Short answer: send every cash-on-delivery (COD) order a confirmation message within minutes of checkout, before you hand the parcel to a courier. Use a WhatsApp utility template with three buttons (Confirm, Change address, Cancel), and send an SMS with a short link to anyone the WhatsApp message does not reach. Dispatch only confirmed orders, and send a second message on the day of delivery. In Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, send under a registered sender ID, keep the message free of promotions, and measure the result as the share of all COD orders that end up delivered and paid.
Facts checked on 23 October 2026 at Meta's WhatsApp documentation, Saudi Arabia's E-Commerce Law, Saudi Post (SPL), Dubai Municipality's Makani service and Egypt's Consumer Protection Law. We found no reliable public statistics on COD refusal rates in these markets, so this guide quotes none. The worked example below is hypothetical.
Why do customers refuse cash-on-delivery orders?
Cash on delivery remains common in the region, although it is declining. Checkout.com's 2024 MENA consumer survey found that the preference for COD halved over four years, from 41% in 2020 to 20% in 2023 (Checkout.com). Even with a smaller share, every COD order the customer refuses at the door costs you the outbound delivery, the return trip and the stock that was unavailable while the parcel was travelling.
The causes are usually simple, and most of them can be found before dispatch:
- The customer did not really decide. An impulse order, a duplicate order, or someone who planned to compare prices and forgot.
- Fake or prank orders. A wrong phone number, someone else's name, or a test order that nobody meant to receive.
- Address problems. An incomplete or wrong address, so the courier has to call and the customer does not answer.
- Price surprise. The total, the COD fee or the delivery charge was not clear at checkout.
- Slow delivery. The customer bought the item elsewhere while waiting.
A confirmation message addresses each of these: the customer confirms the intent, sees the total, checks the address and gets a delivery date, before you spend money on shipping.
What does a good COD confirmation flow look like?
- Order placed. Within a few minutes, send a WhatsApp utility template with the order number, the items, the total to pay in cash including any fees, the delivery address and the expected delivery date.
- Three buttons. Add quick-reply buttons for Confirm, Change address and Cancel. One tap answers, and the tap opens a 24-hour customer service window in which you can reply in free text.
- Fallback to SMS. If WhatsApp has not reported the message as delivered within a short time, for example 15 minutes, send an SMS with the same details and a short link to a confirmation page.
- One reminder. If there is no answer after a few hours, send one reminder within your normal working hours. If there is still no answer, call the customer or decide by your own rule whether to dispatch.
- Dispatch confirmed orders. Orders cancelled in the message never reach the courier. Corrected addresses go to the courier before pickup.
- Delivery day. Send a message in the morning with the delivery window, the amount to pay and the courier's contact, so the customer is at home with cash ready.
- After delivery. Send a receipt. If you want to ask for a review or offer a discount, send it as a separate marketing message, only to customers who agreed to receive marketing.
Example WhatsApp template
Here is a utility template written the way Meta's own order-management examples are: specific to the order and with no promotional content. The numbers in double braces are variables your system fills in.
Hello {{1}}, thank you for your order {{2}}. Total to pay in cash on delivery: {{3}}. Delivery address: {{4}}. Expected delivery: {{5}}. Please confirm your order below. [Confirm order] [Change address] [Cancel order]
Each button label can have up to 25 characters. Keep the quick-reply buttons together; Meta notes that a template that mixes quick-reply buttons with other button types, or that has four or more buttons, does not display on WhatsApp desktop clients (Meta, template components). Write the template in Arabic for Arabic-speaking customers and test it with the WhatsApp template validator.
Example SMS fallback
An alphanumeric sender ID, such as your brand name, is one-way: customers cannot reply to it. So the SMS should carry a short link to a page with the same three choices, or a phone number the customer can reply to through two-way SMS. For example: "Order 48213: 249 SAR to pay on delivery, arriving Tue 3 Nov. Confirm or change: [your short link]". A branded short link from our link shortener also tells you who opened it. An Arabic SMS uses Unicode (UCS-2) encoding, which fits 70 characters in one message, so keep it short.
When should you send the confirmation?
- Within minutes of checkout. The customer still remembers the order and has the phone in hand. A message sent the next day competes with every other notification.
- In the customer's time zone. Saudi Arabia is UTC+3 and the UAE is UTC+4, with no daylight saving time. Egypt uses daylight saving time from the last Friday of April to the last Thursday of October, so it is UTC+3 until 29 October 2026 and UTC+2 from 30 October 2026. Store the time zone name (Africa/Cairo) rather than a fixed offset.
- Reminders in waking hours. Confirmations are transactional, so promotional quiet hours do not apply to them, but a reminder at midnight annoys people. Schedule reminders between morning and evening, and avoid Friday midday prayer time in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
- Before the courier cut-off. Plan the reminder so you have an answer before the daily pickup, or the unconfirmed order waits a day.
Is a COD confirmation a utility or a marketing message on WhatsApp?
It is a utility message, as long as it stays strictly about the order. Meta's rules say a utility template "must be non-promotional" and must be specific to or requested by the user, and order management means to "confirm, update, or cancel an order or transaction" with the order details in the message. A template with mixed content, such as an order update with a discount code, is treated as marketing. Since 9 April 2025, if you submit a template as utility and Meta decides it is marketing, it is approved as marketing (Meta, template categorization).
The category matters for cost and delivery. Meta charges per delivered message, and since 1 October 2026 utility templates are charged even inside an open customer service window; they had been free there since 1 July 2025. Free-form replies after the customer taps a button are service messages, and each business phone number gets 1,000 free service messages a month (Meta pricing). Marketing templates are also subject to per-user limits, which can stop delivery, while a correctly categorised utility template is not (Meta, per-user limits). Our guide to WhatsApp template economics explains the categories in more detail.
What are the rules in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt?
Saudi Arabia
- Sender name. SMS sender names must be registered with the operators under the rules of the Communications, Space and Technology Commission (CST). Advertising sender names carry an "-AD" tag, so send confirmations from your service sender name, not your advertising one. See our Saudi Arabia regulation page.
- Invoice and delivery details. The E-Commerce Law (Royal Decree M/126 of 2019) requires an itemised invoice with the total price, including fees and delivery charges, and the date and place of delivery (Article 8). It also requires the seller to tell the consumer about any expected delay in delivery (Article 14) (E-Commerce Law). A confirmation and a delivery-day message help you meet both.
- National address. Saudi Post's national address includes a short address of 4 letters and 4 numbers, which it says speeds up delivery "without the need of making further calls" (SPL). Ask for it in the Change address flow. Saudi newspaper Okaz reported that the Transport General Authority requires a national address on parcels from the start of January 2026 (Okaz).
United Arab Emirates
- Sender ID. SMS must come from a sender ID registered with the operators, e& and du, under the rules of the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA). Promotional sender IDs carry the AD prefix and are limited to set hours, while order confirmations are transactional. See our UAE regulation page.
- Precise locations. In Dubai, Makani is the official geo-addressing system run by Dubai Municipality: a 10-digit number that identifies each building entrance. Accept a Makani number or a map pin in the Change address flow.
Egypt
- Sender ID. Commercial SMS needs a sender ID registered on all four mobile networks under the National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA), with traffic sent over licensed local routes. See our Egypt regulation page.
- Confirmation is a legal duty. Under Consumer Protection Law No. 181 of 2018, when a consumer accepts a distance contract, "their consent must be confirmed", the supplier must send a written notice on concluding the contract, which may be sent by electronic means, and the consumer may correct or modify the order within seven working days (Article 38). The consumer may also withdraw within 14 days of receiving the product (Article 40). A WhatsApp or SMS confirmation that customers can save is a practical way to send that notice.
- Addresses. Ask for a nearby landmark in free text, which helps couriers find the address.
How do you measure the reduction in returns?
Return-to-origin (RTO) is the share of dispatched orders that come back undelivered. A confirmation flow lowers it in two ways: some orders are cancelled before dispatch, and the orders you do dispatch are more likely to be accepted. Because of the first effect, RTO alone can make the result look better than it is, so track these numbers together:
- Confirmation rate: orders confirmed by message, divided by COD orders placed.
- Cancelled before dispatch: orders cancelled in the message, divided by COD orders placed.
- RTO rate: COD orders returned undelivered, divided by COD orders dispatched.
- Delivered and paid rate: COD orders delivered and paid, divided by all COD orders placed. This is the number that matters most.
- Cost per delivered order: shipping, returns and messaging costs, divided by delivered and paid orders.
Run a fair test before you roll out. For four weeks, send the confirmation flow to most orders and keep a random control group, for example 10% of orders, that receives no confirmation. Compare the two groups on the numbers above. The example below is hypothetical: every figure in it is an assumption chosen to show the calculation, not a market statistic.
| Hypothetical example: 1,000 COD orders | Without confirmation | With confirmation |
|---|---|---|
| Orders cancelled before dispatch | 0 | 100 |
| Orders dispatched | 1,000 | 900 |
| Orders refused or not delivered (assumed) | 200 | 90 |
| Orders delivered and paid | 800 | 810 |
| Return cost at an assumed $5 per failed delivery | $1,000 | $450 |
| Messaging cost (assumed) | $0 | $20 |
| Return and messaging cost per delivered order | $1.25 | $0.58 |
In this example, the RTO rate falls from 20% to 10%, delivered orders rise slightly, and the cost of failed deliveries per delivered order more than halves. Your own numbers will differ, which is exactly why the control group matters. Compare channel costs per market with the channel cost comparison tool.
How BroadNet supports COD confirmation
BroadNet is an official Meta Business Solution Provider and a carrier-grade SMS provider with direct operator connections in the Gulf and Egypt. Through our WhatsApp Business API you send the utility template with buttons and receive each reply on a webhook, and the SMS API sends the fallback under your registered sender ID, with a delivery report for every message. We register sender IDs with the operators in each country, and our e-commerce and retail and logistics teams can help you design the flow, from checkout to delivery day.
Frequently asked questions
Should I confirm every cash-on-delivery order before dispatch?
Yes. A confirmation sent within minutes of checkout lets the customer confirm, correct the address or cancel before you pay for shipping. Dispatch confirmed orders first, and decide by your own rule what to do with orders that get no answer, for example a phone call before dispatch.
Is WhatsApp or SMS better for COD confirmation?
Use both. WhatsApp supports buttons, so customers can answer with one tap, and Meta charges only for delivered messages. SMS reaches every phone, including customers without WhatsApp. Send WhatsApp first and switch to SMS when WhatsApp does not report the message as delivered.
Is an order confirmation a utility or a marketing template?
A utility template, if it only confirms the order with its details. Meta treats a template that adds promotions, discount codes or product suggestions as marketing, which costs more and is subject to per-user marketing limits.
Can customers reply to an SMS from an alphanumeric sender ID?
No. An alphanumeric sender ID, such as your brand name, cannot receive replies. Put a short link to a confirmation page in the SMS, or send from a number that supports two-way SMS where the operator allows it.
Do SMS quiet hours apply to COD confirmations?
Promotional time windows apply to marketing, and an order confirmation is a transactional message. It still needs a registered sender ID, and it is good practice to send reminders only during waking hours in the customer's time zone.
Does Egyptian law require order confirmation?
Egypt's Consumer Protection Law No. 181 of 2018 requires the supplier to confirm a consumer's acceptance of a distance contract and to send a written notice, which may be electronic. The consumer can correct or modify the order within seven working days and withdraw within 14 days of receiving the product.
What is a typical COD refusal rate in Saudi Arabia, the UAE or Egypt?
We found no reliable public statistic. The figures that circulate online mostly come from companies selling confirmation tools and give no method. Measure your own refusal rate by courier and city, then test a confirmation flow against a control group.
How do I measure whether confirmation messages reduce returns?
Keep a random control group that receives no confirmation for a few weeks. Compare the share of all COD orders that end up delivered and paid, the return rate of dispatched orders and the total cost per delivered order. Counting only the return rate overstates the effect, because cancelled orders are never dispatched.
Sources
- Meta for Developers: Template categorization, Template components, Pricing and Per-user marketing limits, accessed 23 October 2026.
- Checkout.com, 4th annual MENA report: cash on delivery usage halved, 14 May 2024.
- Saudi Arabia: E-Commerce Law, Royal Decree M/126, official English translation; Saudi Post, National Address; Okaz, national address on parcels, 11 December 2025.
- Egypt: Consumer Protection Law No. 181 of 2018, Articles 37, 38 and 40, and its Executive Regulation, Article 25.
- Time zones: IANA time zone database (Asia/Riyadh, Asia/Dubai, Africa/Cairo); Egypt Independent, 23 April 2026.
Ready to stop paying for parcels that come back? Talk to BroadNet about a WhatsApp and SMS confirmation flow for your cash-on-delivery orders in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt.