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Bank Indonesia (BI) has launched the National Non-Cash Movement on August 14, 2014. This movement aims to create a safe, efficient and smooth payment system, which in turn will be able to encourage the national financial system to work effectively and efficiently (bi.go.id). Even so in fact there are still many people who choose cash payments as their payment method, including transactions on e-commerce. In December 2020, Central Statistics Agency released a report stating that the cash on-site payment method or known as cash on delivery (COD) was chosen by 73,04% of online shoppers in Indonesia (bps.go.id).
One of the factors that triggers the popularity of COD payment methods in Indonesia is the low penetration of financial services. When referring to research released by Google and Temasek in 2019, 92 million Indonesians have not been touched by financial services at all (unbanked), while another 47 million have been underbanked. This means that there are only 42 million people who already use financial services (banked), or about 23,2% of the total population (thinkwithgoogle.com).
In this way, COD becomes an e-commerce weapon for market penetration outside big cities. This is because penetrating the market in tier two and tier three cities is still a challenge for e-commerce. Many MSME actors outside big cities need the presence of e-commerce so that they can reach a wider market share.
Not only presenting potential, the COD payment method also brings new risks. One thing that is widely heard is the dispute between the sending courier and the customer who places the order. The cases also vary, ranging from customers refusing to pay to the courier because they are disappointed with the products purchased to consumers refusing to accept because they feel they did not place an order. Not infrequently, disputes involve violence to the courier, both hysically and verbally.
The essence of the emergence of conflicts between couriers and consumers of COD is due to low digital literacy in society. Writing out the COD rules at length in applications and websites, is a step that is too normative, and not a solution, because it will be easily ignored by consumers. Hence, there are many things that need to be tried to improve people's literacy in online shopping.
Moreover, e-commerce as well as logistics players should immediately took serious steps to protect the fate of couriers. Do not let couriers, who are still fighting for a decent income, figure to be the most vulnerable parties to be affected by the presence of the COD method in the community (id.techinaisa.com). (Ruhmaya Nida Wathoni. Illustration: pngtree.com)
