Cracking Last-Mile Across Vietnam's 63 Provinces with COD
Vietnam is one of the most dynamic e-commerce markets in Southeast Asia, and two features define delivery here: customers expect coverage everywhere, and a large share still pay cash on delivery. Getting both right, across all 63 provinces, is where last-mile operations are made or broken.
Coverage is more than a map
Reaching every province sounds like a network question, but it is really an execution question. The difference between a parcel that arrives on the first attempt and one that bounces twice is in address quality, delivery-window coordination, and a courier network that actually knows the local geography — not just a line on a coverage map.
COD changes the economics
Cash on delivery shifts risk onto the logistics provider. Money must be collected at the door, reconciled, and remitted to the merchant promptly and accurately. Done well, remittance lands in a few business days with a clean audit trail. Done badly, it becomes a reconciliation nightmare that erodes merchant trust faster than any late delivery.
In a COD market, the courier is not just delivering the parcel — they are handling the merchant's revenue. That raises the bar on everything.
Returns are part of the product
Refused and returned deliveries are not edge cases in B2C — they are a routine flow that has to be designed for. Capturing photo evidence of a refusal reason, moving the unit back into stock or disposition quickly, and keeping the merchant informed turns reverse logistics from a black hole into a managed process. The merchants who scale are the ones whose logistics partner treats returns as seriously as deliveries.