheduling requests. Assign an owner and a response deadline to each exception.
Measure:
First-attempt delivery success = shipments delivered on their first attempt ÷ shipments receiving a first attempt × 100.
Also track promised-date performance:
On-time delivery rate = orders delivered by their promised date ÷ orders whose promised date has passed × 100.
Keep overdue, undelivered orders in the denominator.
Review carrier performance by comparable destinations, parcel types, and payment models. A carrier serving difficult routes should not be judged against another serving only dense urban areas without adjusting the comparison.
5. Recover Product Value Through Structured Returns
Create clear return instructions and an inspection process that separates restockable, repairable, damaged, and unsuitable inventory.
Measure the financial impact:
Net return-related cost = reverse transport + inspection and handling + nonrecoverable fees + inventory write-downs − reimbursements.
Account for refunds as reductions in revenue, separately from this cost formula. Do not write off the full product cost when returned stock remains saleable.
Track how long eligible stock takes to become available again. Delayed inspection ties up inventory and can force unnecessary replenishment.
Use return reasons to improve product pages, packaging, supplier quality, and campaign claims. Reducing misleading expectations upstream can prevent repeated losses downstream.
6. Connect Delivery Performance With Growth Decisions
Kiki LATAM’s services include warehousing, fulfillment, last-mile delivery, and COD for businesses expanding into Mexico, Colombia, and Peru. Its platform supports shipment visibility and inventory management.
Kiki LATAM also offers address verification, delivery rescheduling, and contact center support for delivery issues. Evaluate these capabilities through completed sales, recovery rates, and operating costs, with coverage and service conditions agreed for your operation.
Feed those outcomes back into acquisition decisions. Campaigns should scale where demand translates into retained, profitable sales.
To assess your delivery performance and identify opportunities to reduce return-related losses, speak with a Kiki LATAM expert and request a free consultation.
